学词汇有奇招(2)

(6) “--How are trees and dogs alike?
-- They both have a bark.” [18]
Here, without getting any idea of the pun “bark”, we will feel puzzled. As we all know, dogs always bark, but can trees bark? Of course, trees can’t bark. Here, “bark” is used as a noun. It has two Chinese meanings—“嗥叫” and “树皮”. If students have seen his humorous dialogue, it will not be easy for them to forget the word “bark”.
3.1.3Jokes
Joke is also another fun approach to learn vocabulary.
If students would like to distinguish and memorize firmly the three words—“class”, “lass”, and “ass”, they might as well have a try by the following joke.
(7)“Class, Lass and Ass
Professor Tom was going to meet his students on the next day, so he wrote some words on the blackboard which read as follows: ‘Professor Tom will meet the class tomorrow.’
A student, seeing his chance to display his sense of humor after reading the notice, walked up and erased the ‘c’ in the word ‘class’. The professor noticed the laughter, wheeled around, walked back, and looked at the student then at the notice with the ‘c’ erased. He calmly walked up and erased the ‘l’ in ‘lass’, looked at the flabbergasted student and proceeded on his way. ” [19]
Here, maybe junior students have learned the word “class” which means “班级”. But the other two words “lass” and “ass” may be easily forgotten. From this joke, students will know “lass” means “情人”, and “ass” means “蠢驴”. So isn’t it a good way to learn English vocabulary?
Let’s see another example. If students would like to learn and master the two words “share” and “polite”, which way is the best choice?
(8) Sharing the Apple
Tom was given two apples, a small one and a large one, by his mum.
“Share them with your sister,” she said.
But Tom gave the small one to his little sister and started sucking into the large one. Seeing that, his mother asked, “Why, Tom, you should be polite and take the smallest one.”
“Well, Mamma, should I lie just to be polite?” Tom answered. [20]
What a lovely boy! Through this joke, students will not only memorize “share” and “polite”, but also get some moral education.

From all the above-mentioned examples, we know that the conversation belongs to verbal humor, which, to a great extent, amuses us with the help of language ambiguity that is common in people’s daily life. Not until students find ambiguity and know its background, verbal humor does work. Skillfully making good use of the verbal humor will help students enlarge their vocabulary without difficulty, and finally improve their English knowledge.
3.2Learning vocabulary by the way of riddles
There are various riddles in China, so are there in foreign countries. Just as the Chinese riddles, English riddles play the word games, according to the word form, pronunciation and meaning. Whether you could work it out depends on a sudden inspiration.
Riddle – a kind of material that applies knowledge into games, is also an assistant to help students learn English. Especially in vocabulary study, if students do riddles alternatively with each other, surely they will benefit from this kind of game.
Such game for brains will stimulate students’ interest in English study and improve their listening and understanding. What’s more, riddles will help students to bear the vocabulary in mind more firmly while taking part in such games.
Below are several riddle games students may adopt to study vocabulary.
3.2.1Riddles of words
This kind of puzzle almost makes use of the word’s spelling. Some of them superficially seem very “strange”, but as soon as the key to the puzzle is revealed, it turns out to be reasonable.
For example, Students will learn the two words “united” and “untied” effectively and efficiently in such riddle of words.
(9) “--What word, if we change the position of one of its letters, becomes its opposite?
--United or untied. (联合的—松散的)”[21]
In “united” or “untied”, by changing the position of the letter “i”, we’ll get the answer.
(10) “Which is one of the longest words in the English language?”[22]
The answer is “smiles” which is formed by only six letters. Because there is one mile from the first letter “s” to the last letter “s”. Is there any other word longer than it? Of course not, it is the longest.

