How to Memorize Vocabulary Perfectly With Minimal Effort

Hey people, I’m back with another sweet video about how to remember everything you’ll ever learn with 100% recall. Sometimes my titles can be a bit exaggerated but here it’s very genuine - spaced repetition, when followed correctly, will genuinely force your brain to remember everything you learn with it in the least amount of time possible. It’s a pretty remarkable psychological finding that hasn’t gotten enough attention that it needs, and I think it’s worth talking about it in more detail, especially given the amount of time I spend talking about Anki on this show!
By the way, I know a bunch of my subscribers are non-native English speakers who are using my channel to learn English, so I've taken the trouble to add captions here -- let me know if you find this useful!
Thanks for visiting Ari in Beijing! I've honed my Mandarin Chinese to near native-level fluency through a variety of tips and tricks that I share with you each week. So whether you're studying Mandarin, Cantonese, English, another language, or are simply interested in language in general, please SUBSCRIBE and stick around for a while!
/ ariinbeijing

[@Doug.0305]

Learned 2 language n forgot them... Byelingual

[@LilRoxy97]

I feel you

[@cristiansilva3715]

Then you didnt acquire them mate

[@cristinamorar6926]

RIP

[@BosniannMuslim]

@@cristiansilva3715 how do you aquire

[@88marome]

I could speak Finnish fluently when I was a kid, now I don't remember any Finnish. I didn't acquire it? lmao!

[@ДержиОпыт]

That program really works. I started use it again after 4 years not studying anything. "Just use it in right way"

[@HelloThere-rv4gm]

This, is actually true. I'm learning Japanese. I'm currently still on Katakana though. I've found out that by after learning some letters, I tend to stop, and then over time I review them at least once a day, and I remember how to write them almost perfectly. I was actually worrying about this sort of thing. What if I couldn't memorize the letters and Kanji? And now that I have come across this strategy, it's going to help me a lot.

[@barshimeth4452]

It's been a year. How are things going with your learning now?

[@DataQuestLive]

3 years to late finding you.. my girlfriends mom is russian so Im starting to learn russian it helps a lot when yu have someone who you can talk with or like throw around words here and there

[@ashthetrain3719]

mate i'm tryna learn russian as well, my gran is russian and my family speaks it a bit but in my 15 years of living i haven't really tried to learn it, now im tryna learn it as fast as possible so i can speak to my gran because she's getting old :(

[@mikearsen4580]

чё выучил или бросил свою девку

[@user-og9nl5mt1b]

Is she single yet

[@Goroshek_Lololo]

надеюсь, что спустя 3 года вы смогли изучить русский язык. и вы смогли наладить контакт с мамой и бабушкой. @@ashthetrain3719 @DataQuestLive

[@trumpetduck1206]

so did you learn russian, i need an update...

[@cactusjuice5936]

This is so cool! I never knew it was possible to hack the bray the waine forgets.

[@jonathanliu3583]

"The bray the waine forgets" Spoonerism lol :D

[@mysterist]

i like ur pfp

[@idkhh8656]

great :) i can do this when learning chinese and my exams

[@tr4976]

You remind me of my science and history teacher. Every single lesson they pull out the "forgetting curve"

[@maddy6192]

I love that the new 'most replayed' analytics are exposing the fact that we all went back and re-watched "the bray the waine forgets" to laugh at you. 💀 Love your videos btw - it's always great to find a new educational channel that shares really valuable information AND is efficient and engaging in delivery. Keep up the awesome work!

[@coolbrotherf127]

In school I read a lot of old books with old and rare vocabulary so now I know lots of British slang from the 1700s. I never use the words, but if I happen to run across them I already know what they mean.

[@maizymusix]

😂

[@omiboss2049]

wellp i only have one night, soooo i gess imma eat my vocabulary

[@medicallife3486]

😂

[@kugfyuijngggthss3023]

Ur english is so fast &wealthy as if u have a whole dictionary for breakfast!!! ❤❤❤❤👍👍😂

[@shawn7105]

I love this video, thanks. Besides, I am using a cool tool named Burning Vocabulary. I read a lot online and collect new words to me. It really helps me.

