I'm not one for complicated mnemonic strategies, but I am a great fan of simple ones. My son and I were learning some basic Maori from a CD-Rom the other day, and I did a small comparison. For the first unit, I spent a few moments thinking up some simple mnemonics for the following adjectives: nui - big; iti - small; makiriri - cold; wera - hot; poto - short; taroa - tall; tere - fast; poturi - small. These were my (very simple) mnemonics: big & new; small & itchy; the Waimakiriri is cold (that will flummox most people, I know; the Waimakiriri is a major river where I grew up); very hot; short potato; tall tar road (I must say, I didn't really expect that one to work); Terry is fast; the poor tree is small.

The second unit was on colors, and remembering my son's success in learning the countries of Africa by coloring them in (a few countries a day), I wrote out the Maori words for the colors in big open letters, then colored each one in the appropriate color.

And the verdict? Well, coloring the colors was certainly helpful - but only because it forced me to pay attention to the words for a while. The mnemonics, I have to say, all worked beautifully - even my tar road.