Reply #31: Is it too late to REC THIS into +zone?

[Karenina]

Neither this thread, nor any of its predecessors need be interpreted as a "self-righteous rant."

As a multilingual ESL trainer across the the Big Pond, I have always searched for ways to "anchor" things in the minds of my clients. Sometimes it's a visual, other times an experience, a joke, a mistake...

Let me give an example:

I KNEW I was sunk when I first realized the complexity of going from 1 or 2 articles to 3 (in my 40's) plus having to
deal with declinations. One day I was explaining to Ruben over breakfast (age 4) that my Deutsch was a bit shaky. He was drilling me on nouns on the table and when we got to "spoon," he got a bit shaky. In French, one can intuit the article fairly easily. In German, NOT. I figured a spoon MUST be neutral or feminine. He agreed. IMMEDIATELY, BOTH OF HIS PARENTS appeared in the kitchen door saying simultaneously, "DER LÖFFEL." :rofl: I'll NEVER make a mistake on that noun! It's ANCHORED.