How to Learn Vocabulary and Not Forget It | Tips From a Memory Expert

Hello everyone, I am very excited because today  

I'm talking to Nelson Dulles,  A5 Time USA Memory Champion.

He has also broken many records for memorizing  the most numbers or words in a specific time.

So, Nelson, were you just born with a good memory?

No, actually that's a common misconception.

But I actually had to learn this  skill and it took, you know,  

months, even into years to continually  perfect and and get better at the skill.

Yeah.

So you weren't born with a good memory.

When you decided to improve your memory,  what was the motivation behind that?

Yeah.

So I mean, I probably had some good memory  for some things that were of importance to me,  

but I'd say it was probably average, you know,  when you kind of measured it across all things.

But my grandmother on my father's side  is the only grandmother that I knew.

I never knew.

My mother's mother started to exhibit  she she had Alzheimer's disease and,  

and had bouts of dementia  in their mid early 2000s.

And, you know, watching her kind  of deteriorate mentally, you know,  

made me think twice about what means  to have a healthy brain and memory.

And, you know, I thought, well, is there anything  

that I could be doing now to improve  my memory, to make my brain healthier?

I was young.

I'm still young.

But just kind of as a preventative measure for  the future, Nelson, who might end up, you know,  

somewhere in his seventies, 80s, losing  his memory a little bit or a lot of it.

So that kind of led me to  discover memory techniques,  

memory competitions, brain  health as a concept in itself.

Yeah, let me down this rabbit hole because of  my grandmother which who I eventually lost,  

which really, you know, motivated  me even more to to explore.

I'm very sorry to hear about  that story with your grandmother.

I'm I'm glad some good came from it in the  sense that you, it inspired you to improve  

your memory and now you're sharing  your advice with many other people.

So I'm, I'm happy for that and thank you.

You said you personally were  born with an average memory.

And then based on your experience with the  people you're you meet in competitions or  

just in the memory space, are there people who  are just born with better memories than others?

Or is this truly a skill that any  person, any average person, can develop?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, that's a great question.

It's so fascinating to wonder,  you know, like it's always nice  

to think that there are people just  with these amazing super abilities.

And, and I think there are to an extent, you  know, I've seen on Dateline or 60 minutes or  

whatever where you see people with these  autobiographical super auto auto super  

autobiographical memories where they  can remember everything of their life.

At least that's how they present it, but it's  maybe not necessarily absolutely everything.

They just have a lot of memory  for these specific life events.

That's a very specific, I don't  want to call it a condition,  

but ability not many people have, but doesn't  mean that they're good at memorizing everything.

I think Mary Lou Henner was one  of these people on the the show  

and she wrote a book about her, how  she is, she can remember, you know,  

what she was wearing to prom and and  all these details right in her life.

But if you put her in a memory competition,  

she probably won't do that  much better than anybody else.

So at these competitions, yeah, you  never see anybody come in and say,  

hey, oh, I have a photographic memory  or I have a naturally good memory.

I'm going to sweep the floor with the competition.

Never happens.

I don't even know if I've seen anybody show  up thinking that they had that, let alone win.

People who win these competitions  are people who have learned the  

techniques and practice just like any other skill.

You know, you got to work at it,  prepare and hone this ability.

And and that to me, at first I  thought the same thing as you,  

that I'm not one of these people that can do it.

There are other people who can do it naturally.

But once I learned that anybody could do it.

I really mean, I really think anybody, because at  these competitions you see 12 year olds in school,  

you see seniors, you see pizza delivery guys,  marathon runners, people like me, whatever,  

all, all across the board and they're able to  do it quite convincingly, these techniques.

Well, that is inspiring for me to know and for  all my students because a problem that they  

have is they spend a lot of time learning,  learning English vocabulary, grammar rules.

But then we have this expression  in one ear out the other.

They they forget it.

So it's good to know for all my students  that this is a skill that can be developed.

Yep, Yep.

Yeah, No, it's definitely something if you think  if any of your listeners are out there, viewers  

are, are watching and saying, oh, you know, they,  these two people are having this conversation.

I am not even a part of it 'cause  my memory is just terrible.

They haven't met me.

It might.

It's terrible.

I'm here to tell you as a, as a person who's  been teaching others for years now that you can,  

you know, you may not be a memory champion,  but you can definitely improve your memory to  

a point where you think that you  have a, a, a superhuman ability.

It's that powerful.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And I'm sure for all the students  watching, Nelson's a memory champion.

That's probably not your goal, but  certainly you can take action to  

improve the skills so you speed up your learning.

You don't forget what you learn.

And you said that you work with  people to help them do this.

So what?

How would you start that if a student came to you  and said a language learner came to you and said,  

I, I memorize 10, let's just say 10 phrasal verbs.

I watch a video, I learn them, and then a  few days later I can't remember any of them.

