Spaced Learning: How To Memorize Vocabulary You’ll Remember Forever
Let's take a moment to acknowledge the obvious: learning the first 1000 words in another language takes far too long.
Memorizing these initial 1000 words is like applying the "eating the frog" analogy (1) to language learning. The bad news is that you have to "eat" it. The good news is that it's the worst (read: most boring) thing that will ever happen to you on your journey to fluency. Once you've accomplished it, you'll be able to acquire vocabulary naturally through incidental learning.
Pierce Howard, the author of "The Owner's Manual for the Brain," explains that to fully learn something, we must be able to use it repeatedly and independently. This principle also applies to language learning. However, before you can use foreign language words repeatedly and independently - such as when reading your favorite novel in Spanish, listening to an energizing podcast in French, or chatting with a perfect stranger in Italian - you must first go through the ordeal of memorizing your initial vocabulary.
In the previous post, I explained which words you should focus on to reach basic proficiency level as quickly as possible. In this article, you will learn the most efficient way to memorize this vocabulary: spaced repetition Spaced learning.
101: Introduction
In 1885, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus came up with the most frustrating line ever drawn in the history of humankind: the forgetting curve.
The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve in all its splendour.
According to his calculations, 60% of what we learn quickly fades out from our memory within the first few days. And this is why you can’t recall a good half of the vocabulary you learned just yesterday. It would be great to overcome this natural limitation, wouldn’t it?
In 1932, British psychologist C. A. Mace modestly suggested in his book "The Psychology of Study" that repetitive study over intervals of 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 8 days, and so on would result in more robust learning. This method, called spaced learning (or spaced repetition), was born.
As various psychologists and cognitive researchers tackled the problem, the method evolved. However, the core principle remained the same: in order to memorize something long-term, you need to systematically refresh it in your memory over time. Spacing intervals ensure efficiency and allow you to focus your efforts on reviewing the information that is just about to slip your mind.
Spaced repetition is a highly effective method for memorizing and remembering large quantities of information such as facts, dates, names, and, of course, vocabulary.
It allows you to distribute your efforts over time and learn a multitude of foreign words without reaching the point of burnout on any given day. Additionally, correctly spaced recall sessions prevent your brain from disposing of "not-in-use" vocabulary to a brain dumpster, as you systematically reactivate every word.
As a result, you can achieve a nice balance between learning new vocabulary and not forgetting words already mastered.
Hacking memory with spaced learning
Spaced learning is a way to "study smarter, not harder" by exploiting the brain's multiple quirks to upgrade its capacity to encode and retain information. There are three major reasons why this method is brain-friendly.
Firstly, the spacing effect shows that studying over a week with shorter spaced learning sessions leads to better retention than a single-session mass repetition. According to Pierce Howard in "The Owner's Manual for the Brain", people remember more when they study and review more. A linguistic study revealed that students who took five courses of Spanish still remember 60% of vocabulary even after 25 years, while those who took just one hardly remember anything. The bouncing from forgetting to recalling strengthens neuron connections and makes memory trace more durable, leading to long-term retention.
Secondly, retrieval effort is crucial in spaced repetition. The more time that lapses between each spaced repetition session, the more effortful the recall will be. Painful recall sessions force the brain to reassess the importance of each vocabulary word and lead to deeper semantic processing. (2) This process helps the brain find more associations with a word, making it easier to recall it in the future.
Lastly, retrieval success is a significant factor in spaced repetition. Once a word is successfully recalled for the first time, people have no problem recalling it again and again. The brain seems to remember the successful retrieval and use it as another cue for recall.
Spacing enhances learning and memory, which is a proven scientific fact. However, determining the best spacing intervals for long-term retention is a whole other question.
Selecting the most effective spaced learning interval
In 1978, two researchers from UCLA conducted the first spaced learning training for a group of psychology students from the University of Illinois (3), which explored the effectiveness of different spacing intervals and yielded intriguing results.
There are two major methods for spacing vocabulary learning sessions, each with a unique effect on memory: uniform intervals and expanding intervals.
Uniform VS expanding spacing intervals
The example of spaced learning with uniform intervals would be to review your old Spanish vocabulary every 5 days, regardless of how many times you have already done so.
On the other hand, with expanding intervals, you would allow 1 day between the 1st and 2nd sessions, 3 days between the 2nd and 3rd, 5 days between the 3rd and 4th, and so on.
Both strategies are more effective than mass learning, but that is where the similarity ends. Uniform intervals work best with repetition-type sessions and promote long-term retention. Expanding intervals, on the other hand, work well with test-type sessions and are better for short-term retention.
