Why Do You Forget Words?
Last time we looked at ‘short term memory‘ and why’ focusing’ just isn’t enough.
So, just reading or listening to something is not enough to improve your English…
In fact, if all you do is listen and read…
Then you probably forget a lot of English that you ‘learn’…
The end goal of learning English is to remember it and be able to use it.
You want to be able to understand it and use it.
So, the short term memory is really just the gateway to the long term memory where the language is stored.
If you want to be able to understand and use English easily, you need to move it to your long term memory.
But how do you do that?
Well, there are several ways to do this… but the most important thing to remember is this:
If you want to be able to speak and write English easier,
then you need to actively work at it.
You can’t expect English to ‘learn itself’ without any effort.
With that out of the way, let’s look at how you can move language from your short term to your long term memory…
You need to practise.
A lot.
Your memory stores things which it thinks is important. So, if you practise something a lot, your memory will know it’s important.
Simple really…
But how should you practise?
That’s really up to you…
I’ve talked about it on my site quite a bit. Here’s a good place to start:
I would suggest that you practise with meaning and purpose.
I’ll tell you more about why meaning and purpose can help you to remember more next time…
But if you can’t wait until then, I strongly recommend you sign up to The Difference.
When you join, you get free access to my three week study course: Improve Your English in Three Weeks.
This course shows you exactly what you need to do to learn, remember, use and understand new vocabulary easily and quickly.
And you can use the system again and again.
Find out more here:
https://englishforstudy.com/join-the-difference/
Sam
English For Study
About the Author Sam
Sam is the founder and creator of English For Study. He's also a lecturer in EAP/Academic English. Apart from making Academic English easy, he likes learning languages, lifting weights and eating good food.