[@britishgypsum4347]

Just found this video and would love to know more. I’ve just started to learn Japanese and I want to head out there in October for a holiday (all being well).

[@Aeheyorin]

have you learned it?

[@NicolaiCzempin]

Strictly speaking, it's an exponential decay curve, or an inverse exponential curve (or function)

[@joshybpotashy5829]

Ok nerd

[@nekozombie]

@@joshybpotashy5829 why did you even bother

[@poppinfresh5261]

@@nekozombie he just destroyed him. gg

[@gezzapk]

It's an asymptotic curve

[@Blinkyy_.blackpink]

Thanks! I'm lewrning German now I need to memoriez vocabulary and grammar😭

[@KanchanKumari-zr1us]

New Avenger - Thumbnail destroyer 🤺

[@glasgowefl3911]

Interesting about Memrise. I've seen another video, where he doesn't really think it is a good app to learn to talk, and I agree. He actually likeed Pimsleur more, because it is completely conversational. But he does bring up Memrise here, in order to learn Vocab (I agree also).

[@yowatzefak]

"the bray the weine forgets" that irony lmao

[@davidportilla4377]

anki > thanos

[@thiagoaugusto8177]

Unfortunately I'm not native English speaker and I don't know the meaning of this word jacuzzi Lol

[@LiveBlueSky]

Mairo Vergara's rules hahaha

[@martinmelody9232]

what is your native language ?

[@user-ry3cc1ck9n]

It is like a hot tub, a pool with warm water

[@thiagoaugusto8177]

Martin Hi Broo My Native language is Portuguese BR.

[@thiagoaugusto8177]

- thanks broo.

[@carter2335]

Your method is really so similar to Khatzumoto from "All Japanese All The Time". SRS, Passive listening, full language immersion...I Think that's his method. I find it really nice, I'm sure it wil help me with languages! I wanna know how to talk in a language in the sam way children do! ^_^ Also I'm happy that lots of people are trying this method for studying languages, I wanna join them.

[@nah8845]

Oh I love having stumbled upon this original channel. Why don't you use this one anymore?!? I only see shorts now.

[@chetanss6542]

When I was young my curve was insanely high like 10 days after I read something I could remember 85% of all the content but now my memory is dogshit

[@indonesianaspie6771]

😝

[@holo6883]

I simply forget the defenition of a word instantly

[@aslipperysnake]

use mnemonics

[@joeh.9223]

"To hack bray the waine forgets" LOL

[@Eruptor1000]

Anki is amazing

[@felipecanadulce]

The surprising thing is that there is something more effective than spaced repetition you just use major system for qords and then if you mix it with spaced repetition you wmgot an epic machine for lwarning any language.

[@yumikotanashi]

Thank you so much for this❤️

[@mysticalcatnip221]

Great video

[@centuryfiles9558]

1:18 *this* is the sort of stuff that happens when you know multiple languages 😂

[@centuryfiles9558]

I only know English and Spanish fluently but I’m learning Japanese and I’ve studied French before and I forget and mix words and grammar and phonetics from all languages 😂

[@kugfyuijngggthss3023]

My creasy way is to go through the dictionary once and twice and 3times untill i become familiar with the words...&then I'll learn grammar & then I'll go studying scripts of movies & songs..& read some srories... and listen a lot for days... but i have to know the words first... I'll give an example: In this already made up language by me!(gyhvdr wrgghjo good dfyhhdarg deaf ghhdeeyh go hkgtc go gderg hjjcc) what u notice ? U could easily notice the word (go deaf & good) Y'll tell me learning individual wods is wrong! And absolutely ur right.. but u can solve by using ur language as a way to put the word in sentence! Like : in arabic a pen is galam... if i put it like this [the ink of this galam is leaking ] now u used it in a real life situation & that's the point! If u wanna not study the dictionary y'll struggle with a lot of things!

