Memorization and You

[Carmody]

One of our very helpful and esteemed members has said

Memorisation sucks and it is boring, but once you know it, then you know it right?

But Is this what people find to be true?

When you memorize something is it as if carving in stone and it will always be there?

I am all for memorization but know that I find I need to constantly review the vocab to keep certain information at my finger tips. Is my case the exception and are all you folks able to "know it" for always once you have memorized it?

If you are able to memorize and never forget then I congratulate you. I am just curious where I stand on the continuum for this skill.

[YtownPolyglot]

Sometimes it is easy, and sometimes it is difficult. If I can connect what I am memorizing to something I already know, it is easier for me.

[rdearman]

Here are some tips for memorisation.

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/09/03/8-tips-for-improving-your-memory/

I think the best advice for language learners included in here is to repeat it. If you have to recall the word you're more likely to remember.

[Ezy Ryder]

Is this even biologically possible? I don't know much about memory (dammit, Jim! I'm an aspiring linguist, not a doctor! xD ), but I thought you'll eventually forget virtually anything you don't "review" (by which I mean "any form of repetition (explicit or not)").

Personally, I love mnemonics. Some people seem to think of it as "having one more thing to remember" (an episode of Frasier comes to mind...); but the way I see it, if one connection fails, sometimes it's good to have a backup.

[Sizen]

I've come to accept my forgetting vocabulary. If I make a concerted effort, I can remember twenty or so words for two, three days, but eventually I will no longer be able to recall any of them without some sort of prompt. As I expose myself to the language more and more, some of these words will stick and some won't. It's like splashing paint on a wall. At first there are random speckles here and there. Some of them dry and chip off, but as more and more paint is added, eventually the whole wall (or at least the important parts of it :p) are covered.

I wouldn't concern myself too much with forgetting if I were you. You're learning your first language and you're forgetting. Some people learn more than ten and still forget. The way I see it, the more you forget, the more you're learning. So keep on forgetting.

[Xenops]

Some people do have photographic memories (like this Korean artist can draw things after seeing them: http://www.kimjunggi.net/bio/). From a biological perspective, things are easier to recall when you either 1. attach meaning to them, or 2. when you have regular exposure. This is because memories that are easier to recall have more neural connections to that particular memory (someone posted an article on language learning recently, that mentions this..I'll have to remember it). You make more neural connections, or strengthen current ones, by repeated use. If I recall correctly (he he), emotionally charged memories are stored by the hippocampus, and are easier to recall. The sense of smell is close to the hippocampus, that's why your memories of smells are so strong.

As for me, it takes forever for me to memorize something. What I can do is quiz myself and give myself a "stressful" situation. Trying to remember something forces my brain to consider that particular knowledge important, because I'm trying to recall it, and it will shift to remembering that knowledge. Tests and exams in school are not (ideally) to find out how much you know, but to cement what knowledge you already have. This is why SRS works: you're being quizzed, and you're exposed to the knowledge with some regular basis.

[reineke]

We don't date or otherwise see each other. She's unfaithful and dumb.

"Einstein’s memory was notoriously poor. He was unable to remember dates and could not remember his own phone number. As a student, one of his teachers claimed that he had a memory like a sieve. Once when he was traveling on a train, the conductor approached to collect his ticket. Einstein began searching his pockets, but the conductor recognized him and said he could ride for free. Einstein responded, “Thank you, but if I don’t find my ticket I won’t know where to get off the train.”

"A reporter interviewed Albert Einstein. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if he could have Einstein's phone number so he could call if he had further questions.

“Certainly” replied Einstein. He picked up the phone directory and looked up his phone number, then wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to the reporter.

Dumbfounded, the reporter said, "You are considered to be the smartest man in the world and you can't remember your own phone number?”

Einstein replied, “Why should I memorize something when I know where to find it?”

I am glad we share at least some traits.

Einstein learned English in his fifties and he also spoke French in addition to his native German. Apparently he could also lecture in Italian. I am getting some conflicting information about his French as some online sources are referring to his low grade in school French. No, he did not fail math.

There's a book called "Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less".

I'm curious if anyone has read this book.

[Systematiker]

I don't quite have an eidetic memory, but it's pretty close - when I focus it. I've developed the ability to not remember things on purpose, otherwise I retain useless things for far too long.

We have a rule at home - if it's more than three things, write me a list, because otherwise I'll remember it for the next month if I expend the effort to remember it. I also do it with a lot of conversation stuff - I don't want to know what you said to me next year, so if it's important enough that I need to know it in five minutes, let me know so I can switch gears.

As a result, I hate most types of concentrated memorization - it's overkill, or it crosses wires for how I remember. I have good intentions with SRS sometimes, but it never goes anywhere.

[aokoye]

One of our very helpful and esteemed members has said

Memorisation sucks and it is boring, but once you know it, then you know it right?

But Is this what people find to be true?

When you memorize something is it as if carving in stone and it will always be there?

That isn't true for me for anything. Music, words and concepts I've learned in my L1, words and concepts in my L2(s), anything else I need to memorize and haven't done in a while (driving to specific places for instance), and so on. I highly suspect that I'm not at all unusual in this respect.

[yong321]

Personally, I love mnemonics. Some people seem to think of it as "having one more thing to remember" (an episode of Frasier comes to mind...); but the way I see it, if one connection fails, sometimes it's good to have a backup.

Comment on the mnemonic as "more thing to remember" part:
Whether a mnemonic, or etymology as well by the way, serves as a memory aid or becomes an extra burden depends on the person and the word being studied. My observation is that it's more like an aid when the person is relatively old, knows more than one language, especially when the language being studied is related to what he already knows. Young children definitely don't want a mnemonic unless the hint is extremely obvious (e.g. 山 in Chinese means "mountain"). Adults knowing one Romance language studying another will passively or actively search for a cognate to help remember the word.

I remember seeing a show titled something like People with Best Memory (or Guinness World Records for Best Memory?). The guy was shown 50 some items one at a time. Then he was asked to say them all in the original order without looking at them. He did it. When asked how he did it, he said he quickly came up with some kind of links between them. If a clock is followed by a towel, he imagines he gets up on hearing the alarm and washes with the towel..... With practice, creating clever mnemonics will more or less become a natural ability.