Memory
In your native language, your brain recognises – and endows
with meaning – any conceivable subset of 50,000+ words within
fractions of a second. That is in stark contrast to what you will
experience with subsequent languages where initially nothing
ever happens in milliseconds. Imagine that, during your first trip
to Paris, a friendly local takes you on a two-hour stroll from
Notre Dame to the Louvre, then northwards up to the Sacrรฉ-
Coeur, and, finally, down to Pigalle. If I put you back at Notre
Dame a few months later, you would probably find your way to
Pigalle alone, recalling places, streets, crossroads, shops, and
buildings. It is hard to believe that this wealth of information is
approximately equivalent to learning 20 miserable words. Why
does it take adults so long to learn languages while young
children seem to do so whilst playing, laughing and having a
great time? Do we all, shortly after infancy, suffer a subtle form
of partial Alzheimer’s disease? Or are adult brains tuned to find
their way in urban jungles rather than in word jungles?
Let’s take a glass. Imagine that I put my finger on it and ask you
what it is. You would answer ‘glass’, instantly, without
hesitating. The word pours out of your mouth as water pours out
of a spring. It does so because ‘glass’ is woven into your brain in
many different ways: you have a mental image of a glass; you have a memory trace for the spoken word; you have a memory
trace for the written word; you know that the word has 5 letters,
that it starts with a g and ends with an s; you have a motor recipe
for pronouncing the word; and, on demand, you can recall
hundreds of memories associated with the word – glasses raised
to celebrate births, marriages, and anniversaries, or a glass
smashed against a wall. ‘Glass’ is embedded in a dense web of
events and things in time and space. Figure 6.1 shows one such
web. Any single of your 50,000+ native words is intertwined in
multiple locations of your brain, floating in a sea of meanings,
facts, and emotions. As soon as you wake up in the morning, all
brain words go into stand-by mode, waiting to jump into
consciousness as soon as their equivalents – written or spoken
words – enter the brain via your eyes or ears. Grown over
decades, this vast network of word webs is the most precious
asset of your life. To manage word webs – and other tasks, of course – your brain
relies on complex and compact machinery. First, it contains
around 100 (1011) billion neurones, which are the main
information-processing cells. Second, these neurones are
connected to neurones either in the vicinity or far away. In
young adults, the long distance fibre tracts total around
176,000 km in length – that is roughly half way to the moon.
Third, each of the 1011 neurones is linked to other neurones by
up to 10,000 so-called synapses. These are highly specialised
interfaces where information is passed from axons – slim
extensions that carry the electric signals generated by the
neurones – to dendrites, which are highly branched tree-like
structures that receive the signals originated in other neurones The resulting picture is majestic: one billion synaptic
connections in a single cubic millimetre of specialised brain tissue, up to 1000 trillion (1015) in a human brain. One thousand
TeraSynapses – that is the number of stars in ten thousand Milky
Ways.
Yet the most surprising detail is still to come: synapses are not
carved in stone. They come and go as their support, so-called
dendritic spines, appear and disappear. These spines are tiny
protrusions from a neurone’s dendrite. If you teach a mouse to
reach out with its forelimb to a single seed, dendritic spines form
as rapidly as within one hour. Most of these new spines will
regress again, but some are preserved and stabilised during
subsequent training. The resulting change in circuitry is most
likely the anatomical substrate for long-term memory storage.
The resulting plasticity of the brain can even be observed
macroscopically, for example in London, taxi drivers from pre-
GPS times who developed a hypertrophy of the brain region that
is involved in spatial orientation, or in violin players who have
an enlargement of the left hand representation in the
sensorimotor cortex.
The rate of spine erosion is astonishing. Most newly formed
spines vanish within days, and only a fraction persists for
months. Using 20 percent of all the oxygen you breathe, your
brain is constantly sorting out newly received information,
enforcing what is important and discarding what is irrelevant.
