Let’s talk briefly about frustrations today, shall we?
We spend the better part of our youths learning things. Sure, there’s grade school and middle school and high school. You get some useful stuff there. You learn about Plymouth Rock and world wars and the ever-popular dangling participle, but at the same time, you’re cramming your head full of stuff that you’re going to wish you never knew later on. I mean, really. Do I need to know all the lyrics to Olivia Newton-John’s “Please Mister Please?” And the secret identity of every nearly superhero ever created… when does that come in handy? Do I need to be able to recite Wolverine’s speech to the guards in the Hellfire Club in Uncanny X-Men #131? Probably not. I mean… that was 6th grade. Let it go, man!
There comes a point where your brain is like a night club and there’s a burly bouncer at the door, enforcing his dictatorial rule over that red velvet rope, and he’s decided that you can’t fit anymore inside. Which you know is a lie. All your friends are in there. Surely they could fit one more chorus from the Grease soundtrack!
But here I am, with my 20th high school reunion just a few months behind me, and I realize that I haven’t been using certain mental muscles in a long time. Parts of my brain are pretty healthy. There’s a whole creative quadrant that’s positively Hulk-like in its physique. But that portion that allows me to memorize new information is now a 98-lb. weakling that gets sand kicked in its face by the bartender and cute waitresses inside the club.
How can I retain this information better? I spend between a half an hour to an hour a day on studying, between the podcasts and the review materials. And I have to say that the premium membership here is worth its weight in Elvis records. It rocks like Amadeus. I do the Newbie and Elementary lessons every week, and I drill down into the expansion areas like a Texan going for oil. I walk away with a sense of accomplishment, flush from victory at having snuck a few new phrases past the doorman. Unfortunately, they don’t last long. It’s like the staff does a sweep every few days and evicts anybody that doesn’t have their hand stamped from the summer of 1975. (I mean, honestly, how many Bugs Bunny cartoons does one guy need to know by heart?!)
Ultimately, what has worked, and worked consistently, is repetition. On the days when an Intermediate or an Upper Intermediate lesson gets posted, I go back into my lesson archive and I review the ones I’ve already done. And it helps that there are words that I hear over and over again through the podcasts. And then there’s words like this:
University
大学
dà xué
Literal translation: big learning
That’s just awesome. That’s like fried gold right there. And let me make this clear: I’m not just trying to memorize individual words. I’m trying to retain entire phrases. That’s the beauty of the way the podcasts are presented here at ChinesePod. It does make them slightly easier to sneak past the bouncer. It’s like the verbs point at something down the street and shout, “What in the world can that be?!” and then a few nouns sneak their way in. It’s a combined effort.
So, aside from the obvious answer of “spend more time on studying,” what can you Poddies suggest as a way to better retain the information? What are your study methods? How much time do you spend each week? Got some tips? Let me hear them!
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One of our listeners is a psychologist who told me that learning while you exercise is the fastest way to learn since your blood is flowing faster, uh…capillaries are being formed faster in your body (and therefore your brain)… I’m sure I’m butchering his theory but it definitely sounds like good solid common sense.
And I actually think it works. I listen to them at the gym and find that it seems to stick a bit more. What I learn while working out, I tend to remember as whole chunks as opposed to just single words.
I probably spend an hour a day on Chinese, but I’m really lucky and can practice with native speakers every lunch hour (which, admittedly, I often ditch out on since I’m a bit lazy:)
In terms of useless crap I remember from being younger, how about how I can still beat Mario 3, and remember all the warp zones, tricks and shortcuts, how useless is that!
Good advice there, Colleen, thanks! Now… by “gym” do you mean the little hip swiveler thingies that I saw on the Saturday Show last week?
How did you find yourself in Shanghai? I’m really curious.
Haha, I wish that was my gym, its free. But the staring and crowding around of curious LaoRen make it a bit uncomfortable working out in the parks.
Someone rang the doorbell of Shanghai, and when they opened the door I was there in a basket. No note or anything, in the rain no less. So they took me in an nursed me back to health, raising me as their own, never telling me I wasn’t really Chinese….
Actually, I just graduated from the University of Victoria (Canada) and my friend Rian was the intern here before, but he had to go back to school (here in Shanghai) so he contacted me and we kindof traded off. Hes coming back next week though, so hopefully I dont get the ax:)
*gasp* NO! You can’t go! All the plants will die!!!
But you had me with your story of the basket on the doorstep. I empathized with it. My mother worked in the cosmetics department at Macy’s since before I was born. I was to the ladies there what Tarzan was to the apes. They raised me as their own. *sniff* Those were the days.
This explains why I’m a sucker for romantic comedies and the vocal stylings of Harry Connick, Jr.