How would you start to help that person  to retain to keep that information?

Yeah.

So, you know, people have different  study techniques, but you know,  

study techniques doesn't necessarily mean  that you're employing memory techniques.

And, and really the problem that most people  have when they sit down to memorize something  

is they don't have a real process other than  possibly some kind of rote repetition thing,  

which can work with a lot of dedicated repetition.

That's, that is proven to work.

But when you're talking about language where  you have so many things that need to be in your  

head to be able to speak to a certain degree of  fluency, you know, you need to know thousands of  

words, cases and, and, and conjugations  and idioms and all that sort of stuff.

It's, it's not a, it's not realistic  to necessarily be able to review it  

to the extent that repetition  would just suffice, you know,  

so memory techniques need to jump  in there and kind of carry the load.

So the first thing that people need to  understand is you need a way of organizing  

the information that you're putting in your  head and making it relatable to things that  

you already know that you can visualize in your  mind and think in and see in terms of pictures.

Rather than these abstract things,  which with a foreign language,  

it's generally speaking mostly abstract  because it's in another language.

You know, you're a native  language and this is not that.

So when you look at this word that you're trying  to learn, let's say, it just looks like gibberish.

It's meaningless.

So the first step to memorizing anything,  honestly, is to take that thing and to try to  

convert it into some kind of mental picture that  makes sense to you, that lights up your interest.

And then the next step is  to kind of like, how do I  

store it in my mind in a way that  it's easier to retrieve later?

And there's different approaches to do  that, but that's generally the idea.

The last step is the review.

You know that you can't get around the review.

Unfortunately, we are, our brains are  designed to forget things over time,  

but it remembers the things that  we frequent a lot in our heads.

That shouldn't make sense, right?

But you know, again, it's, it's, it's with memory  techniques, you can kind of reduce the amount  

of review that needs to be done  and how often because it's,  

it's such a lot more sticky,  stickier inside the MIME.

Great point.

So trying to think of this myself,  let's say I'm trying to learn the word.

There's a lamp right in front of me,  so I'll just use that as an example.

So I'm trying to learn the word  lamp in a foreign language.

So I see a picture of a lamp in my head.

Is that do I have that right so far?

Yeah, that's part of it.

So obviously there's the word that you will  

either hear or see wait if you're  reading it in this other language.

So I don't know is there.

Is there a language for as  an example you want to use?

Yeah, Spanish.

I know a little bit of Spanish and it's  something that I'm casually learning.

Many words I do not know, lots that I  don't remember when I need them as well.

Do I don't know what the word is  for lamp in in in Spanish to you?

Nor do I.

All right, I'm gonna look it up  and we're gonna do it right now.

OK, OK, sounds good.

I'm sure all the Spanish speakers are laughing  at me because they know I just spent six months  

in a Spanish speaking country and I  don't even know the word for lamp.

But lamp is, I think that's kind of a  specific like light is different, you know?

Sure, that's a good point.

That's a good.

Point.

So it's lampara.

Lampara.

Maybe maybe there's different Spanish  speaking countries say different things,  

but let's say that's the word we're learning.

OK, that's maybe not the best example  actually, because it's has the word lamp in it.

But in general, you know, you would look at this  word and think of what it reminds you of in terms  

of sound or even what the letters look like  together, and come up with a picture for that,  

relating it to what it actually  means, which in this case is a lamp.

So in this specific, specific example,  Lampara again has the word lamp in it.

So that probably would give you a clue if  you saw the word lampara, that it is a lamp.

The other way, going the other direction is,  

you know, the way I just asked you,  how do you say lamp in Spanish?

You want to say lamp, you  know, and you don't know.

You'd have to remember Lampada, right?

So maybe the tricky part here  is the ending Atta, right.

So you'd come up with an image for that and kind  

of weave it into a picture that  you have of a lamp in your mind.

So Atta, you know, what does that mean to you?

It's it's kind of a meaningless thing,  but you can come up with something that  

it kind of sounds like or reminds you  of, like maybe it's an arrow in English.

ARA, ara, ara or era up to you, right.

And then with that, let's say  it's arrow, it's not the same,  

but it's close enough to give you  a, a queue to know what it is.

So my lamps in my head and  when I'm thinking in Spanish  

would have an arrow shot through it, right.

OK, so now I have a queue when  I think, OK, lamp Spanish.

Oh, there's an arrow through it.

OK, lamp outta lamp, arrow lamp outta right.

And that's kind of the idea here is we're  kind of making little tricks here for  

remembering this these meaningless things  via the things that are meaningful to us.

A good example.

Can I give you another example?

Absolutely.

I'd love one.

Yeah, so in French for example,  we have for dog is Chien.

OK, doesn't sound like dog.

In this case it's not dog, dog, dog Ara, right.

So two very different words  meaning the same thing.

