Remembering.....

I have been studying Spanish for over 7 years, I have two language partners that I talk with every week without fail, and I'm still amazed at how much I continue to forget. A teacher introduced me to the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, and I wondered if it might be one explanation for my frustrating memory loss.

Hermann Ebbinghaus was a pioneering researcher of human memory. He said that the level at which we retain information depends on:

The strength of your memory
The amount of time that has passed since learning

Your unique memory strength will determine whether or not you retain half the information for 3 weeks (like in this chart) --or more, or less.

Some estimates say we forget 90% of what we learn within the first month--or even the first week!

There are two things that can affect our retention level for items in our long-term memory:

Repetition
Quality of memory representation

Repetition is easy to understand. The more frequently something is repeated, the more likely it is to be remembered. Reviews at regular intervals have been shown to increase retention and, after time, less frequent review is needed.

This chart shows how much more you will remember with frequent review:

So, at the very least, we need to review what we know (vocabulary, grammar rules, etc.) frequently.

However, if we can increase the quality of the information we are trying to remember, as well as its meaning to us, we will increase your memory retention over time.

In other words, if you learn something, and it is important to you, and you can connect it with many things you already know, your memory retention will be high.

As Scott Young says, "Instead of trying to pound information into your brain with the hopes it will simply fall out when you need it, holistic learning is the process of weaving the knowledge you are learning into everything you already understand."

Do this by:

Asking questions: How does this information relate to other things I've already learned? How does it relate to other stories, subjects or observations. (Try to find several different points of reference for every idea you learn. Figure out what things are similar and why they are what they are. Make everything you learn fit into everything you already know.

Visualizing and diagraming: Drawing a picture for how what you are learning rates to something else you have already learned is a great way to practice visualizing.

Using metaphors to link completely different ideas.

Feeling it: As you relate an idea to a picture or a metaphor, also try associating it with a feeling. (This is good for data that may be otherwise hard to relate.)

Linking or pegging it: Linking means to create a "wacky, vivid picture" relating what you're learning to something you already know so that a connection between them is forced. The peg system creates a simple phonetic system for storing numbers and dates. See: https://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/nervous-system/how-to-improve-your-memory5.htm