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RE: Herbs, Trees & Bushes Used in Aromatherapy (Part 1 of 3) 芳香療法所使用的二十一種藥用草類和樹木（備考筆記）
i admire your knowledge of lanquages, but came to read this blog about one of my favourite subjects aromatherapy, and than the difference of writing is not that nice it takes you out of concentration. If you understand what i mean? But no to the context, why do you take this oils to describe first? As the most important? or is it just random?
Sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for an article on the uses of aromatherapy. These are notes I wrote for my dear wife to help her pass an aromatherapy exam in Chinese where she had to memorize the English names as well as the Latin/Greek scientific names of these 21 plants. I just wanted to share with other people who might have the same problem.
I did my best as a professional language teacher to make these difficult words less obscure and easy to memorize (many etymologies have mnemonic value), and I achieved my purpose: my wife received a near perfect score, whereas her classmates did not do quite so well.
One example of a mnemonic:
Some people are puzzled by the name grapefruit: grapefruits are much bigger than grapes and doesn't taste like them.
The answer is that grapefruits grow in clusters similar to the way that grapes grow.
The first two Chinese characters mean grape and the third character means pomelo, a type of citrus fruit. Knowing about how they grow makes it easier for Chinese people to remember the English word for what seems like an illogically-named fruit.