(11) “Which letter is the most useful to a deaf girl?”
The answer is the letter “A”, because only “A” could make her “hear”. From the spelling, we know adding “A” to “HER” becomes “HEAR”. It is so fun, isn’t it?
3.2.2 Rebus
Rebus is representation of a word or words by pictures etc. suggesting its part. It is a kind of more interesting riddle.
(12)
“ STAND
I ” [23]
What can be seen from the rebus is that the letter “I” is under the word “STAND”. Obviously, the answer is “I understand”.
(13)
“ KNEE
LIGHTS ” [24]
Similarly, the answer shares the same rule as the last example. We can see “KNEE” (is) on “LIGHTS”. “Knee” “on” sounds like “neon”. So, that is “neon lights”. What a neat trick to learn the vocabulary!
In a word, from the above-mentioned various riddles, we may know that they not only benefits students’ intelligence, but also promote their interest and confidence in English study. It is such trick full of wit that it is believed that riddle is worth a try, so that the enlarging quantity of vocabulary can be expected soon.
3.3 Learning vocabulary by the way of palindrome
There is something peculiar to English. There are many words or phrases in English that read the same backwards as forwards, called palindrome. Because English words or phrases are made of letters, some words’ spelling backwards is completely the same as that forwards. Such is another different approach of helping junior students to learn some special words easily, such as pop(砰的一声), “dad(爹), deed(行为), did(做), eve(前夕), level(水准), noon(中午), peep(偷看), sees(看), redder(较红的), civic(城市的) ”[25]
In addition to the words mentioned, there are also some sentences of great fun, reading and meaning the same backwards as forwards.
Let’s read some examples:
(14) Madam, I’m Adam.
(15) Sit on a potato pan, Otis.
(16) Step on no pets. [26]
Palindrome means the same no matter backwards or forwards. By the way, there exist some strange words completely different from it. Such kind of word becomes two different words of sense when it reads forwards and backwards, such as “are (是)—era(时代), deer(鹿)—reed(芦苇), door(门)—rood(十字架), evil(邪恶的)—live(生活), meet(遇见)—teem(充满), not(不)—ton(吨), on(在……上)—no(不), pan(平锅)—nap(打盹), part(部分)--trap(陷阱), step(步)—pets(宠物), ten(十)—net(网), tops(顶)--spot(地点)”[27]

3.4 Learning vocabulary by the way of tongue twisters
What is a tongue twister? It’s defined as “word or phrase that is difficult to pronounce correctly or quickly, e.g. She sells sea shells on the sea-shore.”[28] “Tongue twisters are often used in pronunciation practice because they are fun and motivating. Also the relaxing atmosphere helps students to overcome inhibition. Students should be given time to practice on their own for a few minutes before they are asked to perform.” [29] Because a tongue twister often contains many words of the same or similar pronunciation that students always feel puzzled at. Using tongue twisters makes contribution to vocabulary learning. It will help students to learn and memorize a lot of words of similar pronunciation. Below are some examples.
(17) “Good, better, best,
Never let it rest;
Till good is better,
And better best.”[30]
This tongue twister not only helps students to learn the two words of similar sound—“best” and “rest”, but also helps them to distinguish the three words of different degrees—“good”, “better” and “best”.
(18) “A flea and a fly were in a flue.
The flea said to the fly, ‘Let’s flee,’
but the fly said to the flea, ‘Let’s fly.’
So the flea fled and the fly flew.” [31]
After reading the tongue twister, students will have a clearer idea of a pair of
homophones—“flea” and “flee”, a homograph—“fly” and another pair of homophones—“flue” and “flew”. Besides, it also can help students to memorize the past tense of the irregular verbs—“fly” and “flew”. Students will benefit a lot from this competitive game.
In a word, tongue twisters can be used not only in pronunciation practice, but also in vocabulary learning. Using tongue twister competition will help students to practice its pronunciation and learn for enjoyment.
3.5 Learning vocabulary by the way of intelligent questions and answers
This way of vocabulary learning is something like that of humor that has been mentioned early in the thesis. Intelligent questions refer to questions full of wits with the feature that they are always so peculiar that most people can’t make head or tail of them. But when the intelligent answers are revealed, they will be suddenly aware.

