Hi there, do you remember me?
If you don’t, you should probably consider improving your memory!
I'm joking of course!
My name is Cédric and I'm here today to share a list of neat tricks and hacks
to improve your memorization skills.
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Ok so what was I talking about?
Ah yes, memory!
As a fellow language learner, this topic is extremely important to me.
Considering the amount of new information that you need to memorize,
good memory skills are paramount to your success.
The thing is, most of us face a lot of difficulty remembering expressions,
even ones that we’ve seen many times before.
And you always seem to forget them at times when you need them the most!
Now, you probably know that memory is like a muscle
and you need to exercise it to make it better and stronger.
But how do you actually do that?
There are some memory geniuses out there who can achieve amazing feats,
and thankfully they aren’t shy about sharing their tricks with “the rest of us.”
Of course, it takes some training to reach their level of awesomeness,
but there are a few techniques that you can start applying right away,
and I think you’ll see your memory skills shoot through the roof.
Let’s take a look.
1. Attach emotions to your memories
Why can you remember your graduation or wedding day so vividly,
but forget everything you did just a few days ago?
It’s obviously because of the happiness you probably experienced on those particular days;
strong emotion differentiates days like these from your daily grind.
Put this way, it might sound a bit trivial,
but it is the perfect illustration of the power of emotion
in the memorization process.
We’re all emotional creatures,
and these shape our behaviors, our communication, our activities… And our memories!
So, adding an emotional dimension to the content you are learning
is an effective way to make sure you don’t forget what you’re currently assimilating.
And the good news is that applying this technique to learning languages
is way easier than, to say, mathematics.
Let’s say I’m learning the word for “orange” in Spanish,
which is "naranja".
Quite a hard one, huh?
In this case, I’ll imagine a scene from my childhood,
when we used to have orange peel fights with my brothers and sisters after dinner.
So I picture myself getting ready
to throw some large, chunky piece of orange peel at my brother’s face,
shouting a battle cry: naran-HA!
That’s one of my dearest memories,
and associating words with it has really enhanced how easily I memorize them.
Do the same while learning or reviewing a word, and it will be engraved in your memory!
You can associate any kind of story to your learning,
real or made up.
The key is that it should carry a strong emotion, positive or negative.
2. Use the power of visualization
Vision is the most important of our senses,
as we humans have relied on it a lot for our survival and our species’ evolution.
As a result, we process most information via our eyeballs.
This is also the case when we’re memorizing new expressions in a foreign language!
We have memories associated with each of our senses,
so you can imagine that visual memories are the easiest to recall,
since you used your most important sense to form them.
The trick is to rely on your vision as much as possible when you're learning new expressions.
Now, here is the caveat:
how to you visualize a word?
Well, where there is a will, there is a way...
Let me share with you how I remember the word for “firefighter” in Spanish.
The word in question is “bombero.”
That’s a long way from fireman, right?
However, there is a part of the word I can relate to: “bomb-”
Now, that’s something I can work with.
As I have a keen interest in action movies,
I could picture a firefighter jumping to the ground
as a BOMB explodes in the background.
Powerful enough for me not to forget the word.
Ok, it’s a bit far-fetched,
but that’s exactly how you’re going to not forget the word.
3. Diversify your learning
We just saw how visualization enhances memorization skills,
but that’s far from the only tool available to you!
Actually, there are many ways to learn new information and some are way more efficient that you’d think!
There is a hierarchy of the different modes of learning,
ordered according to retention rate.
Check out this pyramid:
Each mode of learning has a percentage of memory retention.
As you can see, you’re not going to remember much of what you hear during a lecture
(does this bring back high school language class memories for anyone?)
However, as you can see, discussing what you’re learning is incredibly effective.
Or even, lecturing others!
You can also see that audio and visual sources are more effective.
The key is to incorporate all of these learning styles into your practice,
according to your time and resource availability.
If you have the chance to interact with natives
or even other fellow learners,
this will have a huge impact on your capacity to retain new information.
For example, I really like to spend time in language learner forums on sites like Reddit or Quora,
where I can ask questions or give answers to other language lovers.
This really helped me remember grammar rules that I would have found too hard otherwise.
Bonus tip: Practice before going to bed
One last trick before I leave you:
do your learning activity just before bedtime!
See, numerous studies have shown that
not only do we need to have minimal distractions while learning,
but we also get better results when we can enjoy some rest afterward,
so that the brain can store everything we learned in our long-term memory.
So what better place for that than your own bed!
So next time you hit the sack,
go for a learning session with your MosaLingua app instead of the milk and cookies!
That’s it for me.
Of course, there are many other techniques to boost your memory.
If you are interested in improving your memory have a look at the description below for additional tips.
You will also find a video recorded by our Abbe,
in which she shares her best tips for remembering foreign-language words and phrases.
I hope to see you very soon on our channel for more language learning tips.
Until then, have a good one!
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Happy learning!