So with the French word chien,  OK, if you ever were to read it,  

it kind of reads like chain a little bit.

It's CHIEN or feminine.

It's it's a bit different, but chien.

OK, So I might look at that word and say,  

OK, I'm going to picture a chain  attached to a dog in this case, right?

Which would kind of make sense.

You know, a dog is on a chain  attached is like a ferocious dog.

And the more you make these images in your  mind come alive, you know, like, picture this  

rabid dog with sharp teeth, like trying to kill  you, but he's thankfully attached to this chain.

Maybe the chain even breaks, right?

And now you're terrified for your life.

Or maybe it's funny because it's a tiny little  dog and it's strapped to this massive chain.

Like, why would it even need that?

You know, you can make kind of silly images.

The next time I see that word, I'll think chain.

I'll think dog.

You know, now this approach is  is only just a crutch, right,  

to get you to a point where ultimately at  some point you've practices so much through  

review and speaking and reading whatever, that  this chain link won't be necessary anymore.

You'll just know chain or Shia is dog, you know?

Yeah.

I'm glad you mentioned that 'cause I was thinking,  

oh, I'll need to know all  of these pictures forever.

So that's good that eventually your brain will  just permanently remember that information.

The association is made and so  you will just know what dog is.

You don't need to think of a chain and dog.

That's a really interesting approach.

So you're the memory expert.

I'll just ask you then.

Our brain must be able to memorize  images better than individual words.

It's it's able to because technically  I have to remember two things,  

a picture of a dog and a picture of a  chain rather than just memorizing the word.

But it's easier for our brain to do that.

Is that is that the approach?

That's the idea.

And and this is this is known in in  the brain community that images are  

easier to remember than say abstract information.

Why?

Because you know, the images will  are generated by you in your mind.

They're related to things that are familiar  to you that come from your own experience  

and things that are already, let's say  pre memorized, they're already in there.

So you're anchoring the foreign stuff to stuff  that's already well planted in your head.

And I think historically our ancestors, you  know, had more visual things to deal with than,  

say, the abstract, modern abstract information  that is now presented to our brains, you know,  

mathematics, symbols, foreign languages,  philosophy, abstract, very difficult things.

Our brains, our simple primitive brains,  we're just there to recognize, you know,  

very visual things that kept us alive,  I'm talking thousands of years ago, right?

So I think that's kind of where that comes from.

And, and you know, you, there are some people  who have trouble creating images in their mind.

It's a condition called a Fantasia, I think,  

I think maybe like 4% of the population  can't construct an image like that.

But there's, there's ways around this  because when it comes down to it,  

you know, we're talking about these images that  you're thinking about the colors of things,  

the, the, what does it look like, the  structure of it, where it is in space.

When you're thinking about it in reality,  like what is a image in your mind?

I mean, it's really what it comes down  to, I think a feeling based on context.

And even people with a Fantasia, they  still can learn how to visualize.

It's, it's really not a visual in the end.

It's it's more just a, like I said,  something to do with context and feeling.

But anyways, that's, that's  a whole topic in itself.

But yes, our brains are primed to think in  pictures more than this abstract information.

OK, that that's very helpful.

Now all my students, they can start thinking of  pictures to associate with, with new vocabulary.

Could they do that with  instead of an individual word?

Could they do that with, for  example, an entire sentence?

What if they're going to a job interview  and they want to remember a specific way  

to explain the experience they have, or just an  entire sentence or even a couple of sentences?

How would they approach  memorizing something like that?

Yeah.

So with specific words, you know, a  word means this and this other language,  

it's really just a kind of a  mapping from one thing to another.

So for that, in terms of creating the image,  it's pretty straightforward because you come  

up with an image for one thing and  connect it to an image of the other.

Now with other parts of language learning, like  you said, you know, maybe you want to have a few  

responses or idioms or phrases just kind of kind  of catalogued in your head for an interview or,  

you know, a certain topic that you may  have conversation with someone about.

That would be a different way of storing things  because you'd have to pull them out knowingly,  

like, ah, this is the right time to use this  turn of phrase or, or, or statement or whatever.

So I might kind of use a different technique to  store the information, but in terms of making  

it more memorable, the approach would be very  similar, only there'd be more words involved.

So whatever the phrase, maybe I'd still try  to convert it into pictures and kind of link  

them together in, in, in a connective story, you  know, instead of just the chain going to the dog,  

you know, maybe have a whole sentence  to do with a shallow or whatever.

I'd have to have the chain with the  dog doing something else that helps  

me remember maybe the next word or  the next word after that, right?

I have to say though, with language learning,  

depending on the language of course,  and what language you speak or which  

languages you speak, not everything  has to be turned into pictures, right?

So I feel like a lot of people who hear  me talk about language learning are like,  

man, every single word I have to come  up with a picture and do this and that.

You could, but again, I want to spend the least  

amount of time memorizing and  just speak the Dang language.

