Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

by Gabriel Wyner

To play the Memory game, you’ll spend a few seconds looking for any memory about your word that comes to mind. It could be your childhood cat or your friend’s T-shirt. Try to keep the new word in mind rather than the translation. You’ll make some weird English-French hybrid sentence like “The last time I saw my grand-mère (grandmother) was last weekend.” Don’t worry about the lack of French grammar; no one can hear you. As you make your flash cards, you’ll write down a little reminder of this memory—the city you were in last weekend, the name of a friend you were with, and so on. Later, when you review your flash cards, you’ll play the same game. You’ll see a cat, scan your memory for anything that connects, and if you get stumped, you’ll find a helpful reminder on the back of your flash card. These connections aren’t your main focus—you want to see a cat and think chat—but they can make your job easier, by making your chats and grand-mères more relevant to your own life and therefore much more memorable.