The extent of the deconstruction going on in your brain was
nicely shown by 19th century experiments that measured the
time of learning – and subsequent forgetting – of chains of 2,300
nonsense consonant-vowel-consonant syllables such as KOJ, BOK,
and YAT. The results were sobering. After 24 hours, 70 percent
was gone (Figure 6.3). Happily, you will learn meaningful word
pairs rather than nonsense syllables, for example, agua–water,
vino–wine, queso–chesse, and should therefore obtain better
results after 24 hours. However, at Day 31, you might not
perform much better than the memory pioneers more than 100 years ago. Brain physiology isn’t prone to instant word learning.
In word jungles, progress is slow.
In order to protect young spines from erosion, schedule
multiple training sessions. You will note that, before getting
fixed into lifelong memory, words pass subsequent degrees of
knowing. At the weakest stage, you don’t even remember that you
have seen a word; however, you would recognise it when
presented in a list of words. Later, you would say that you once
knew a word, but cannot remember it. At a subsequent stage, a
word would be on the tip of your tongue, yet decline to come
out. Finally, you remember it, first after seconds and then
milliseconds. For our immediate purposes, we will define knowing a word as
successful recall after one month of non-exposure. Only occasional
words will get there after the first encounter. The vast majority – alas! – will have to be subjected to the long process of multiple
rehearsals through reading, hearing, or conscious repetitions.
Never forget: baby memory traces are volatile. Imagine your
word brain as a castle protected by high walls and ruled by the
lord of the castle, who has issued unambiguous instructions to
the sentries at the gate: no entry without multiple petitions and
repetitions! Memory’s suspicious gatekeepers want convincing
evidence that a word deserves residence in lifelong memory. Be
prepared to come back as many as 5, 10, or even 20 times, to
plead the cause for every single word. Take comfort from the
idea that subsequent learning rounds require less time and
produce better results, allowing the learning sessions to be
spaced out. If you meet a word for the first time on Day 0, repeat
it on Day 1, 3, 6, 10, 17, and 31.illustrates these ‘spaced repetitions’ and where they
will take you. Be prepared that the sum of all the repetitions may
total around 4 to 6 minutes per word.
We realise that the word learning is hopelessly inadequate to
describe what you are going to do. First, learning does not reflect
the subsequent degrees of knowing. Second, learning implicitly
suggests forgetting. How many things did we once know and
have since forgotten? What is fine for physics and higher
mathematics, most of which is irrelevant in ordinary life, is
intolerable for languages where you need every bit of
information for the rest of your life. I am therefore reluctant to
tell you that you learn words when, in fact, I mean that you need
to store them in your word brain in a fairly definitive way. You
must etch new words and carve and pound and burn and nail
them. The alternative for learning should express that a word will
stay in your brain for decades: it may corrode and slowly become
weaker, but it will nonetheless resist and surrender only to
arteriosclerosis. Let’s abandon learning, which is too cushy, and
adopt something more physical. Let’s say nailing. The definition
of nailing includes the three steps of learning, repeating and
controlling.
How to nail words is an individual affair. If speed is critical, rely
on the tens of thousands of webs that are already firmly
anchored in your word brain (Figure 6.1). All you need to do is to
add two pieces of information to an existing word web: first, how
you write a new word and, second, how to pronounce it;
everything else – knowledge about the word in your native
language and associated memories – is already in place. In
practise, you will have to dress a two-column list, putting your
new and your native language face to face (see an example in
Table 6.1). Word lists are not perfect – German Brot is different
from French pain, it looks different, it smells different, and it
tastes better – but with 5,000 to 15,000 words to nail, you cannot
afford to lose time with subtleties. The pre-existing webs of your word brain are a unique support for nailing new words. Use
them. If your teacher tells you that you can do without word
lists, fire her.
