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Sat 21 May, 2011 09:10 pm
how to make connections as we are reading notes? When I read material, I might understand, but I'm not able to make connections. I have been told by multiple people about this. For example, if I read something about microbiology such as Actinomyces, bugs in mouth, and it causes problem in thorax or abdomen. I can't connect idea that bugs in mouth can end up in lungs from cervical lymphs. In the book, it only tells me lumpy jaw and thoracic actinomycosis are the clinical presentation. It is not only with one subject, but I have issues making such connections with majority of things. Is there a way to learn and make connection when reading words or sentences. Are there any books to learn such thing? Should I break sentences to make sentences into pieces? Thanks in advance.
@jay24444,
"Connections" can only be made by "snowballing", i.e. connecting to what you already know. Much understanding comes from selective analogy between the "known" and the "unknown"(e.g elementary pictures of atomic structure are "like" the solar system). Difficulties need to be resolved by retreating the a more basic level and re-building from there. If the basic level is absent, or you have a retention problem, there is no solution.
@fresco,
fresco wrote:... If the basic level is absent, or you have a retention problem, there is no solution.
True - but in the specific poster's case (a native Bhutani speaker from Bangladesh) possibly too pessimistic. Maybe he could start by translating his medical texts into Bhutani, then checking whether he can make connections in that language. If and only if he can't do that he has a connection problem.
@High Seas,
Non-native speakers have the additional problem of lacking the covert contexts in which many analogies are transmitted. To take an extreme example, if say that attempts to separate "subject" from "object" in physics are like obtaining "Portia's pound of flesh", I am making the assumption that the listener is familiar with a specific work of Shakespeare. But all analogies are predicated on
some "shared semantic context" which may be absent for a non-native speaker.
@fresco,
Eastern languages work on principles unknown to the West - noticed that while learning Japanese, where the same verb varies according to the person executing the action indicated by the verb. As I couldn't come up with a word in Bhutani to save my life I don't know if that applies to them, but at least in all indo-european languages the "shared semantic context" is a structure deeper and more pervasive than any specific literary or historical references. Things work in a certain way in all Western languages (including, oddly, the Ungro-Finnish group, not indo-european at all) but work differently in the East.
@High Seas,
Good point...and even in European languages we have defferent ontological distinctions operating like
ser and
estar in Spansh mapping to the single English verb
to be. It has been argued by some linguists that circumlocutions can always be evoked in translation, but the mental effort expended in following such circumlocutions detracts from the
dynamics of understanding of the central issue.
@jay24444,
I studied in English school back in India; however, I never understood meaning of words and how sentences were structured. I recently started writing little sentences, but when I read I am not able to make connections. However, if somebody makes connection for me in the native language I am able to retain for longer period. I tried to use my native language to make connection and that did not work out. Thanks to both of you for the earlier response.
@High Seas,
Quote:Eastern languages work on principles unknown to the West - noticed that while learning Japanese,
If these principles are unknown, how did you "learn" Japanese?
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