Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0307: Reprise: How do I stop forgetting words in conversations?

Episode Date: May 12, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how to stop forgetting words in conversations, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Today we're doing a reprise episode. When we release this episode, it's going to be during my sabbatical for some extended overseas travel. So basically, we're re-presenting an old Master of Memory episode that I think is worth a refresher, but also with some new commentary from me based on my more experienced perspective. Today the episode we're re-releasing is episode 35 about forgetting words in conversation. How can you stop forgetting words in conversation. How can you stop forgetting words in conversation? Some things that I really liked about this episode were it's pretty much the first episode where I talked about the concept of having a toolbox of things that you can pull out at any time. So you have a conversation toolbox and you're basically filling it with all the words that you have the most trouble with. And

so there's some good information in here about how to use a memory palace for that. Now a couple of things that I would change are, first of all, I would put more emphasis on organization based on the category of words. So this particular listener had trouble with nouns, and so we used nouns, but you could actually categorize those nouns in very specific ways. Abstract nouns, and let's see, nouns relating to people and so on. I just talked about nouns related to animals, but I think that you want to be proactive about the way that you categorize them. So take it a little beyond that. And then also one other thing that I would change is I would recommend creating a toolbox of the most frequently used nouns. So not just recording

the things that you have the most trouble with, although that is important, but also going and studying English frequency lists and seeing if you can come up with a toolbox of a bunch of synonyms for the most frequently used nouns, like thing and life and people and day and night, things like that, that we don't realize we're actually saying all the time. So if you can create, you know, a toolbox of synonyms for those, that's actually a big win because it exercises your mind in finding different ways to say things that you say all the time. And then when you have trouble saying or when you want to say something that is a little more elusive, you're already in the habit of finding interesting synonyms so you can find

different ways to say all sorts of things. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Leslie asked in an email, Sometimes I have trouble remembering a word I want to use in daily conversation. It's usually a noun. Is there a memory device for this? Well, Leslie, the first step to dealing with a problem like this, which I'm sure all of us have, is just acknowledging that it's there and then thinking about it.

And that's what you've already done, of course. You know the problem and you've identified, to some extent, exactly what the problem is. You seem to have more trouble with nouns than other words. I've heard the same thing from other people who have trouble remembering words at times. And I'm sure we all do have trouble remembering nouns. We'll say, go pick up the thing, you know. We don't forget pick up, but we forget what to call the thing, whatever it is. So my first step for you is just to start by being even more proactive about this.

And every time you have trouble remembering a noun, document it somehow or try to categorize these things that you have trouble with. Let's say that it's names that you have particular trouble with. You can, you know, remember who it is that you're talking about and you can remember their face, but for some reason their name escapes you. And it's easy for that to, you know, that happens all the time to a lot of us. You know, sometimes I'll even forget the name of somebody that I know pretty well, just all of a sudden. And it helps to use the type of mnemonics that I talk about in episode two as far as remembering names and faces. But if it's not names, you'll have to identify what it is that you have particular trouble with and start documenting that and organizing it so that you

have resources to pull from once you've created a memory palace or some sort of mnemonics for these words. Let's say that you discover that 30% of the time you can't remember a noun, it's actually an animal that you can't think of. You know it's that little furry thing, but for some reason you can't think of the word cat. Be proactive and create a device that will help you remember everything that you might have to say in that instance you can't remember what it is you're trying to say. you can't find that noun, categorize those nouns, write them all down, and memorize that list of nouns so that you can go through the list when you need to find the noun. Essentially, you're putting together a toolbox of nouns to pull from.

So maybe 30% of the time you can't remember a noun, it's an animal. And 80% of the animals you want to be able to remember are either cats, echidnas, parrots, or lemurs. Okay, maybe that's a little absurd, but I'm just trying to come up with something that'll work. What you're going to do is you're going to create this toolbox of animals by giving them their own memory palace. So if you ever have to think of an animal and you space out, just think of the right room in the memory palace and use that to help you recall the name of the animal. If you want to remember those four animals names, you could use a four location memory palace in, let's say, your local park. Place each animal in a different location in that park. So maybe on the park bench, imagine there's a cat sitting on top of a hat. And then

on a clubhouse or something in the park, there's a parrot chewing on a carrot that's sticking out of a hole in the clubhouse. At another place in that memory palace, there's an echidna sitting on a kid's lap. And then in a tree nearby, there's a lemur sucking on a lime. So you've created a really quick memory palace of nouns that you have particular trouble with. So if you ever have to think of an animal's name, just picture where that animal is in that memory palace. And then you have a trigger like the hat or the carrot that rhymes with or will somehow, you know, be a trigger for the animal's name. So again, identify exactly what words you have the most trouble with and start there,

creating memory palaces that will help you remember those nouns if you ever get stuck. It's a lot easier to search through a memory palace than to grasp blindly in the air and try to remember a noun that you can't think of. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll be able to respond quickly to your message from wherever I am. I just won't be able to record an episode on that topic until I'm back in the States

in May. Meanwhile, if you want to support the show, please check out our Spanish course at masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com.