Table 6.1 Example of a word list for Germans wanting to nail Italian
words
Italian German
amare lieben
la pace der Frieden
odiare hassen
la corruzione die Korruption
la morte der Tod
il cavaliere der Reiter
la gioia die Freude
la gente die Leute
* * *
The nailing curve in Figure 6.4 is an approximation, because
memory performance varies between individuals. Every human
brain is as unique as a human face, and differences in brain
structure due to genetic variation, intrauterine conditions
(exposure to tobacco, drugs, and alcohol), or environmental
factors after birth, can affect learning abilities. Fortunately, most
people with a comparable educational background show
differences in memory efficiency that usually vary from the
simple to the double. If your memory is better than mine, it
might only take you 30 minutes to nail what I could do in an
hour. Does that mean that there are differences in talent?
Probably yes, like in other domains. Are these differences
prohibitive? Certainly not! Instead of comparing yourself to other people, focus on
yourself. With thousands of words in the waiting loop, you
certainly wonder if there are ways to improve your memory
performance. Putting it bluntly, the margins of manoeuvrability
are narrow. As a central function of sleep is to consolidate newly
acquired memories for long-term storage, chronic excellent
sleep is probably a good memory enhancer. Physical activity
such as running also appears to improve learning, at least in
mice. Even alcohol, if ingested in moderate dosages, improves
memory in rats. Let’s await further research before making
recommendations on the subject.
Far more promising are measures directed at avoiding adverse
circumstances and protecting the gradual build-up of billions of
spines and synapses. One such circumstance is higher age. The
younger you are, the easier new languages flow into your brain
so that the teens and twenties are clearly the most suitable
moments in life. After years of formal education, the native
language is consolidated and young people realise that discipline
helps to acquire new skills. So if you are under 30 and dream
about learning another language, do it now! Never again will the
conditions be so favourable.
Later in life, job and family reduce available study time.
Stupidly, memory performance declines too, first imperceptibly,
and after 50, undeniably. Now, words need more frequent
repetitions to crawl into lifelong memory. In addition,
multitasking abilities decrease, leaving little space for silent
rehearsing of new words while simultaneously following an
ongoing conversation. At some moment in life, memory
impairment is such that the goals we defined earlier – reading
essays or newspapers, understanding TV documentaries, and
following day-to-day conversation – are beyond reach.
You avoid high dosages of drugs and alcohol. Building up
valuable spines during sweaty days just to blow them out of your
brain during vaporous nights is not what you want to do. Acute alcohol intoxication (‘black-out’) is fatal for memory, not to
mention chronic abuse (‘alcohol dementia’). Even episodes of
heavy drinking such as a bottle of wine impair memory
performance during the hangover period.
Alcohol, though, is a minor problem compared to a more
widespread abuse: distraction. If you repeatedly subtract a
single-digit number from a larger number directly after one of
your nailing sessions, you will see that your memory is impaired
for the 3 to 5 most recently nailed words. Certain episodes of life
are therefore inherently incompatible with robust learning:
death of relatives and friends, illness or hypochondrial fears,
separation or divorce, job loss or financial disaster. Yet even
more dangerous, because it occurs more frequently, is seemingly
innocuous distraction, for example extended surfing tours on
the internet. Opening social network accounts, reading
incoherent information from disparate sources, writing short
messages, participating in nonsense quizzes, listening
simultaneously to music, downloading videos or doing whatever
else you can imagine – such acrobatic multitasking is heavy stuff
for delicate infant spines. Is excessive networking inappropriate
for the gentle formation of lasting memory traces? Do precious
bits of memory get lost in the cold spaces of the endlessly
anonymous Internet? Future studies might show that
participation in ‘social’ networks is inversely correlated with
success at school and university.
For a brief discussion of psychostimulant drugs, see the
Appendix on page 79.
Let us return to the initial question. Why does it take adults so
much longer than young children to learn new words? We will
never be able to answer this question because stating that
‘children learn languages faster than adults’ is wrong. If 18-year
old young adults know 30,000 to 50,000 words, where did they
get them from? Walking in the open air, listening to birds and enjoying the dance of butterflies? No, they did so at school, from
early in the morning until the afternoon, 9 months a year, 12
years in a row. Even if education at school and university is
about facts and concepts, word learning is a huge burden of
formal education. Remember those failed oral examinations
because the words were on the tip of your tongue but wouldn’t
proceed any further. Part of your failure? Insufficient word
training. You would not become a physician, a philosopher, or an
engineer without acquiring thousands of new words. How many
words did I learn at medical school? Anatomy, physiology, and
biochemistry alone were good for a few thousands, and the total
word count may well have been in excess of 10,000. Word brains
fashion our career.