[@canbe9689]

This suits me too. I have three dictionaries by the same publisher with 3000, 20,000 and 90,000 words. There are loads of example sentences and interesting sayings - I read these for fun and watch all my TV with the language I'm studying as subtitles and have over 100 children's books in the language I read for fun. I have lots of bundles of little cards I tie up with different rubber bands depending on how well I know them - I've recently switched to larger cards with about 30 words on each, working through the middle dictionary. I use spaced repetition but like the larger cards as I can do pilates while I'm testing myself and they fit in my pocket easily. I just tried Anki after watching this video but it would involve too much screen time for me. My easy dictionary I can skim through in about an hour now. Identifying roots of words really helps which then helps me with lots of words derived from them. I also make audio files with the audio recorder on my phone of me reading out words and phrases I think I'll find interesting to listen to and turn them into CDs for the car. Recently I've also used ChatGPT4 to help me translate books and explain idiomatic phrases to me. I use Google Lens to detect the text and paste it into ChatGPT getting it to translate line by line listing difficult words and idioms. I've also started using ChatGPT4 to help explain subtle differences between words that have the same meaning, asking it to give me examples.

[@lxf9914]

1:17 that was actually impressive

[@amethyst5243]

but thank you your videos are so helpful !!!

[@NoRushpk]

Awesome video, awesome info

[@paulflute]

subscribed.. Love your appraoch and really helpful links.. I'm moving to Portugal in a couple of months so betta get learning.. Ta... ;9)

[@ricardoespinoza5170]

I was wondering, what´s your anki settings for cards review?

[@TopoAhogado]

thanks bruh

[@aaronhowell2011]

Heads up, that's not an exponential curve, it's an asymptote. Humans forget asymptotically. Good word to use for a lot of learning.

[@jim37569]

It is indeed an exponential curve. The asymptote is the height the curve approaches at the limit as t->infinity.

[@kat6258]

XIAOMA IS THAT YOU

[@Danpungip]

Obviously

[@amethyst5243]

the bray the waine forgets hahahhahahah

[@xvgx]

How often do we do this space repeatition excercise ?

[@NicolaiCzempin]

Ideally, you use your spaced repetition system multiple times each day, every day. These systems are designed to ask you to recall something just before you would forget it. So when you're learning, say, a new word, you would be asked to recall it after, say, 20 minutes, 60 minutes, 8 hours, and then a day, multiple days, and so on (assuming you get it right, that means you know it "at that level" and the next repetition will be further away, exponentially). If you wait longer between recalls you will have forgotten the word naturally, so overall you will repeat it more frequently than you would at ideal efficiency. The exact times (you can individually configure these in Anki, for example) depend on the learner, the material, and how strict he/she is testing himself/herself; that part is not an exact science: Experiment to see what works best for your particular situation (although there are useful starting points). Anki lets you set limits on how many new words you want to "put into the system"; the more words in the system, the more it will ask you to review. If it gets overwhelming, stop adding new words. Depending on your goals at some point new words may stop coming in (let's say you only want to learn 500 words overall). But if you want to constantly improve e. g. your vocabulary, you could be adding words (and of course other things, I was just using words as an example) for the rest of your life; the words just get more difficult. TL;DR: If you want to be efficient, you will use an SRS multiple times during the day, every day, as long as you're learning and reviewing new items. You can still use it less frequently but then you will forget sooner and thus have to repeat the words more frequently to get the same result (and it will take longer).

[@homiekeen23]

The bray the waine forgets 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@zhaopengyou9263]

要么是我的电脑，要么是声音不够大。点赞

[@travirehk1957]

"Billions of years" xd

[@4.mnj1]

he’s not wrong.

[@tajneeley]

жаль yes he is he gassed it more like hundreds of thousands to possible millions if you count our farthest ancestors

[@vision3439]

yeah idiotic isn't it?

[@teejay5516]

@@vision3439 facts!

[@ProGamer1115]

I mean, life is 3.7 billion years old. It isn't that inaccurate to say that primitive cyanobacteria evolved into the brain you have today.

[@kf31paris]

Where do you teach chinese ?

[@Yoreni]

is anki free

[@aditheroyal3927]

Yoreni yes , free on Android , free on PC but you have to pay for it on iOS

[@rudygarcia7687]

@@aditheroyal3927 yea ik I hate that it costs money on ios

[@spotify6873]

eyo what aren't you xiaomync or somthing

[@darren9194]

How long does it approximately take to reach the level where you wont forget these words?

