I.I.T. Pass out launches the first ever Mnemonics Dictionary
In order to help those poor students who scratch their brains about the new words to be learnt, the GRE aspirants who find all the words in the wordlist Greek and Latin, or even the language enthusiasts who are fond of picking up newer words every day, a mind map bank is now available online which gets them move on from the known to the unknown: a dictionary devoted for the mnemonics. Mnemonics, a memory tool that helps people by giving associations of words (A mnemonic can be a visual, a key word, acronyms or anything that can relate new information to something that is previously known), has been there from the ancient Greece but the idea of a dictionary only for mnemonics is broached for the first time by a person who is an out and out techie from India: Amit Aggarwal, an I.I.T. Mumbai pass out.
Mnemonic Dictionary uses mnemonics to revolutionise the way we learn and remember new words wherein the content is contributed by users. “The idea for a mnemonic dictionary came when I was back in college, when I was preparing for my GRE. This technique works wonders to improve my vocabulary, so I figured others could benefit from this too,” says Amit. He was later joined by Preeti, a management student and by Prameela Jeppu a designer in actualizing his mission. The website also has the language consultancy set up by the alumni of the premier language centres of English and Foreign Languages University and the University of Hyderbad, Increment Language Solutions (INLAS) as its language partners with them providing the necessary linguistic expertise for semantic related issues. Now customized for targeted audience such as GRE takers and students, Mnemonic Dictionary aims to build up a system that would supplement the Princeton University data bank, Wordnet which consists of not less than 150,000 words.
Proper to the training of Amit, the website makes use of the technological modes in its attempt to be extremely handy to users: its key features are :
• Word List Feature that lets you create your own word list and add words to it
• Chat and discussion forums for mnemonics
• A word test zone where you can generate dynamic vocabulary test based on word lists
• FREE SMS word of the day
• Free email word of the day.
• Word games
Thus a new word order is in place!
Contact person: Amit Aggarwal (+91-9703425155)
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However I can’t resist the (cheeky or duh!!!) question, just for the sheer fun of it!!;
Whatever happened to dictionaries and theosauruses (ok, theosarai) and synonyms and, even more importantly, quite simply reading texts/books/publications/the press etc in order to learn from context?
It all seems a little cold and detached to me. Words have more meanings than just a ’definition’ They’re not just ’words’.
(Moreover, 150,000 words isn’t much for a language which contains over a million.....)
Excellent evening to you and thanks again,
Michael C