Young children are language machines because they have time.
Italian is exhilaratingly concise when it translates this idea into
‘Non hanno un cazzo da fare!!’, saying, in essence, that children
have pretty few things to care about except listening and talking.
If we, adults, add time to our language-learning recipe, children
immediately lose their head start. Adults possess vast brain webs
of meanings, fact, and events. What’s more, we are capable of
focused working for 4, 6, or 8 hours a day and are terrifyingly
effective when we do so. In comparison, young children stand no
chance of competing. In other words: start a four-year language
training course today, and in four years, I expect you to have
language skills that are clearly superior to those of a 6-year-old
child.
Let’s summarise:
1. Motivated adults learn languages faster than young
children.
2. Exploit the word webs in your brain and nail words with
bilingual lists. Learn new words on day 0 and repeat them on
day 1, 3, 6, 10, 17, and 31.
3. After your nailing sessions, relax and don’t engage in
multitasking activities.
4. Avoid excessive drinking or taking drugs.
5. Avoid brain doping.
Teach your children and grandchildren the following motto,
by Eric Kandel, Nobel Laureate: ‘Studying well is, without a
doubt, the best cognitive enhancer for those capable of
learning’ (Kandel 2007).
You are now ready to proceed to the last chapter. Nailing is
about strategies to cope with the huge number of words you
have to burn into your brain. You are at the beginning of your
private Via Dolorosa. Hoping for a miracle, a golden avenue, or a
royal highway? Sorry, but you won’t find any of these. However,
some pieces of advice will make the route less thorny and
painful. Let’s go for it!
TheWordBrain2015
In your native language, your brain recognises – and endows
with meaning – any conceivable subset of 50,000+ words within
fractions of a second. That is in stark contrast to what you will
experience with subsequent languages where initially nothing
ever happens in milliseconds. Imagine that, during your first trip
to Paris, a friendly local takes you on a two-hour stroll from
Notre Dame to the Louvre, then northwards up to the Sacrรฉ-
Coeur, and, finally, down to Pigalle. If I put you back at Notre
Dame a few months later, you would probably find your way to
Pigalle alone, recalling places, streets, crossroads, shops, and
buildings. It is hard to believe that this wealth of information is
approximately equivalent to learning 20 miserable words. Why
does it take adults so long to learn languages while young
children seem to do so whilst playing, laughing and having a
great time? Do we all, shortly after infancy, suffer a subtle form
of partial Alzheimer’s disease? Or are adult brains tuned to find
their way in urban jungles rather than in word jungles?
Let’s take a glass. Imagine that I put my finger on it and ask you
what it is. You would answer ‘glass’, instantly, without
hesitating. The word pours out of your mouth as water pours out
of a spring. It does so because ‘glass’ is woven into your brain in
many different ways: you have a mental image of a glass; you have a memory trace for the spoken word; you have a memory
trace for the written word; you know that the word has 5 letters,
that it starts with a g and ends with an s; you have a motor recipe
for pronouncing the word; and, on demand, you can recall
hundreds of memories associated with the word – glasses raised
to celebrate births, marriages, and anniversaries, or a glass
smashed against a wall. ‘Glass’ is embedded in a dense web of
events and things in time and space. Figure 6.1 shows one such
web. Any single of your 50,000+ native words is intertwined in
multiple locations of your brain, floating in a sea of meanings,
facts, and emotions. As soon as you wake up in the morning, all
brain words go into stand-by mode, waiting to jump into
consciousness as soon as their equivalents – written or spoken
words – enter the brain via your eyes or ears. Grown over
decades, this vast network of word webs is the most precious
asset of your life. To manage word webs – and other tasks, of course – your brain
relies on complex and compact machinery. First, it contains
around 100 (1011) billion neurones, which are the main
information-processing cells. Second, these neurones are
connected to neurones either in the vicinity or far away. In
young adults, the long distance fibre tracts total around
176,000 km in length – that is roughly half way to the moon.
