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by pritovido 2065 days ago
I thought I had bad recall, but the fact is that I did not know about the memory.

I have trained people in my environment and they have improved enormously.

It is a very good idea that you read a book about mnemonics, and all the techniques, things like exaggerating pictures or places in your head, remembering faces, what a neural connection is and so on, and start applying it.

My upper limit (in anki) is over 400 new words in a different language (like chinese or japanese) per day with extreme exhaustion, not doing anything the entire day but memorizing. This is the equivalent of running a marathon for me on the mental field(I have done real marathons too).

My lower limit is learning 40-50 new words per day. It takes 1 hour,more than a minute per word and no significant effort, I do this as daily routine with now consequences for my work.

Over time, learning new languages become easier and easier.

The world opens a lot when you can go to places like China or Japan and at least you understand what the symbols on the street or the people say. You get a much deeper knowledge about things.

Anki is one of the most amazing things ever invented.

2 comments

Yeah, 40 new words / day is very manageable. I used my own word lists instead of Anki, but same concept. 1000 words is enough for basic interactions (1 month) and 3000 words is generally good enough for conversation that doesn't get into the vocabulary long tail (just 3 months!) In an immersion context + some grammar textbook, it makes language learning much faster than is generally assumed.

Most people that feel they need a language class, but those are terrible for learning vocabulary. Vocab learning is best done solo.

> It is a very good idea that you read a book about mnemonics

Do you have any particular books in mind? Thanks!

Books by Harry Lorayne: The Memory Book is one of them. Another is How to Develop a Super Power Memory.