Such game for brains always plays tricks on words or homophones. And it’ll help students to keep these words firmly in mind.
(19) “--What are the strongest days of the week?
--Saturday and Sunday—all the other days are weak (week) days.” [32]
The answer is so fun, contrary to most people’s expectation, because “weak” pronounces the same as “week”. Here, the intelligent answer works based on the pair of homophone. In the USA, their weekdays are only five days, that is, from Monday to Friday. In other words, these five days are “weak days”(虚弱的日子). So, here, in the question and answer, students will distinguish “weak” from “week” with little effort, and also learn the expression of a week.
Just as it’s mentioned above, an intelligent question and answer about the week is suggested. Then, what about any about the month, such as March and April? Read the following example:
(20) “--When do we feel most tired in the year?
--On the 1st of April.
--What! Why?
--Because we have just had a March, lasting 31 days. ” [33]
Obviously, this intelligent question and answer plays tricks on the homophones—“March” and “march”. Because April comes after March—the 3rd month of the year, and the word “march” also means “行军”, no wonder that the 1st of April comes after the 31 days’ march, so we feel most tired.
(21) “—Which word has the most letters in it?
---Mailbox.”[34]
Is the answer wrong? Definitely not, it’s right. Aren’t there a lot of letters in a mailbox? So the answer deliberately misinterprets “letter”(字母)in the question as “信”. What a smart answer!
3.6 Learning vocabulary by the way of the pronunciation of letters
There exist some special words in English whose pronunciation is the same or similar as that of some letters. Just because of their similarity of speech sound, we’ll remember its pronunciation firmly. Let’s see some examples.
Words--------Capital Letters:
“eh(啊)------------------ ---A pea(豌豆)-------------------------------P
bee(蜂)---------------------B queue(长队；辫子)---------------- ---Q

sea(海) / see(看)----------C are(是)/ ah(啊) ----------------------- --R
dee(D字形马具)---------D ess(S形的东西)----- -------------- --- S
eye(眼睛)------------------I tea(茶)/tee([高尔夫球]发球处)------T
jay(鲣鸟)------------------ J you (你)/ ewe(母羊)------------------U
ell(旧时的量布长度)----L vee(V形的东西；五元的钞票)----V
oh(哦)/owe(欠)-----------O why(为什么)----------------------Y ”[35]
If junior students master these words of similar sounds of letters, they will know why does “IOU” mean “借条”. Why? Because “IOU” sounds the same as “I owe you”. What’s more, if it is combined with the last trick—intelligent question and answer, the humor effect will be more unforgettable. Let’s see an example.
(22) --Which 4 letters is a thief most afraid of?
-- OICU.
Because “OICU” sounds the same as “Oh, I see you！” If a thief is seen thieving something he will be caught red-handed, and, of course, he will be punished.
3.7 Learning vocabulary by the way of popular etymology
Etymology means the account of the origin and history of a particular word. But here, it doesn’t refer to that etymology studied by the etymologists. According to one’s requirement or understanding, an explanation for some words’ etymologies--popular etymologies is provided. Different from that in the dictionary, such popular etymology is always lacking in etymological grounds, but it is easier for students to understand and memorize some vocabulary, so this neat trick may easily spread widely among the students.
(23) Take “History” for an example.
“History” is equal to “His story”, which exists in the religions. But, in accordance with their explanation, “His” must be capitalized, referring to “God”, because in their opinion, God arranges history.
Those religious persons give worship to God by using the word form. Similarly, this way can also be used to be strongly against religion. Let’s see how those anti-religious persons belittle God.
(24) The popular etymology of “God” goes as follows:
What makes “God”? A “DOG” turning a somersault becomes “God”. What a vivid description!

(25) Another example of “NEWS” will help the students to learn and master these five words below effectively.
Do you know why the word “news” is spelt with “NEWS”? Because “NEWS” comes in all directions: North, East, West, and South. Then the students will easily know the relationship among them, and bear them in mind.
Due to the limited space of this article, there are many neat tricks that can’t be listed one by one. In the near future, based on students’ interest, the researchers will surely invent other neat tricks to lighten students’ burden of study.
4. Conclusion
Through theoretical analysis and research results, it is concluded that vocabulary learning makes great contribution to the development of students’ English. In the thesis, the importance of vocabulary in English learning and teaching is talked about. Vocabulary is an essential preparation for acquiring English knowledge, communication competence and learning skills. The development of vocabulary predicates the future progress in English study.
Just because of the great importance of vocabulary learning, the aim of this paper is to produce efficient English education and enable students master a large number of vocabulary. So it suggests some neat tricks of vocabulary learning to help middle school students solve the problem of “time-consuming and poorly-efficient” vocabulary learning.
With the help of these tricks, students’ vocabulary-learning burden will be lightened. But the tricks are for students’ reference only. After all, students learn for themselves, so they had better create some of their own.
However, English learning strategies are so many that, for the moment, students are not believed to easily find any fit for them, especially strategies of vocabulary learning. But if they are continuously summing up the experience and absorbing new ideas, some day they are sure to find or create new tricks of their own. At that time, the problem of low-efficiency vocabulary learning will become a paper tiger, no longer blocking the way of efficient and effective English learning.

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