The spaced repetition technique spreads
information in specific time intervals and repeats that information in specific
points in time so you’ll remember more indefinitely. How can that possibly
work?
When our brain is exposed to information over
a long period of time, it tends to remember that information due to the Spacing
Effect. It is a psychological phenomenon that ensures we remember information
which is presented to us through repeated long termed spaced studying.
How the method works:
•You memorize a piece of information and then
after a few minutes you repeat; exposing yourself again to the same information
in increased intervals.
•The intervals begin with few minutes, than
increase to hours, days, weeks, and eventually months.
•An example to such an interval can be seen in
Pimsleur’s graduated-interval recall – 5 seconds, 25 seconds, 2 minutes, 10
minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 25 days, 4 months, and 2 years.
Spaced repetition works so well because it
uses your long-term memory instead of your short-term memory to process
information.
2. Mnemonic Techniques
The mnemonic technique translates information
you’re trying to memorize into a pattern your brain remembers better than the
original form. There are many types of mnemonic applications including
remembering sets of numbers (numeric), remembering lists and I also found it’s
extremely effective when trying to remember new words in a foreign language. An
example of mnemonic application can be learning the names of the stars in our
solar system:
•My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos
•Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, Neptune (source).
A foreign language mnemonic I use is
associating words I find hard to remember to “link words” in my mother tongue,
for instance:
•In Russian, the word cow (pronounced roughly
“karova”) can be associated to “I ran my car over a cow.”
Linkwords work in the following way:
First, you create the linkword > then you
associate it with a story> the story leads to the meaning and there you have
it.
Linkword > Story > Meaning
After a while you’re able to remember the link
word and meaning without the story, and eventually you remember the meaning,
without the help of the link word or the story.
