விஷயம் என்னெண்டா

In short

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  விஷயம் என்னெண்டா

  viṣayam eṉṉeṇḍā

  the thing is

Why it looks that way

Literally 'if said, what the matter is'. The Jaffna quotative instead of the bookish one is the commonest opening of a long explanation

A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.

In a live sentence

A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.

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  விஷயம் என்னெண்டா, எனக்கு நாளைக்கு ஏலாது

  viṣayam eṉṉeṇḍā, eṉakku nāḷaikku ēlādu

  The thing is, tomorrow I cannot make it

How not to forget this word

Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.

• This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many times
  Kim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
• Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many times
  Adesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
• An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many times
  Bertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.

Next

• நான் கிளம்புறேன் — I must be goingread “nāṉ kiḷambuṟēṉ”
• கதைச்சது சந்தோஷம் — it was nice talking to youread “kadaiccadu sandōṣam”
• போன்ல கதைப்பம் — we will be in touchread “pōṉla kadaippam”
• நான் திரும்ப கூப்பிடுறேன் — I will call you backread “nāṉ tirumba kūppiḍuṟēṉ”
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