Third, each of the 1011 neurones is linked to other neurones by
up to 10,000 so-called synapses. These are highly specialised
interfaces where information is passed from axons – slim
extensions that carry the electric signals generated by the
neurones – to dendrites, which are highly branched tree-like
structures that receive the signals originated in other neurones The resulting picture is majestic: one billion synaptic
connections in a single cubic millimetre of specialised brain tissue, up to 1000 trillion (1015) in a human brain. One thousand
TeraSynapses – that is the number of stars in ten thousand Milky
Ways.
Yet the most surprising detail is still to come: synapses are not
carved in stone. They come and go as their support, so-called
dendritic spines, appear and disappear. These spines are tiny
protrusions from a neurone’s dendrite. If you teach a mouse to
reach out with its forelimb to a single seed, dendritic spines form
as rapidly as within one hour. Most of these new spines will
regress again, but some are preserved and stabilised during
subsequent training. The resulting change in circuitry is most
likely the anatomical substrate for long-term memory storage.
The resulting plasticity of the brain can even be observed
macroscopically, for example in London, taxi drivers from pre-
GPS times who developed a hypertrophy of the brain region that
is involved in spatial orientation, or in violin players who have
an enlargement of the left hand representation in the
sensorimotor cortex.
The rate of spine erosion is astonishing. Most newly formed
spines vanish within days, and only a fraction persists for
months. Using 20 percent of all the oxygen you breathe, your
brain is constantly sorting out newly received information,
enforcing what is important and discarding what is irrelevant.
The extent of the deconstruction going on in your brain was
nicely shown by 19th century experiments that measured the
time of learning – and subsequent forgetting – of chains of 2,300
nonsense consonant-vowel-consonant syllables such as KOJ, BOK,
and YAT. The results were sobering. After 24 hours, 70 percent
was gone (Figure 6.3). Happily, you will learn meaningful word
pairs rather than nonsense syllables, for example, agua–water,
vino–wine, queso–chesse, and should therefore obtain better
results after 24 hours. However, at Day 31, you might not
perform much better than the memory pioneers more than 100 years ago. Brain physiology isn’t prone to instant word learning.
In word jungles, progress is slow.
In order to protect young spines from erosion, schedule
multiple training sessions. You will note that, before getting
fixed into lifelong memory, words pass subsequent degrees of
knowing. At the weakest stage, you don’t even remember that you
have seen a word; however, you would recognise it when
presented in a list of words. Later, you would say that you once
knew a word, but cannot remember it. At a subsequent stage, a
word would be on the tip of your tongue, yet decline to come
out. Finally, you remember it, first after seconds and then
milliseconds. For our immediate purposes, we will define knowing a word as
successful recall after one month of non-exposure. Only occasional
words will get there after the first encounter. The vast majority – alas! – will have to be subjected to the long process of multiple
rehearsals through reading, hearing, or conscious repetitions.
Never forget: baby memory traces are volatile. Imagine your
word brain as a castle protected by high walls and ruled by the
lord of the castle, who has issued unambiguous instructions to
the sentries at the gate: no entry without multiple petitions and
repetitions! Memory’s suspicious gatekeepers want convincing
evidence that a word deserves residence in lifelong memory. Be
prepared to come back as many as 5, 10, or even 20 times, to
plead the cause for every single word. Take comfort from the
idea that subsequent learning rounds require less time and
produce better results, allowing the learning sessions to be
spaced out. If you meet a word for the first time on Day 0, repeat
it on Day 1, 3, 6, 10, 17, and 31.illustrates these ‘spaced repetitions’ and where they
will take you. Be prepared that the sum of all the repetitions may
total around 4 to 6 minutes per word.
