Articles
Learn language with crosswords
They help you associate words and access them more easily, writes Robert L. Fielding.
- By Robert L. Fielding, Notes
- Published: 09:53 May 31, 2009
- Image Credit: Supplied photo
- Completing a crossword can be a good way of accessing words that are already known, but not so ready at hand to be used.
A crossword is a popular diversion for many; just after breakfast or just before dinner in the evening. For most of us, that's all they are - an exercise in mental gymnastics, a way of retrieving something we know already.
For language learners, a crossword puzzle is probably just that - a big puzzle. But completing it can be a good way of accessing words that are already known, but not so ready at hand to be used.
Most students have a sort of passive knowledge of the language - a collection of words and ways of combining them, that if asked, they can repeat, but if they have to remember alone, find it altogether more difficult.
Crosswords can help with this. Synonym crosswords are the easiest and best type to begin with. You are given a word in the clue, and expected to find a word with a similar meaning in the puzzle.
Two things help here: one is word association and the other is serendipity - luck! Words associate with other words, but the biggest, most obvious association is between letters and words.
A three-letter word meaning 'motor vehicle', and beginning with a 'c' is obvious - 'car'. Having the first, second or third letter helps you get the other two. Crosswords are designed so that one clue helps with another where they intersect.
The reason why your chances of finding the word increase with added letters are linguistic and mathematical; beginning with the clue - 'small leopard' and finding the word has six letters and begins with an 'o' gives you some chance - if you know the word.
Having the second letter, 'c', improves your chances by a factor of about 35 - the number of words in the dictionary beginning with 'o' are 35 times more numerous than words beginning with 'oc'.
The word I was looking for was 'ocelot' - not a common word at all, but one I knew but couldn't think of there and then. Having the first two letters helped me - crosswords will help you.
The catch is that you have to know the word before you start. If you don't know the word they want, you're never going to get it. However, fortunately, learners know a lot more words than they think. Crosswords help you find them; and bringing words to your notice will bring it into the front of your memory for next time, when you need it for a sentence in an essay.
Regular and frequent attempts to solve a crossword will do two at least two things: they will help you with your word retrieval skills, and will open up associative links in your head. Next time, when you think of one word, three or four will come out with the one you originally came up with.
Solving crosswords - doing the thinking to solve them - will sharpen your brain. It will create the neural networks to make you more creative too, and it will help you access what you already know.
- The writer is a language lecturer at UAE University, Al Ain
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