So anytime I can save time, I want to do it.

So, you know, let's say you're  learning, learning 1000 words,  

most common words in a language, you know, I  would go through all the words and say like,  

are there some in here that  are like borrowed from English?

You know, those ones I don't need to memorize.

Probably maybe a couple I do because they're  slightly different or pronounced different.

I don't know.

Then there's going to be some that  kind of makes sense, like in Dutch,  

for example, the word for spider is spin.

You know, they, they're nothing alike.

But to me that makes immediate sense  because a spider spins a web, right?

So there's some that are kind of like freebies  just inherently by the way that they are.

So maybe that one I put on the lower part of the  totem pole of of importance of of memorizing,  

because I'll probably remember that one  through just like thinking about it.

You know, other ones are going to be more complex.

Those one I might reserve  for this technique, right.

So same thing with these maybe phrases, you know,  

it's hard to say because some of the words  you might know if it's a very simple greeting  

or something like that, maybe you know  already very deeply some of the words.

You don't have to to memorize those.

So putting it together in in the phrase would  be easier than say like if you were to I don't  

speak Russian, but if somebody were to give me  like a beautiful sentence to say in Russian,  

you know, I'd have to memorize every bit of it.

You know, I'll give you an example.

The other day I had to I asked my  father what his favorite poem was.

He's French.

So he told me one of the Jean de la Fontaine  fables, his Do you speak French or no?

A.

Little bit in pur a little.

Bit OK, OK, you know, Aesop's Fables,  

there was a French guy in the 1600s who basically  did the same thing, Jean de la Fontaine.

And he has famous ones like  the Le Renard, Le Cobo.

All right, Le Cobo, Le Renard.

It's the the crow and the the the fox.

Anyways, I wanted to learn it for him.

And it's in a language that I speak,  although that kind of French is kind  

of sometimes they use weird words to express  things that I wouldn't say in normal French.

So some of the lines had to memorize.

Some were just like, oh, yeah, it makes sense.

It's like talking about the  the crow is sitting on a tree.

He's got a piece of cheese in his mouth.

That's easy.

But then others was like, I  don't even know what this means.

Oh, it's OK.

He's admiring his or he's he's opening his  mouth to to sing or something like that.

The way it's said in that French, I had to  memorize that more delicately, but it was  

kind of this game of improvisation, of trying to  figure out when I needed more structured memory  

techniques versus relying on what I know my mind  is capable of just kind of retaining on its own.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you you have different  strategies based on the specific thing you're,  

you're learning from memory, of course, when  it comes to language, which which makes sense.

So one thing I find with my students,  let's say they're a very advanced student.

They've been learning English for for many,  

many years and they know you have to add  an S to present simple with he or she.

She goes, but I go, we go.

They know it, but yet when they  speak, they forget to do it.

And it's these very common mistakes that even my  advanced students, I'm sure you watching they,  

they know the information, but at the time  of speaking, they forget to, to apply that.

What advice would you give to those students?

Is there a memory technique or  or why does that even happen?

Yeah, so another kind of complication with  language learning or applying what you've  

learned from language learning to, to the speaking  part or, or listening is it's, it's, it's fast.

It's, it's got to be, you know, we're all  striving to be at a point where it's like that,  

you know, very cool and casual  and feels automatic, right.

Or, or fluent, right.

That's the goal.

If we could be fluent in the language,  that's the ultimate goal, right.

So, you know, if you could always have time to  look up things in your memory via technique,  

great, but not very useful in most cases.

If I had to pause every time  I was about to say go or goes,  

you know, the person I'm talking to may have gone.

So, you know, the things like that are  almost things you just have to drill and,  

and, and that one's tough because  it's, it's not like something that's  

so easily encoded into a simple,  easy to visualize image, let's say.

Could you potentially, I'd have  to think about it a little bit.

But I, for something like that,  if I kept making that mistake,  

even though I knew it, I'd maybe focus  on either doing it myself or having my  

instructor give me situations where  that was all I was practicing, you know,  

and, and that's part of learning is, is  noticing what are your weaknesses, right?

Taking note of them and then  drilling the crap out of them,  

especially for this case, because  you want to just be automatic.

You don't want to think about it.

It's got to feel and sound natural.

So being able to hear yourself  say it over and over again or  

hear someone else say it over over again  and and test you on it again and again,  

I think is the way to go for getting or  correcting frequent errors like that, you know?

Well, I'm sure that's what you said is go ahead.

I was going to say, because I know  when you're saying present simple,  

like in English, I don't  even know what that means.

You know what I mean?

Like it when I I, when I learn  French and other languages.

Yeah, I know what's what in terms of tenses.

But being my natural language, like,  

I never stopped to think like,  wait, this is present simple.

I got to use plural on the S there.

It just sounds right.

