Unlock the Language – How to learn a Language

So here is how I encode the words in my visual dictionary.

This is hard work, but it is very effective at helping you encode those words into your mind.

Step 1: Choose a room

I start with any room in my house, for example the kitchen, and I’ll go to the kitchen with the relevant page of the dictionary open. I’ll have quick look through the dictionary, and then in my minds eye I’ll picture as strongly as I can, each item as it is in my house. This helps give you context.

Self referencing is a great way of giving your learning a personal touch.

Step 2: Choose your start

Then I will choose a part of the kitchen to start in, I am going to do this memory palace style, so I choose a logical start and end, for example, one end to the other.

Step 3: Start encoding

I go to the first item at the start, find it in the visual dictionary, if the dictionary has an audio app, I use this at the same time.

I will say the name of the item a lot of times out loud. I will do gestures with the item, for example, if it is a kettle, I will boil it, I will pour the water into a cup e.t.c.

I will practice making sentences out of it, for example, saying I am boiling the water, describing the kettle, and add some variety like saying I make coffee every morning.

If I’m not sure, I use deep L to get a sentence. My aim here is to build multisensory input, and just have a bit of fun with it.

Step 4: Memory palace and keyword

After doing this, I close my eyes and picture the scene in my head, and I imagine something novel or crazy happening with the kettle, like you would normally do with a memory palace, so the kettle could explode and melt my cat for example.

If I really struggle, I will also combine this with the keyword method, and come up with a soundalike word, and weave this into the memory palace image. Once done and I’ve repeated all this several times. I move onto the next item and repeat.

Step 5: Active recall and spaced repetition

Once I have got to the end, or as far as I want to go. I spend a bit of time self testing, reviewing everything in my mind, and saying words out loud, without cues.

So all the sentences, all the gestures and so on. I will also revisit the memory palace.

Not a problem if you get anything wrong, or miss anything, just remind yourself of what it was, and with each iteration through, the memory should get stronger.

Forgetting and struggle to recall are all normal parts of learning.

Probably an hour or so later I will grab my dictionary again, and repeat this with the same items, self testing first and seeing what I cannot remember.

Then I will do it again the next day, and then maybe two days after that. Adding in here some spaced repetition.

Don’t just do something once and hope it will stick. Recall and repetition are extremely important

This may feel a bit like overkill, but I enjoy it, it is also good practice of the skill of using the memory palace, chunking, key word technique, spaced repetition, and other skills like using gestures to create physical connections with a memory.

Have fun, and thanks for reading!