We realise that the word learning is hopelessly inadequate to
describe what you are going to do. First, learning does not reflect
the subsequent degrees of knowing. Second, learning implicitly
suggests forgetting. How many things did we once know and
have since forgotten? What is fine for physics and higher
mathematics, most of which is irrelevant in ordinary life, is
intolerable for languages where you need every bit of
information for the rest of your life. I am therefore reluctant to
tell you that you learn words when, in fact, I mean that you need
to store them in your word brain in a fairly definitive way. You
must etch new words and carve and pound and burn and nail
them. The alternative for learning should express that a word will
stay in your brain for decades: it may corrode and slowly become
weaker, but it will nonetheless resist and surrender only to
arteriosclerosis. Let’s abandon learning, which is too cushy, and
adopt something more physical. Let’s say nailing. The definition
of nailing includes the three steps of learning, repeating and
controlling.
How to nail words is an individual affair. If speed is critical, rely
on the tens of thousands of webs that are already firmly
anchored in your word brain (Figure 6.1). All you need to do is to
add two pieces of information to an existing word web: first, how
you write a new word and, second, how to pronounce it;
everything else – knowledge about the word in your native
language and associated memories – is already in place. In
practise, you will have to dress a two-column list, putting your
new and your native language face to face (see an example in
Table 6.1). Word lists are not perfect – German Brot is different
from French pain, it looks different, it smells different, and it
tastes better – but with 5,000 to 15,000 words to nail, you cannot
afford to lose time with subtleties. The pre-existing webs of your word brain are a unique support for nailing new words. Use
them. If your teacher tells you that you can do without word
lists, fire her.
Table 6.1 Example of a word list for Germans wanting to nail Italian
words
Italian German
amare lieben
la pace der Frieden
odiare hassen
la corruzione die Korruption
la morte der Tod
il cavaliere der Reiter
la gioia die Freude
la gente die Leute
* * *
The nailing curve in Figure 6.4 is an approximation, because
memory performance varies between individuals. Every human
brain is as unique as a human face, and differences in brain
structure due to genetic variation, intrauterine conditions
(exposure to tobacco, drugs, and alcohol), or environmental
factors after birth, can affect learning abilities. Fortunately, most
people with a comparable educational background show
differences in memory efficiency that usually vary from the
simple to the double. If your memory is better than mine, it
might only take you 30 minutes to nail what I could do in an
hour. Does that mean that there are differences in talent?
Probably yes, like in other domains. Are these differences
prohibitive? Certainly not! Instead of comparing yourself to other people, focus on
yourself. With thousands of words in the waiting loop, you
certainly wonder if there are ways to improve your memory
performance. Putting it bluntly, the margins of manoeuvrability
are narrow. As a central function of sleep is to consolidate newly
acquired memories for long-term storage, chronic excellent
sleep is probably a good memory enhancer. Physical activity
such as running also appears to improve learning, at least in
mice. Even alcohol, if ingested in moderate dosages, improves
memory in rats. Let’s await further research before making
recommendations on the subject.
Far more promising are measures directed at avoiding adverse
circumstances and protecting the gradual build-up of billions of
spines and synapses. One such circumstance is higher age. The
younger you are, the easier new languages flow into your brain
so that the teens and twenties are clearly the most suitable
moments in life. After years of formal education, the native
language is consolidated and young people realise that discipline
helps to acquire new skills. So if you are under 30 and dream
about learning another language, do it now! Never again will the
conditions be so favourable.
Later in life, job and family reduce available study time.
Stupidly, memory performance declines too, first imperceptibly,
and after 50, undeniably. Now, words need more frequent
repetitions to crawl into lifelong memory. In addition,
multitasking abilities decrease, leaving little space for silent
rehearsing of new words while simultaneously following an
ongoing conversation. At some moment in life, memory
impairment is such that the goals we defined earlier – reading
essays or newspapers, understanding TV documentaries, and
following day-to-day conversation – are beyond reach.