And I I I just know it, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And as a native speaker, if you happen to  say she go, you would just be like she goes,  

like you would just instantly correct  it and move on or not even care and  

just move on because like you said, which  I think will be helpful for my students.

It's just that you've used it so many times.

So for those students who forget things like this,  like adding the S or certain irregular verbs,  

it's not necessarily a memory problem.

Perhaps, if I'm understanding correctly,  

it's more just a practice problem  that they're not practicing it enough.

Yeah, it's a, it's, it's what we call procedure.

We there's declarative  memory and procedural memory.

Declarative is, you know, being able to declare  things that you're pulling out of your memory,  

like as a search for something and finding it.

Procedural is what we always  call like muscle memory.

You know, it's, it's, it's a procedure that  is on automatic and it's buried deep within,  

you know, some neural network that that  you couldn't describe if you had to.

It's just there, right?

And, and you don't even think twice about it.

You know, if you, you're learning the  piano, you're trying to play this riff,  

the first time you do it, you know, you're going  to read the notes and kind of get it down a little  

bit and, and maybe you'll start to know it by  heart, you know, but it's still not natural.

And then eventually, you know, through drill  and, and practice and, and space repetition and  

interleaving, all these other kind of ways  to train yourself or, or test yourself on,  

on things you've learned, you'll get to a point  where it's just like, you don't even know.

You're not a part of it.

Your fingers are doing it right.

So yeah, a big part of it is trying  to get it into your procedural memory,  

these kinds of things, because  you don't want to look them up.

Yeah, where it just feels so natural.

I personally know that with  things like phone numbers,  

my ATM PIN, even my door lock  code, which I don't want to do it,  

but I don't necessarily know the number, but I  know the pattern that my fingers need to make.

And then I have to think, OK, what?

What's the keypad to know what that number is?

But I know the movement  more than the actual number.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A good example is, you know, I, I play  with the Rubik's Cube all the time.

And my friend was like, oh, can you teach me?

And I was like, yeah, sure, it's not that bad.

And there's some like algorithm  like moves that you just do.

And I was like, you know what?

I, I have to like film myself in slow motion  to make sure I can tell you what I'm doing.

Because if I stop and I'm like,  because I can't do it like this.

I know the moves like in one big  thing, you know, by how they feel.

If I were to stop and do it, I don't  know it, which is kind of stupid,  

but that's how procedural memory works.

It's like it's not up here somewhere.

It's like in here, yeah.

Yeah, just the way our brains are designed.

So we just need to adapt to that and learn these,  

learn these strategies and maximize how our  brains were naturally designed, I guess.

And Speaking of that, is there a certain amount  of repetition that that someone should get?

Let's go back to adding S to he or she?

Is there a certain number of  times they need to repeat that  

or length of time that they need  to repeat that or to permanently  

remember it or it just really depends  on the person, depends on on the word.

What would you recommend?

Yeah, I mean, it depends.

It's some people will catch it quicker,  some might get a feeling for it sooner.

And and it's again, not really  sure what, what, why or when.

I think that there's a German word finger  Spitzinger fuel, which is just like the like  

essence of it, not like really knowing  why or how, but it's, it's just there.

But usually in terms of trying to get things in  your long term memory or your procedural memory.

The only techniques for that are are  the space repetition and interleaving,  

which I briefly mentioned just a second ago.

Space repetition is basically when  you learn something new, you know,  

you practice it or review it or do it a lot  at the beginning and kind of you can taper off  

that intense repetition as time passes, but  you do want some space between the repetition,  

like meaning you will go back and do it again.

So, you know, if somebody's really  trying to work on this S thing,  

you know, in a session, maybe spend a  whole session just drilling that right.

And then maybe the next session, same thing.

And then maybe you skip a session.

Maybe after that another session you do,  you touch on it again every once in a while  

you want to kind of visit it, but less and so  frequently, less frequently after certain time.

But again, there's no like exact it's,  it's, it's different for every person.

But in general, rule of thumb is that  practice it a lot when it's novel.

And then as it is older, you  know, you review it less and less.

The other part is the interleaving, which  is if you're you're in a session and you're  

just drilling this somehow stopping for a moment  and doing some other cognitive task, play game,  

read a book, whatever, and then coming  back and doing again is super powerful.

I don't know the exact science behind  it, but it's almost like a reset.

You know, it may when you come back to it after  that break, you may make more, a few more mistakes  

like it won't be as sharp as it was before the  break, but you'll get back in the groove again.

And that kind of stopping and starting  is, is very powerful in you getting  

to a point where it can become that  automatic that you're looking for.

Well, great, great points  for everyone to remember.

Add those to your study routine.

Now, I do have students on my channel  who are 15 and others who are 50.

And you've mentioned your grandmother at  the beginning and I certainly have this  

perception that as I age, my memory will decline.

And is there anything that my  older students perhaps can can  

do to learn languages faster given  given perhaps this fact of the brain?

