Use it or lose it?

The trouble with learning a foreign language is that while you learn new stuff your brain is busy forgetting some of the stuff you thought you had already learned! So it would clearly be an advantage if we could slow down the rate of forgetting. Some writers compare memory with computer data storage. They urge that we adopt strategies to move information from short term memory to long term storage, maybe like moving data out of RAM and onto disc.

If only it were that simple!

The main strategy that seems to be advocated is repetition. Some writers say that there is a threshold level of repetition below which you won’t learn for the long term. That level is usually pitched in the high teens. So you need to hear a word or phrase, say, seventeen times before you can learn it. And if you don’t keep on using the word, they say, then you’ll lose it.

Sadly the truth is a lot more complicated. First, learning and forgetting are brain functions. We don’t truly understand the brain, and we understand hardly at all how memory works. Why, for example can I still recite a line of Latin poetry I heard once only, in class at school, more than 45 years ago? And why does my son, aged 30, remember the registration number of the first car he ever drove? These are not memories that he and I worked to preserve, nor have they ever been needed. Never used, but never lost.

Secondly learning and forgetting rates vary markedly, for unknown reasons, between people. They also vary at different times for the same person.

Thirdly there’s a big difference between the impact of hearing a word or phrase, and using the same word or phrase in the course of daily life. That’s not the same as repeating it in class or in a drill at home. Using in daily life means needing the word or phrase, calling it up from memory, using it, and getting an appropriate response from someone else.

For the vast majority of people, learning a foreign language is difficult. Forgetting it is easy. Successful language learners seem to be able to create personal strategies that match their learning styles and work for them at both ends of the process. Trouble is, everyone’s strategies are different, just as we and our styles are all different. So the only general conclusion to this brief discussion is that you should distrust any standard system that offers you quick results for little effort. There is a high probability that any “programmed” language course will not fit your optimum style of learning

Here are a few pointers to consider when you work out your own strategy.

First, be clear why you want to learn the language, and what you will gain by success. It’s a difficult thing, learning a language, so you need good motivation.

Secondly use all the possible means you can find to hear, speak, read and write the language. You need variety; stimulus of all your senses and exercise for all your brain functions.

Thirdly try to pace your work. Mix physical exercise with your mental endeavour. Do your language learning when you are wide awake, not tired, not stressed.

Fourthly, mix revision of past work into learning new things. You will always forget something, but your aim is to minimise the loss whilst you add to your total language capital.

And finally, get all the help you can. You don’t want to work alone; it’s hard to keep motivated and very hard to build any fluency in the language when you study alone. If you can afford it, go to a specialist language school with tutors who understand the importance of different learning styles and the problem of forgetting.

If you are lucky enough to live in Jakarta, here’s a school that understands all the problems and issues that I’ve been discussing.

kursus bahasa Inggris

A school like this one offers you a great opportunity to learn the world’s favourite language. Use it or lose it!