The Keys to Deep Memory

Have you ever felt like the words you are learning aren’t sticking in your brain?  Do you write words 15 times and still not remember them? Is memory a problem?

Me too!

Well, our brains aren’t servants that obey what we tell them to do.  Our brains are complex organs that work all day every day, even while we sleep.  If you want him to pay attention to some new word, you have to make it important to him.

Think of your brain like a really busy and important president.  He has to sort out all of the problems that happen in the country (your body), including managing your breathing, digestion (which is how your body turns food into something useful), movement, sense, communication, and so much more.

Just look at this guy! He’s way too important to remember a seven-letter word that you scribbled on a piece of white paper.

You have to make him notice and pay attention to that word.  In this article, we’ll call that “building deep memory”.

Create Focus

Have you ever tried to tell your roommate what pages are for Literature 324 homework while he was in the middle of a round of League of Legends?  Did he remember?

Our brains are the same.  They just don’t remember the small things that happen when they are busy with other big “important” things.  We first have to create focus.

What I mean by that is a place and a time that there are no distractions.  Silence your phone, turn off computer notifications, go where no one will bother you (for me that’s a coffee shop), and then you’ll have your brain’s attention.  If not, then he needs training, so did it regularly.  This is the environment he needs for self-study.

Create Rich Memory Connections

Writing a word on the paper again and again isn’t enough.  We’ve all tried that, but a month from now that word is still on the paper on our bookshelf, but not in our brains!  We need to create rich connections.

Brains are networks of neurons.  They aren’t computers that remember every single time.  To remember things, we have to build a path for your brain to find that information. 

Every detail you add to a piece of information is another sign pointing at that information.  Those times we smell something and think of our old homes, is just this.  The smell points to the memory of our home, so we think of our home.  Our home in turn points to a number of memories like when your brother pushed you off the swing and you broke your arm.  Then you remember the hospital and the doctor that had a funny pair of glasses, and then…you get the idea.

We want our new words to be a part of a network like this, and it’s simple, but hard work.  To do it, we need to use multiple senses to point to the new word, and make multiple connections. 

I learn new vocabulary with pictures, audio, motion, and ideas.  I make flashcards (using Anki) with all of these memory triggers.  I see a picture, then I have to say the word.  After I say the word, I listen to hear if I was right.  Or the other way around.  Then, I put some sample sentences with the word under the picture so I can associate the word with other ideas.  If the word is “feed”, I will have a sentence with a dog or a cat, and another with a farmer and a cow.  That way, the next time I think of feed, I will think of farmer, cow, and dog.  Or the next time I think of farmer, cow, or dog, I will remember the word feed.  This is what works for me. 

My wife needs different triggers, her biggest being memories.  She needs to hear and use the new word while talking to a friend so that her emotions are attached and she forms memories of the word, such as learning the word “escape” from a story of her friend getting away from the kids after a long day.  When her words are attached to emotions, the next time she has that emotion, the words come to her mind.  That works for her, so she always needs a friend who she can use her new language with. 

Create a Memory Foundation

The most important part of learning a new word is when we lay the foundation for the word.  What I mean by this is that when we try to get new vocabulary, we need to take the time and make the effort to start off on the right foot.  Create a deep foundation for that word from the beginning.

When I encounter new words, I take note of them for a later time when I am able to invest in them.  Then, when I have created my focused environment, I take out this list of new words and pick the ones I want to learn.  I don’t commit to every word because I don’t want to burn out.

Then I research the word.  Of course I start by translating it into English, but it can’t stop there because nothing translates 100%.  I search for it in a native search engine (when learning Chinese, I use Baidu; when learning Korean, I use Naver; when learning English, use Google or Bing). 

I click on “images” and look at a lot of the ones it brings up.  This gives me a good idea of how the word is commonly used by natives.  I also search for sample sentences in my dictionary and find different word associations (which was necessary more in Chinese because the characters are shared for a lot of words). 

In English, if you want to learn “build” you should also research “builder”, “building”, and “rebuild”.  Don’t add those words to your study list or you will be overburdened, but let the meaning, pictures, and ideas soak into your brain.

Then you make a flashcard with the best of the information you found.  If you use paper flashcards, you have to draw or print and glue pictures, and you can’t use audio.  If you use Anki, you can put them all in one place and have multiple cards: a listening card, a reading card, and a picture card (and more if you want). 

If you use a friend, you can take a picture of these things and bring them to your next meeting to talk about.  Talk about the picture, try to use the word in sentences, ask your friend a question with the word in it (e.g. “Do you like to feed the dog?”).

Meaningful Repetition

It has to be meaningful for you, or it won’t be the most effective.  Repetition is necessary for muscle memory, but meaningful repetition is important for long-term recall. 

For new words, it’s good to say it 5 times in a row.  I use this for myself and my students, but it can’t stop there.  That is a short-term technique.  The long-term technique is to use it naturally many times over a long period of time. 

It’s like building a house on your foundation.  Instead of just visiting your foundation, you lay a few bricks on the foundation.  Later on, you will be able to see the building from far away, without having to walk over there.  That’s recall.

For me, that’s seeing a picture of a dog, then saying the word dog.  Not seeing the word dog in a list of other words and translating it to my native language.  I say this not in judgment, but out of experience!  I’ve done that before, and I’ve had many students that do that, and it doesn’t work!

For the repetition to be meaningful, it must be a challenge that mimics the word’s use in the real world.  When we see things in the real world, we want to talk about them.  When we feel things, touch things, smell things, and taste things, we want to talk about them.  Try to make this part of your study habit. 

Of course, this directly links back to you laying a good foundation and building rich connections. It’s taking these two keys and using them again and again.

Every time you study the word ice cream, eat a 2L tub of ice cream and say the word while you eat it.

Haha, you wish!

But you get the idea.  Show yourself a picture of ice cream, then say the word, only THEN can you check if you are right.  Don’t give yourself the answer and the question at the same time, because when someone asks you the question you won’t be able to remember the answer.

One of the things we do wrong is this: read a list of words in one language, then the other.  This is giving ourselves the question and the answer, and it’s easier in a way (if you think boring is easy), but it doesn’t work well. It’s not meaningful.

It looks like this:

猫 – cat

狗 – dog

鸟 – bird

马 – horse

猪 – pig

羊 – sheep

This doesn’t work best.  The only connection to the new word we are repeating is our own language.  It’s not a real-world repetition, so if we want to think of the word later, we have to first think in our own language, and then try to remember the word in the new language.  We only have one small sign pointing to the new word, so we struggle to find our foundation.

And if you are like me, my brain doesn’t like switching from language to language.  It’s slow and bumpy.

Create a Summary for your Blog Post

Wait, that’s what I have to do, not you! 🤦

These are the basic keys to having deep memory.  As an individual, you need to experiment and find what environment helps you focus, what memory triggers work for you, what foundation your vocabulary needs to stick, and what repetition methods get you back to your foundation.

Good luck! 

Don’t forget, practice makes perfect! Practice what you’ve just read now!