Or maybe this is a myth that  even even I believe as well?

Yeah, I, I, I think it's, it's not entirely a myth  

because as we age, everything kind  of deteriorates, gets older, right?

I'm not as fast as I was  physically when I was a teen.

Well, in some things I'm actually  better because I've trained and,  

and worked on different parts of my physical  fitness that I didn't when I was a kid.

But, you know, I don't, maybe don't have the  

potential that I did maybe  in my early 20s as I do now.

I maybe have to work harder  for it or something like that.

Mentally, I think that's probably the same,  you know, over time, well, a couple things  

happen as you get older, you get more things  kind of taking up your, your mental demand.

As a kid, you don't really  have much going on other than,  

you know, your friends school and that's it.

No, no house, no kids to, to worry about, you  know, no jobs, no job security, whatever, taxes.

So there's a lot more distractions as we age.

But potentially as you get even  older, maybe that also diminishes too.

You don't have as many things, simpler life maybe.

But yes, you're battling age and it  would be foolish to say that your  

memory is going to be perfect at 85 or as  good as it was when it was 35, you know?

But that being said, with the power of memory  techniques and determination and, and motivation,  

you know, you can push your brain to, to  feel young at later stages in life for sure.

Like I said, at these competitions, you have  people who are, I taught a senior once who was,  

I think she was 65 and she was memorizing a  deck of cards, you know, not incredibly fast.

But again, I don't know if she  really cared to go that fast.

I think just memorizing a deck of cards.

Was enough of a feat for her.

But I think that's phenomenal.

Who can, who, what percentage of  the people on the earth can do that?

And here's someone in her 60s doing that,  you know, so memory techniques, I think can  

help anybody at any age, especially, you know,  people who think that they are losing their mind.

If, if, if you learn some of these techniques  and make a practice out of it, right.

That's an important part is  to actually use them and,  

and be consistently working on them day-to-day.

There's no question in my mind that whatever  age you are, you can have an amazing memory.

Well, that is very good news for.

Language you know.

Yeah, and even just learning a foreign language,  I find it's such a good exercise for your brain.

It really keeps you, keeps you alert,  keeps your brain active, really pushes you.

So all my students watching know that you are just  by learning English, a foreign language, you are  

exercising your brain and you can apply the memory  techniques and get even better results with it.

So I know there are many, many memory techniques,  

which of course we can't go in  depth today, but I thought maybe  

it would be fun to do some sort of a memory  challenge right now just to to see how we do.

What do you think?

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's a great idea.

I had an idea in mind here.

OK, All right.

So I have a list of 10 things that I am going  to, I didn't know, I don't know this list.

I looked this up, so I'm  going to learn it with you.

OK, great.

But you know, we have 10 things that we want to  memorize and this isn't a language vocab thing.

These are just 10 things that we want to learn.

And for each thing, you know,  

like I said earlier in this call is you  want to come up with a picture for it.

So I'll help kind of describe what  that might be like for each one.

You can try to visualize that in your own mind.

The next step here is, well, I'm  getting a list of 10 things from Nelson.

Where am I putting those?

And that's kind of the second  problem of, of, of memory is like,  

where do you put information so that  you can retrieve it later reliably?

And there's a bunch of techniques to do it.

The the most fun and interesting,  

most popular and I think most powerful  is something called a memory palace.

Have you heard of that before?

I've heard the name just from  your YouTube channel to be honest,  

but I'm not an expert in it at all  and I haven't tried to do it myself.

OK, Yeah, it's a it's a technique that  goes back thousands of years where you're  

basically taking these images of things you're  memorizing and placing them or imagining them  

in a physical place that you know, Well,  this palace, I guess back in the day,  

they had palaces, but it could be your house,  it could be your shack or your, your tent.

If you live in a tent or, or, or  you're living in a minivan or whatever.

It's it's just taking some place that, you know,  

a physical space and mentally projecting  these images onto it in some order.

And that place, that way you navigate through the  

physical space in your mind will  preserve the order of the list.

And the place where you stored the list.

So later on, when you're  like, oh, what's that list?

Nelson told me.

You'll know.

Oh, I put it in my house.

Let me go to my house.

Oh, there on the front door is  the thing on my list, you know,  

And you can continue around the house picking up  the images for the things that were on the list.

It sounds weird, but we can just do  an example and it'll make more sense.

Sure, since we don't all have the same house.

A A version of this memory  palace could be your own body.

OK, OK.

In generally a, a memory palace can be any pathway  

through a physical space  that you're thinking about.

So through your body, like  from your head to your toes.

That perfectly works perfectly well.

So we just need 10 locations  to store one on each thing.

And then we'll have the 10 items, the  places for the space for the 10 items.

So I'll guide you what we're going to do here.

So on the top of the head, that'll be our  first location, OK, through our memory palace.

