Hey, pass me that damned cable

OK, here, take it

No, not that one.

This one?

No, that one’s for the mobile.

Hey man, don’t pull on this tangle of cables like that, you’ll go and knock my playstation out of my hand.

Here, I’ve got it now.

No, that one’s for the laptop.

Yes, but where’s…

No, that one’s for…

Hmm, we should have sorted out these cables better and gathered them up tightly, before they all got tangled up.

This is just how it can look in our head, if we go hunting for vocabulary: on the back of maps, in the dictionary, on the notepad, somewhere towards the end of the book appendix, etc. – not exactly a game of hide-the-thimble.

Learning vocabulary means installing a cable in the head between the word and its meaning. The further apart I place a word and its translation, the less I can hold it in view, the worse the tangle of cables gets in the head, which should be holding everything together.

The practical method is not to write them next to each other, as in the dictionary, but one immediately below the other. In this way, no cables are required any more, this is the cleaner “USB stick” variant, where the word and its translation are placed directly together in the head.

Downloads here: