Forgetting Languages
Forgetting a foreign language is a problem that usually comes to the learner in one of two ways.
If you are still learning the language, you may find that you forget a lot of what you have learned before and have to end up studying it again. For example, you may come across a word a few times and despite looking up its meaning in a dictionary each time, you forget it again and again.
The second way usually happens after a language learner has stopped learning the language or has reached a point they are happy with and decide to take a break for a while. After some time of not having studying or having any contact with the language, you may find that you have forgotten a lot of words and grammar.
So, how can we correct this so that we do not forget the language that we have spent so much time to learn?
In the first case, if you are forgetting a lot of vocabulary, you may be using an incorrect system to learn the words. If you are learning words by simply looking them up and doing nothing further, you should really try an organized system. An organized systematic approach to learning the vocabulary you come across will insure that you don’t forget the words and end up having to waste more time relearning them. The best process for this is out of the scope of this article but I go into detail about how to study vocabulary the best way in my book which you can learn more about below. For now, I’ll say that you should have some way of getting repeated exposure to the vocabulary at certain time intervals to insure that you don’t just see the word once and then not again for a long while which will cause you to forget it.
In the second case, if you have already finished learning a language, you may wonder how you can keep yourself from forgetting it, especially if you don’t live in a country where it is spoken or use it at your job. The best way to keep yourself from forgetting the language in this case is to make sure you do something in the language every now and then to keep it fresh. Remember that even native speakers begin to forget their native languages if they never have any exposure to it. Likewise you will soon forget a learned language if you don’t practice it. There are many ways you can upkeep your language that are enjoyable and don’t take much work. You might get a magazine subscription in something you’re interested in that is written in the foreign language. Or, you may try to find someone in your community who is a native speaker of the language and arranged a once-per-week get together to practice speaking. Or, you might pick up a book to read each month that is written in the foreign language. Like I said in the last case, there is also a very effective method to upkeep your language that is out of the scope of this article but I look at in detail in my book. So you may want to check the book out below.
Whatever the case may be though, it is important that you make some sort of effort to do anything in the language. Like any skill, it will begin to rot away if you do nothing. So, make sure you get out there and do something!
Now, if you want to insure that you never forget your language in the most efficient way and also want the fastest method to learn a language so that you will become fluent in a foreign language in a matter of months, learn thousands of words without worrying about forgetting them, master grammar and do all of this in an enjoyable, painless manner then you need to read Learn That Language Now!