Theoretically, uniform spaced learning is how you can memorize vocabulary words that you will remember forever. Expanding spaced learning, on the other hand, works best when you are preparing for a language proficiency test and want to cover as much "must-have TOEFL vocabulary" as possible. Since half of the test-specific words will be completely useless once you have completed the test, it is fine to let them transform into passive vocabulary.
Deadline matters
As a general rule, the optimal selection of spaced learning intervals depends on how long you want to remember your vocabulary. (4)
The further away your deadline (for example, a language proficiency test), the more time you should allow before the first review session. So if your test is a month away, schedule your first repetition session in a week. If you have just one week to prepare, review your vocabulary one or two days after you learned it.
I recommend going through at least three recalls before the test.
I recommend going through at least three recall sessions before the test. However, the spacing of these intermediate learning sessions doesn’t seem to affect your brain’s capacity to store foreign language vocabulary to a large extent. As long as you allow enough time between each session, your brain won’t have any problem memorizing new vocabulary. (5)
If you're wondering how to memorize vocabulary using spaced learning, this should give you a great deal of relief. The deadline is the only thing you need to set up your own SRS (spaced repetition system).
Using SRS (spaced repetition system) to memorize vocabulary
SRS is a system that determines the intervals after which you have to review vocabulary. There are two approaches to that: analog and digital. The very first spaced repetition system was fully analog. Created by German science journalist Sebastian Leitner, the Leitner System used five boxes with flashcards. Initially, you put all flashcards in box #1. If you successfully recalled information from a flashcard, it moved to the next box. If not, it remained in the first one. All boxes had different sizes, so you reviewed the content of each box only once it got full. If you failed to recall the flashcard from any of the boxes, you sent it back to square one.
However, I wouldn't create 1000 flashcards to memorize vocabulary. Just on principle. Because I'm lazy. I use flashcards for something else: internalizing rules of grammar and memorizing principles of cognate formation. There is no digital shortcut to understanding the mechanics of language, so my hand-made analog SRS remains the only solution.
Most spaced repetition systems for vocabulary learning have turned digital. Instead of boxes that govern the repetition cycle, we now have fully automated scheduling algorithms. Nowadays, every vocabulary learning app uses SRS, some better than others.
The beauty of a digital SRS is that you don't have to scrutinize your spacing schedule to achieve optimal performance. It has already been done for you by the developers of your language learning software. You can't go wrong using the top software like Memrise, Duolingo, and Pimsleur. However, in this case, you're giving up a great deal of control over what words you learn and how often you review them.
To tailor your SRS to your own needs, you can choose to use open-source platforms such as Anki and Mnemosyne. They can be a great way to learn target vocabulary, provided you put enough time into creating personalized flashcards.
It's worth noting, though, that both Anki and Mnemosyne are based on SM-2, which is a scheduling algorithm created by Piotr Wozniak and his team. Leaving a working algorithm in the open may seem like an act of goodwill, but these guys have had something better: SuperMemo, a winning SRS learning platform. And currently, SuperMemo itself runs on SM-18, a fine-tuned version released in early 2019.
By now, SuperMemo has one of the most accurate spaced learning algorithms based on years of trials and memory research. They don’t offer 1000+ language courses like Duolingo, but there is a 95% chance that you’d find one for your target language. Unless you’re learning Inuktitut, of course. In that case, Anki it is.
A proven way to find the optimal spaced repetition system to memorize vocabulary is to explore different options and test how well they work in your case. Take your time to find the best fit and you will save yourself kilowatts of mental energy, months of time and hundreds of dollars.
Mark Twain once remarked that “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” This idea of dealing with the hardest thing first is better known to fans of Brian Tracy (thanks to his legendary anti-procrastination guide “Eat That Frog“).
M.A. Pyc, K.A. Rawson. Testing the Retrieval Effort Hypothesis: Does greater difficulty correctly recalling information lead to higher levels of memory? Journal of Memory and Language, 60 (2009), pp. 437-447
Landauer, T. K., & Bjork, R. A. (1978). Optimum rehearsal patterns and name learning.
Cepeda, Nicholas & Vul, Edward & Rohrer, Doug & Wixted, John & Pashler, Harold. (2008). Spacing Effects in Learning A Temporal Ridgeline of Optimal Retention.
Karpicke, J., & Bauernschmidt, A. (2011). Spaced retrieval: Absolute spacing enhances learning regardless of relative spacing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(5), 1250–1257.)
