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| How to improve your memory |
| "Consider a language ... language serves to describe combinations of coloured squares on a surface. The squares form a complex like a chessboard. There are red, green, white and black squares. The words of the language are 'red', 'green', 'white', 'black', and a sentence is a series of these words. They describe an arrangement of squares in an order." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (20th century) |
When learning a new language, many people forget most of what
they learn in class. This is very often the case with western
people trying to learn Mandarin. I often hear questions such as,
"if I keep forgetting, why bother making an effort to learn such
a difficult language as Mandarin?". "Is Mandarin too difficult
for me?", "Why do I forget so many words?"
The question, "Why do we forget?" is not easy to answer. We all have experiences such as when we cannot remember the pronunciation of a word, the meaning of a character, a telephone number, even a friend's name. Sometimes, we forget material we need to forget such as uncomfortable memories, sometimes our memories fade with the passage of time if we do not use the information.
In learning a new language, most of the time we forget information because other information interferes with our memory. When we learn new vocabulary, old words may not actually disappear altogether, but become obscured. The memory trace is still there, but we don't have appropriate clues to retrieve it. This shows that forgetting is more related to retrieving information.
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| But how much do we forget? |
Ebinhause is the forefather of modern understanding of human
memory. He found that people rapidly forget what they have just
learned within the first hour, but that a plateau is reached after
that, whereby the speed of forgetting gets slower and slower.
The forgetting curve indicates that newly-learned material needs
to be reinforced very soon before it is forgotten, and to repeat
this process at longer and longer intervals. See the following
diagram:
Now we understand that forgetting is not just normal -- it is also normal to forget a lot. But is it possible that we forget less and remember more? Absolutely! The trick is how to do it. Following are a few tips you can try when learning Mandarin.
- Pay close attention when you hear a new sound or see a new character. Attention will reinforce your perception, which is the first stage of remembering new material. How may of us notice the difference between the Chinese characters 八, 入 and 人, without paying close attention?
- Use reinforcement to bring back retention. As indicated in the diagram, reinforcement should be done at greater intervals.
- Write a list of vocabulary and put it where you can often see it, e.g. on the wall, or put a label with the word '电话' on the telephone.
- Take notes to help you to imprint material and improve
retention. This is an important re-coding process which will
affect your retrieval.
- Make meaningful associations when learning new materials.
Mandarin has a lot of homophones (characters with the same
or similar sounds). Forming a link between a new character
and another character with the same sound is useful for you
to remember both characters. For example, 七 sounds the same
as 期, 九 sounds the same as 酒.
Most characters have meaning clues or pronunciation clues. Ask your teacher for a clue and establish appropriate clues for retrieval.
- Review for 30 minutes in the morning. Learning just prior
to bedtime, followed by a revision first thing in the morning,
has been a long tradition as a learning strategy for native
Chinese speakers.
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If you remember to do the above, you will improve your retention rate and have a more rewarding experience learning Mandarin!
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