You avoid high dosages of drugs and alcohol. Building up
valuable spines during sweaty days just to blow them out of your
brain during vaporous nights is not what you want to do. Acute alcohol intoxication (‘black-out’) is fatal for memory, not to
mention chronic abuse (‘alcohol dementia’). Even episodes of
heavy drinking such as a bottle of wine impair memory
performance during the hangover period.
Alcohol, though, is a minor problem compared to a more
widespread abuse: distraction. If you repeatedly subtract a
single-digit number from a larger number directly after one of
your nailing sessions, you will see that your memory is impaired
for the 3 to 5 most recently nailed words. Certain episodes of life
are therefore inherently incompatible with robust learning:
death of relatives and friends, illness or hypochondrial fears,
separation or divorce, job loss or financial disaster. Yet even
more dangerous, because it occurs more frequently, is seemingly
innocuous distraction, for example extended surfing tours on
the internet. Opening social network accounts, reading
incoherent information from disparate sources, writing short
messages, participating in nonsense quizzes, listening
simultaneously to music, downloading videos or doing whatever
else you can imagine – such acrobatic multitasking is heavy stuff
for delicate infant spines. Is excessive networking inappropriate
for the gentle formation of lasting memory traces? Do precious
bits of memory get lost in the cold spaces of the endlessly
anonymous Internet? Future studies might show that
participation in ‘social’ networks is inversely correlated with
success at school and university.
For a brief discussion of psychostimulant drugs, see the
Appendix on page 79.
Let us return to the initial question. Why does it take adults so
much longer than young children to learn new words? We will
never be able to answer this question because stating that
‘children learn languages faster than adults’ is wrong. If 18-year
old young adults know 30,000 to 50,000 words, where did they
get them from? Walking in the open air, listening to birds and enjoying the dance of butterflies? No, they did so at school, from
early in the morning until the afternoon, 9 months a year, 12
years in a row. Even if education at school and university is
about facts and concepts, word learning is a huge burden of
formal education. Remember those failed oral examinations
because the words were on the tip of your tongue but wouldn’t
proceed any further. Part of your failure? Insufficient word
training. You would not become a physician, a philosopher, or an
engineer without acquiring thousands of new words. How many
words did I learn at medical school? Anatomy, physiology, and
biochemistry alone were good for a few thousands, and the total
word count may well have been in excess of 10,000. Word brains
fashion our career.
Young children are language machines because they have time.
Italian is exhilaratingly concise when it translates this idea into
‘Non hanno un cazzo da fare!!’, saying, in essence, that children
have pretty few things to care about except listening and talking.
If we, adults, add time to our language-learning recipe, children
immediately lose their head start. Adults possess vast brain webs
of meanings, fact, and events. What’s more, we are capable of
focused working for 4, 6, or 8 hours a day and are terrifyingly
effective when we do so. In comparison, young children stand no
chance of competing. In other words: start a four-year language
training course today, and in four years, I expect you to have
language skills that are clearly superior to those of a 6-year-old
child.
Let’s summarise:
1. Motivated adults learn languages faster than young
children.
2. Exploit the word webs in your brain and nail words with
bilingual lists. Learn new words on day 0 and repeat them on
day 1, 3, 6, 10, 17, and 31.
3. After your nailing sessions, relax and don’t engage in
multitasking activities.
4. Avoid excessive drinking or taking drugs.
5. Avoid brain doping.
Teach your children and grandchildren the following motto,
by Eric Kandel, Nobel Laureate: ‘Studying well is, without a
doubt, the best cognitive enhancer for those capable of
learning’ (Kandel 2007).
You are now ready to proceed to the last chapter. Nailing is
about strategies to cope with the huge number of words you
have to burn into your brain. You are at the beginning of your
private Via Dolorosa. Hoping for a miracle, a golden avenue, or a
royal highway? Sorry, but you won’t find any of these. However,
some pieces of advice will make the route less thorny and
painful. Let’s go for it!
TheWordBrain2015
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