And the first thing on our list is I'm  not going to tell you what the word is,  

but just picture what I'm  trying to tell you on your head.

All right?

So think of a, a Mandarin, you  know, like the little orange thing.

I never know the difference between a Clementine  or tangerine, but it's a Mandarin, all right?

And you know, this little orange  thing is just chilling on your head.

Maybe it's there your whole life, right?

Just sits there, this orange thing and how weird.

Maybe it smells delicious.

Maybe you can always take a piece and  eat it, but you know, there it is.

OK, this Mandarin on top of your head.

All right, next, maybe down from  our head, we'll go to our ears.

OK, and the next thing on our list  you can maybe picture like a paella.

OK, so this delicious Spanish dish.

All right, so out of your ears,  it's like pouring all this golden  

rice with prawns and scallops and  all sorts of fishy stuff, right?

But it's it's delicious.

You maybe put a bowl there.

You can eat it right up.

You have Spanish paella coming out of your ears.

All right, next we come down to  our ears, across maybe to our eyes.

Here we'll picture what's a good one.

Here we can do just like Big Ben.

OK, so this famous OK.

Structure in England, the big tower with the the  

the clock on it is now like  coming out of your eyeball.

All right, OK again, these are so ridiculous.

But that's the whole point is the more  bizarre out of the norm exaggerated,  

vulgar, even sexual sometimes are  the things that you won't forget.

OK, so just imagine piercing out of your eye is  Big Ben with the clock chiming at the end of it.

OK.

OK.

That's definitely a strong visual.

Hopefully I'll remember that one.

Yeah, yeah.

And then for anybody trying this, don't bother  about like let me go back to the first one.

What was just just go with me here, OK.

So don't worry about what I already said.

It'll mostly be there, if not all there.

So next we go from our eye to our nose, OK.

And the next thing on our  list here is what we do here.

Like we could do like the desert,  like a huge desert dunes and stuff.

So maybe instead of your nose,  you just have like a sand dune  

that's being like wind swept and it's hot desert.

It's a feeling.

But there's like a very  sandy dune here on your nose.

OK, next we go down to so  we made this pathway here.

We're going down.

Our body eventually will end up to our toes.

But our next location is our mouth.

OK.

And inside our mouth you could maybe  put the hind quarters of somebody.

So somebody's **** is.

In your mouth, OK.

So hind would be the word for it.

Not quite **** but hind.

And.

So like they're like they're behind.

There you go.

This is so somebody's like chopped  off the **** cheeks of somebody,  

they're behind and you just like consume them, OK?

Well, my students learned an  interesting new word, Hind.

Oh, behind, yeah.

But yeah, I mean, there's there's a mnemonic there  like to be behind someone is behind their hind.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

OK, so we've gone this whole way here.

Let's go to the chin.

That's the next location.

OK, And we have a Bengal tiger.

Oh, OK.

So like, I don't quite know the  difference between different tigers,  

but Bengal tiger usually sounds like a type  of tiger that I've, I, I, I hear the name of.

So, you know, there's a stripes, black and  orange, beautiful kind of colored face.

And it's just like chilling on your chin here.

Maybe it's it's roaring or or scratching at  

my chin or something and blood's  flying out of this Bengal tiger.

Strong visual again, OK.

Yeah.

All right, we're almost done four more.

So after our chin, maybe  we'll go down to our armpit.

OK.

And imagine that your armpit is  a port for all sorts of ships.

OK, so these boats are arriving  in this port, and, you know,  

you close the port sometimes and maybe open  the port sometimes, and the boats leave.

All right?

They're like miniature boats just  kind of doing in that armpit.

OK, the port.

All right, then our belly button.

OK.

And then I want you to picture in  your belly button is a vodka martini.

OK all.

Right.

This is totally out there, all right?

So out of the belly button is like, yeah, right.

But there's like a martini glass filled with vodka  just permanently stuck to your belly button there.

And it's filled with vodka and  then a little olive, let's say.

All right, two more now, down to our knees.

OK, so on your knees, I want you  to imagine that there's some,  

you know, like sushi with chopsticks and stuff.

So maybe there's a whole array of sushi stuck to  

your knee and you're just taking some  chopsticks and eating all this sushi.

OK.

And then finally on your toes, OK,  

I want you to picture this boxer  is just doing jabs to your toes.

OK, Jab means to punch, right?

So somebody's jabbing your toes,  

like punching them repeatedly, and  you're like, right, jab, jab, jab.

OK.

OK, this is really fun.

OK, so now we've put it in our memory palace.

You're trying to think of this list.

You go back to where you started, right?

And what was on top of your head?

Mandarin.

A Mandarin, right, That orange  thing, and we came down to the ear.

What was coming out of my ear?

Paella.

Paella.

Good.

The Spanish paella.

OK, what was in the eye?

