Welcome to Forum Spotlight! Here we’ll be introducing interesting and useful posts made by members at our very own JapanesePod101.com Forum. This week’s forum spotlight post is by mikuji, who shared some useful ideas for remembering vocabulary and expressions with everyone.

======
I have a couple of tips I would like to share – it may help some of you.

1) When I find it difficult to learn an expression or a word, I use it as my screensaver password. I set the screensaver delay to a relatively short time so I am forced to use the expression several times a day. After a while my fingers remember it even if I don’t!

2)I Use the slide-show feature on Window XP screensaver (or one could use free screensaver programs such as Flasher) to display phrases or words I want to be able to become familiar with. The best way is to make .gif files with them by :

a) pressing Prnt Scrn (i.e. the Print Screen button) when the text is displayed by the word processor
b) pasting this in a graphic programm (basic like Paint will do),
c) cutting to size and saving as .gif in a dedicated folder to which one links the screensaver.

One can also display pictures with the related word, with kanji and kana, then the same picture with kanji only, then kanji only etc.. It works practically as a flashcard program.

As I find vocabulary building the most difficult part of Japanese learning, I found these facilities really useful.

Best wishes to all of you.
=====

Thanks for those great tips, mikuji! Personally I think the password one is pretty clever 🙂 Everyone, be sure to share any great tips that you might have!

You can find a lot more useful information like this at the JapanesePod101.com Forum, so stop by and join in the many discussions with fellow listeners and the JPOD101 crew!