Why is it so hard to memorize new words?

Memorizing new terms seems a difficult task for many reasons. In general, the brain tends to select the information that it receives, discarding what it considers unnecessary. Imagine remembering every single detail that enters your brain: you would remember thousands of words effortlessly, but would also be paying a terrible price: your brain would be constantly fighting against a permanent, unwanted and annoying interference of useless information. Fortunately, our brain works on its own rhythm and it “self-regulates” when it comes to organizing information.

So, forgetting information is actually a good thing. The goal is to help the brain to remember the information that we consider important. Language learners want to remember as many words as possible and they often cannot. They come to the conclusion that they simply do not have a good memory and thus language learning is not for them. This is another myth that must be dispelled.

Whatever its limitations, the brain possesses an extraordinary ability to learn and retain information. The secret is to how to really use it.

How can we improve our capacity of retaining new words?

The process of acquiring new information can be generally divided into 3 categories: decoding, storage and retrieval. When the brain receives new information, it decodes it and then stores it. The stored information can then be retrieved in the future. If we cannot recall something (the so called “knowledge-gap”), something went wrong during one of these phases.

There are several types of memory: short and long-term memory, sensory memory etc. The latter receives information through the stimulation of the senses such as sight, touch, smell. The short-term memory, also called working memory, retains small amounts of information for short periods of time. We use it when we do mental calculations, remember a password, a code or a phone number. If we want to store a word, we have to put it into our long-term memory. How can we do it efficiently?

Memory is like a muscle, it atrophies if it does not work. Each capacity/faculty that is neglected tends to weaken and eventually disappear. So it must be constantly stimulated. The best way to do it is to repeat continuously. If you want your memory to work well, make it work a little bit everyday. The repetition of an operation has a cumulative effect whose main goal is that of forcing information into our brain without us making deliberate efforts.

Why is English important?

                English language is important as it is the common language that can help people all over the world to communicate with each other. English language is made compulsory in all the schools today in the countries where their own native languages are given utmost importance. This is done keeping in mind that English will fetch the student a career which can make him to get adjusted easily at any place in the world. English language enables you to speak to the foreigners whose native language may not be known by us. To communicate with the foreigners easily, it is better to have the knowledge in English.

                Knowing many foreign languages will sharpen your brain activity as words are considered to create strong thoughts. Some people believe that learning many languages will make us live longer. Today, most of the schools have the medium of instruction as English. Till the high school and junior college and under graduation most of the countries have medium of instruction in their national languages or native languages along with English. But, from post-graduation onwards it is highly difficult to have the medium of instruction in native language.

             An established scientific study can be named and rewritten in other languages after its discovery or invention by scientists. But, the research currently going on or some of the aspects of the high order research did at the latest can be published in English only. It is highly difficult to carry out the study in the native language at post graduation and at Ph. D level. Studies dealt from schooling till under-graduation carried out in native language is difficult to be shifted abruptly into English medium at the post-graduation level. It has to be done inevitably in English medium. As it is the stage where knowledge has to be shared frequently with everyone in the world in the form of continuous research higher education has to be in English medium. So, it is important to learn English in some part of your life, if not in the childhood.

           Learning English will make you to be accepted by everyone in the world and you will have better opportunities in many locations in the world.