Abstract:

Teaching Japanese gitaigo mimetic words is among the most trying tasks at upper-intermediate and advanced levels. Being mimetic of actions and states, gitaigo have little if any analogous counterparts in most European languages. Understanding their semantics requires strong sense of sound symbolism of Japanese vowel and consonant sounds that is acquired by either growing up in Japanese environment, or by long years of studying Japanese as a foreign language.

The author has found an effective innovatory way to approach, explain and help memorizing the said mimetic words by the means of simulation borrowed from the well-known phenomenon of “immersion” as it occurs in playing video games. In order to avoid tiresome rote memorization, students are guided to form a make-believe space that represents the synesthetic world of gitaigo and dive into it the same way they do when forming a representation in their mind of the game-induced world. By such creating a rich mental model of the gitaigo word students employ multiple channels of sensory information (visual, audial, tactile, dynamic). Similarly to the game experience of immersion in the fictional world, gitaigo create a narrative of a kind that assists memorization and more importantly – activates the word and makes it instantly usable when needed in speech.

Keywords:

Video games, immersion, tool, teaching, Japanese, gitaigo, mimetic words.