看看老外是如何记忆我们十二生肖的名字，发音和顺序的
下面这篇文章是一个老外介绍他如何记忆中文十二生肖的名字，发音和顺序的。为了有效的记忆，他运用了一种叫MNEMONICS的记忆方法。除此之外，他还运用了引发词，谐音等方法来帮助记忆。如果你能读懂，你会觉得老外为学习中华文化也算是费尽了苦心。同时，他的这些记忆方法也许会给我们一些启发。如果你暂时读不懂，也不要紧，可以放一放，把它作为一个参照，当自己的英文水平提高后，再读一次，也许自然而然，毫不费力就明白了。
One Run
Imagine Jerry the mouse (from Tom and Jerry) running across the Kalahari Desert. You’re a camera man starting way up in the crisp blue sky, you see Jerry scurrying across the desert with his feet spinning around a million miles an hour kicking up dust as he runs. You then zoom right down on him and you can see him puffing and panting with his heart almost thumping outside of his body. Why? Because Tom’s chasing him of course!
All of a sudden Jerry comes running up at you ... but wait, you’re afraid of MICE!... now you start waving your hands about at Jerry saying ‘Shoo Shoo! go away ... SHOO!’
Two Zoo
You’re in what looks like a horrible, old smelly prison ... but it’s NOT a prison. It’s a ZOO! In the zoo, you would normally expect many different animals. This zoo is different though, there are hundreds upon hundreds of iron-bar zoo cells full of OXEN (plural of ‘Ox’.. no bull!). The living conditions are horrible. The bars are pushing up against their heads, their horns are clashing together, there’s stinky Ox poo all over the ground and all the Oxen keep saying is – “We want a NEWWWWW zoo ... we want a NEWWWWWWW zoo” – (Note the word ‘New’ is said in a deep questioning kind of way that starts pretty low and then goes up to a long extended ‘OO’ sound like in ‘MOO’)
Three Tree
There is a big, grand, glorious tree with a big fat trunk big enough for all the local fluffy animals to play in. You hear a rustling from the leaves at the top of the tree and then a long, scared quivering voice questions “WHO are you? WHOOOO are you?”
When you look at who it is up in the tree (still keeping in the spirit of the Wizard of Oz), you think at first it’s the Cowardly Lion!... But NO... Wait a minute... it’s the Cowardly TIGER! Yes, a paranoid, manic depressive cowardly tiger and all he can say is “WHOOOOOOOO?... are you?”
Four Door
You’re in Wonderland and the Rabbit is chasing you frantically out of the rabbit hole into the real world. You manage to jump through a door leading out and just as the rabbit jumps and hurls himself both feet first through the doorway, you SLAM the door shut on the rabbit’s feet so hard that his feet are severed and SNAP off of the rabbit’s legs. With the door closed and the footless rabbit on the other side, you pick up his TWO bloody, twitching, fluffy white feet and put his TWO feet in your pocket for good luck.
Five Hive
Picture a giant hive, BUZZZING with activity. But wait!.. this is no ordinary hive... and they’re not bees flying out of it! They’re miniature DRAGONS flying out of the hive breathing little fire-balls and all of them have LONNNNGGGG tails swooping upwards almost in the shape of the Nike ‘Swish’. When you say the word LONNNNG tail, make the pitch of the word start low and follow the swish upward – DRAGONS have LONNNNNG Tails!
Six Sick
You’re sick in hospital lying in your hospital bed when your nurse comes in to give you an injection. This isn’t any ordinary nurse though – and it’s not any ordinary injection! The nurse is CHER (from Sonny and Cher ... If I Could Turn Back Time... you know the one), dressed in that black thing she was wearing as she was sitting on the cannon in the music clip for ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’... but wearing a nurses hat of course. Instead of a syringe, CHER pulls out a long fanged SNAKE. It’s fangs are protruding with green venom dripping from them and she plants the fangs – BAM! into you arm. (As you picture CHER placing the snakes fangs in your arm while you’re sick in hospital, hold two fingers up, curl them around like snakes fangs and thrust them into the open side of your other arm. Let them sink in until you feel pain. As you think of that pain – of the venom running through your veins, think of CHER).
看到这里，你也许有所明白了。由于篇幅关系，这里只贴六个生肖的记忆方法。如果你对此感兴趣，可以上网找一下“the polyglot project" 这本书。它是免费的，内容主要是一些国外外语学习者介绍自己的外语学习的起因，经历，体会，以及所用方法的汇总，相信它多少会对我们的外语学习有些启发。
摘自“the polyglot project "一书。
