Best Method of Memorization

OnTheLastCastle

I'm taking 2 6 week Spanish classes. I haven't had a Spanish class in a decade, but I've been studying w/ Rosetta Stone for the past few months. The class is going alright.

We just have some reaaaaally fast turnaround on assignments such as memorizing vocabulary lists or today I have an oral presentation assigned last night. I can have an outline, which I do, and I wrote it out and am repeating it and trying to just look at the outline to remember the words I've been repeating.

Are there better systems than this?

Chanus

Some things I've done:

Post-It Notes on everything in your house

Flashcards

Just trying to 'think' in Spanish... like when you look at a table, try to see it as a 'mesa'.

Find someone who is either also studying or who speaks Spanish and talk with them as much as you can.

Just brute-force repetition (if you do this, pause between repetitions to give your brain time to 'absorb' what you just said... there's science behind this idea, but i'm lazy)

OnTheLastCastle

Pausing before repetition is good info!

Chanus

It's something to do with a 'brain echo' or some junk where if you just "hablohablohablohablo" it will get all jumbled in processing and be useless.

It's why commercials end with a half second of blackout before the next one starts... they pay for that time to allow their logo or the last image of whatever to imprint on you.

Slainbylich

If you feel like using flashcards on your computer, this program helps alot.

http://ichi2.net/anki/

I've used it for several languages and other things, and it does pretty well.

shadydentist

Brute force is not very effective.

Flashcards are a good idea. Especially for languages, be sure to study the flash cards both ways.

Chanus

shadydentist wrote: »

Brute force is not very effective.

Flashcards are a good idea. Especially for languages, be sure to study the flash cards both ways.

It can be for the purposes of passing a test, or regurgitating information over a short period of time.

It is less effective as a means for retaining the information and applying it later.

dlinfiniti

find a partner
practice using the words in context and sentences with each other
make up goofy sentences to make them work etc etc
another effective thing is to make meaning in otherwise meaningless words
no matter how tenuous he connection, try to tie the words into something that is already in your head and has meaning for you

Paladin

If it's not hard, then you're not learning fast enough


The more time you put in, the better it will go. Study during the day, review at night, 2 days at least before a test to get a passing grade, or 7 days if you really want to retain the information, plus a refresher midway through the course and once a year afterward, depending. Get good sleep, otherwise the best memorization practices in the world won't mean squat: and I mean it, the parts of your brain responsible for memorization actually shrink with chronic sleep insufficiency.


But yes, if you're going to flashcard it, both ways is essential, and if you can invent other ways that's great.

ceres

I remember things better by hearing them than reading them. If you're like this too, write your speech and then have a friend from class with good pronunciation read it to you a few times, as well as reading it out loud to yourself. When I took Japanese I did this sometimes to remember presentations (although usually just the reading out loud to myself part, since they were sometimes long). This worked a lot better for me than just seeing the words.

MegaMan001

http://www.iflipr.com is a huge database of flash cards . Make your own or just search what Spanish vocabulary you want and more than likely there are decks out there already.

Lieberkuhn

A really good way to learn vocabulary is to attach the Spanish word and English word to a single image, so that when you think of the English word, you think of the image and therefore the Spanish word.

For example:
A waitress called Eza serving a bottle of beer (serve-eza-> cerveza)
A baby going "hahblahblah" as its first attempt to speak (hablar)
etc

It sounds silly but it really works.

casp

If you're having to recite stuff, once you start getting it down be sure to try reciting starting from different parts so if you get off at all it won't automatically mess up the rest. Otherwise, I've found writing things out again and again as you go through it helps memorization. It helps get your mind more egaged. Instead of straight oral recitation, you then can also try to write it out from memory. Just anything to approach the stuff you've been given from different perspectives helps, really.