Somebody said: I don't often see or think of hares. Well, neither do I. But, when trying to make a new word come alive, I just leave my mind to roam about freely in my memories. It's actually very interesting, the things that come back. Scenes, sounds, smells, feelings. Take this "hare" (λαγώς):

The Easter bunny - we call it Easter hare λαγώς  - brought us Easter eggs ὁ λαθὼς ἔφερεν ῷα, later on I painted λαγώς (accusative plural) on those eggs for my little sisters.

As children we all read: the race between the turtle and the hare μεταξὺ τῆς χελώνης τε καὶ τοῦ λαγώ. That's already quite effective.

Now to personal, more effective still: The first time I saw a λαγών or λαγώ (accusative for object seen, 2 possibilities here, either is fine), a baby λαγώ(ν) in fact, we were harvesting, the farmer, his daughter (aged 17) and me (a city born and bred student). All of a sudden the farmer shouted for me to stop the tractor, he'd glimpsed a baby λαγώ(ν) in the furrow. We didn't dare touch it, for fear the mother might reject it, just shooed it across to the already harvested part of the field. And had to be careful, because where there's one baby hare, there's usually a second one not far off. This of course takes much longer to write or read than to remember. The point I want to make is this: the more vivid your imagining or (as here, for me) actual remembering, the easier it is to learn the new word (new label for known reality).

In a nutshell: Our brain has 2 halves that perform in different ways. One (the left side) is all words, numbers, logic, abstractions, theory, it thinks in straight lines. The other half is more creative: pictures, sounds, no straight lines, it sort of hops about investigating. Since Nature provided us with a double-sided brain, why only use one half of it? Unfortunately we are taught to use the left side mainly, with little "let's be creative" exercises thrown in as an afterthought. And not only in languages. Remember you history dates? Lists of words (Greek-English, English-Greek), rules of grammar, grammar exercises, translations: all abstract theory, dead, dead, dead. Life is not abstract theory, life is all about sounds, smells, feelings, contact as well as common sense and logic. So ancient Greek isn't spoken any more, but that does not mean that it should be treated like the proverbial dead dodo. If we learn it, if we want to appreciate its legacy, its literature, we've got to make it come alive. If we make the right side of our brain bring up pictures, sounds, create associations and let the left side take care of the words and rules, then we should not only learn better and faster, but actually enjoy the learning process instead of finding most of it difficult, and often boring. I am no believer in all knowledge being the sweet fruit of bitter roots. As far as I'm concerned bitter roots give bitter fruit.

Let's get back to my λαγώς . The word brought back memories from long ago: the surroundings: beautiful scenery, woods on 3 sides, open country on the fourth (I've always loved the country and have now been living ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς for most of my adult life), the nice people, the smells (a hot summer's day, straw and hay), the sounds of birds (larks mainly) and a feeling of peace! (I was going through a very bad patch of rebellion against all that had had anything to do with my upbringing). The thought of the little λαγώ (genitive) brought it all back, smells, feelings: Both farmer and daughter are long since dead, I'm the only one left, with my memories of that far-away, long-ago summer's day.

But since this is not supposed to be just a walk down memory lane, but an exercise in Greek language, I automatically recall lots of other words, all attached to realities: the αὐτουργός, well γεωργός rather, since he wasn't an Athenian, his θυγάτηρ, no βόες, but a tractor, no ἄροτρον that day, though I did learn to ἀροῦν/ἀροτρεύειν as well that year. Remembering that summer gets me to clumsy σκαιός. I tried to learn how to milk cows (τὰς βοῦς feminine accusative plural for objects milked). I can see those cows, they had names, their stable smelt nice and warm, with swallows flying in and out and me incapable of learning how to milk. I am not σκαιός normally, but milking was something I did not seem able to get the hang of, so I'd get all upset with myself. I don't often drop οὐ πολλάκις καταβάλλω things, and I seldom (4b, ὁ τῆς Μυρρίνης ἀνὴρ σπανίως ἐθέλει ἰέναι πρὸς τὸ ἄστυ.) break σπανίως θραύω things, but that evening I was extraordinarily σκαιός, I got preciously little milk (γάλα; τὸ γάλα, τοῦ γάλακτος gave us the Milky Way, the Galaxy, galactic) out of that cow, I dropped the milk-bucket, I fell off my precariously balanced little single-legged stool when the cow hit my face with her rather dirty tail. I could have died of shame. The farmer's wife was very nice about it and said not to worry, μὴ ἀθύμει(don't despair! contraction of ἀθύμε-ε) , I'd learn.
When I doubted it, the general consensus was: μὴ φλυάρει (contraction of φλυάρε-ε), you will. And I did. Well, sort of.

The more you get used to letting your mind roam, the more memories come flooding back, good ones and bad. You can savour the good ones and put the bad ones to rest, get them into perspective: you survived, didn't you, they're the past anyway, live in the present, for the present. Nothing will bring back the past, and the future is "que será será". The better we use our present, the better our future will be. Use your past to make your present easier, don't worry about past mistakes, too late to do anything about them anyway. Just don't repeat them.

In case you haven't fallen asleep yet, why not try and see what memories these words might bring back to YOU.