[@ariinbeijing]

Usually under 10 tries per word. It's amazing!

[@darren9194]

ariinbeijing Awesome yeah Ive been doing anki for about 3 months or so for my spanish and I noticed that at school I literally havent got any Problems anymore and I can now actually understand people :D

[@ariinbeijing]

whooo!!! A success story!

[@ibarix]

I agree. I checked my Anki mass sentences and haven't seen a sentece (which I know well) more than 5-6 times.

[@NicolaiCzempin]

I wouldn't say it's any fixed number of repetitions; long-term and short-term memory are defined on the basis of how long the break was since you last tried to recall an item. Strictly speaking there is no level at which you won't forget something: I'm fairly sure that most would agree that if you can instantly recall someone's name from his/her face, or the foreign equivalent of a word or phrase (or character), after one year of not encountering it, it is in long-term memory. But if you then don't encounter it again for two or let's say ten years, you may not remember it. It is still in your long-term memory, though. And if you cannot remember something after a few minutes it's fairly safe to say that it's not in long term memory yet. So the point at which a word enters your long-term memory is somewhere in between; this differs individually, but I'd say one night's sleep (because of some chemical processes that happen there) would be a minimum break before someone would consider something to be in long term memory. And "in long term memory" can be used to mean something like "won't forget". Once it's there, it normally doesn't disappear, but it will become harder to dig out when it's not being used. Without the transfer to long term memory the item literally will not be in your brain any more. Sorry for rambling (some more incoming). So it is up to you how you define "won't forget": If you'd define/consider it not forgotten after six months of not using it ("last semester") then it will take you six months before you know that you haven't forgotten it, which is roughly nine months from the beginning (assuming a strictly 2x each time schedule). See the back-of-the-envelope maths further down. And how many repetitions it takes depends on many factors (how easy was the word to begin with? Do you use the word outside the SRS, i. e. when speaking, in a school test, and so on), primarily, assuming that you get reminded each time just before you would otherwise forget it, it depends on how you've configured the "spaces" in your SRS (1 day, then 2 days, 4, 8, etc.; some form of exponential progression). Let's go with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 days, and you would consider it not forgotten after one month then you would (not counting the additional repetitions before sleeping) and you remember it correctly each time, then you would consider to know it after 1+2+4+8+16+32 days. If you forget it after the 16 day recall, it depends how you've set up your SRS, some really strict schedules would send it back to "square one", others would just send it back one level. Back in "ye olden" days of using physical cards, there were four levels within one session (that you do on a table with, say 20 cards) and four more levels spaced out over the long term (using differently-sized compartments of your box).

[@Bruff_]

How do i do this before 12 hours?

[@myself7232]

wait.... xiomax? is that u?

[@Shammer1]

This guy reminds me of Xiaoma

[@vwbro787]

Jee i wonder why 🤥

[@bartvanhoeck]

That's his twin brother 😄

[@Danpungip]

That guy in fresh prince of bel air looks just like will smith

[@d.viajes3882]

Please! Subtitles on your video...

[@1hmet]

What are you saying, this Thai guy is can be Chinese agent. Who knows

[@hareth3911]

v2

[@harshvaidya7625]

我说普通话

[@paydenmendez5533]

Can you please respond to my question on your other video?

[@ariinbeijing]

Payden Mendez sorry, which one? Mind repeating?

[@ariinbeijing]

Payden Mendez replied!

[@paydenmendez5533]

ariinbeijing Thank you so much!!

[@robojobot77]

For some reason, I heard what you said the right way and then when I read what you fixed, I couldn't stop laughing 1:19 Excellent explanation here.

[@swishask8875]

Bro forgot English 😭

[@eepe7630]

Maybe hold your hands still....

[@JohnSmith-ox3gy]

The human memory programming language has garbage collection.

[@paydenmendez5533]

first comment

[@rudygarcia7687]

Awesome

[@williambudd2630]

I hate Anki !!! Its to dam complicated to set up and use !!!

[@Expectrø_5]

How???????

[@Danpungip]

like what

[@dennisevans8709]

Your video is hard to hear and didn't really teach or help at all. A waste of time. Not to mention a lie.

[@Ping63ms]

Stubborn