Oh, Big Ben was protruding out of my eye.

I remember that and then we went to the nose.

What was my nose?

Of desert.

Good.

Yeah.

It was like the sand dune, the desert.

The sand dunes.

Lots of sand.

In our mouth.

Oh my goodness.

A behind, a hind behind.

Yeah, a ****.

A ****.

Yeah.

Yeah.

On the chin, the.

Chin.

Oh, the tie.

You know, I almost forgot him for a second,  but then I pictured him ripping out my chin.

Actually, I saw the visual.

I couldn't think of the word, but  then I saw the claws and I'm like,  

tiger, That is so interesting 'cause I'm  like, oh, I don't know this one, Tiger.

And a fun, a helpful thing I think is if say,  

like one of these images for any of your  viewers is like, I couldn't remember that one.

It's not because you have a bad memory,  it's because the image was weak.

You know, in in my images, I'm giving examples  

like you may come up with a better  one that's more meaningful to you.

Or you maybe need to spend a little  more time like elaborating, you know,  

all the details like, OK, the  scratching, there's blood.

And like how would that make me feel?

Like really try to picture all those  details that will enhance the image next.

Time.

Yeah, a strong image, OK.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

So we had the Bengal tiger and  then we went to the armpit.

What was in there or what?

Was it the boats coming in and out the port?

The port.

Good.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Then we had the belly button.

What was in the belly button?

Martini.

Vodka martini.

Vodka.

To be honest, I didn't remember  the vodka, but martini.

That's OK.

You'll you'll see what this  is all getting to in the end.

It's not that important.

And then the knee.

What was on the knee?

I'd probably spend the least amount  of time on this one, I think.

What was on my knee?

Oh my goodness, I don't think I remember my name.

I was picking something with the chopsticks.

Oh, sushi, sushi.

Yeah, yeah, true.

I probably didn't spend it.

Like I didn't have a strong visual for that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And then finally on your toes.

Do you remember?

The toes, the boxer, 'cause that  was, yeah, more of a stronger visual.

But yeah, I don't think I took  the time to think of the visual.

Actually, when you said sushi, I'm  like, MMM, sushi, That sounds good.

But then I think I kind of forgot  to do the visual part of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Same.

Hey, Yeah, so that's pretty good.

I honestly was really nervous.

I wasn't even going to remember the first one.

As we were going I was feeling a  little anxious, like what if I.

Don't I know it's?

Any of them.

It's, it's and that's a, that's a  that's great that you'd say that  

'cause that's a very common feeling with memories.

People just feel that way.

Anxious about remembering stuff.

Yeah, I'm like.

What if I don't remember?

This is going to be so embarrassing.

This is live and I'm talking to a memory  expert and I can't even remember the first one.

But what if that feeling could go away?

Yeah, like.

Or if it's it's minimized right,  how amazing would that cause?

Like anxiety in me for sure.

Yeah, I think that's natural and I had that too.

I mean, I still have it sometimes  in the high pressure situations,  

I don't feel like, oh, this is  going to stick 100%, but I feel  

very confident most of the time things  will stick if I apply myself correctly.

Yeah, So what I was going to say.

So these 10 things actually represent the  10 most spoken languages in the world,  

in order for most spoken, Yeah.

So Mandarin Chinese.

OK.

Spanish, the paella, Big Ben is England English.

OK, now, so, so some of  these are straight up right.

The Mandarin is a Mandarin Spanish paella.

It's pretty close.

Big Ben.

That's just something I  associate with England English.

The dune was more abstract.

That's Arabic.

Arabic.

Yeah, I was going to guess that.

Yeah, but maybe you have a better  association to Arabic than I do.

But that made me think of  like the Middle East and sand.

And yeah, OK.

Then we had Hind which is Hindi.

Oh, I wouldn't have got that one.

Yeah, I put that in there on purpose  because it's more of a direct,  

like the word Hindi has the word Hind in it.

HIND.

But maybe you have a better association to Hindi.

Like maybe you think of the  Taj Mahal and that's good.

You know that's true.

Something from India or something.

So Hindi and then the Bengal Bengali,  

which is a language spoken out in that area  of the world as well Port it's Portuguese.

Portuguese, That's a good.

One now the the vodka martini.

Any guess where do they drink a  lot of vodka Russia come from?

Russia.

That's why you mentioned the vodka  part when I said oh, just martini.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Actually, the fact that wasn't.

And then the sushi, where could that be from?

Japanese.

And then this one, I didn't,  I didn't know the secret,  

but the 10th largest language  is Jab the Jabs Punjabi.

Oh, that's really interesting job.

Job Punjabi.

Wow, so now.

Because I have no context for  more than what the word is,  

I I can't tell you the difference  between Punjabi, Hindi and Bengali.

Right.

But that's why I have to  memorize those specific names.

But there you go.

Now you have 10 languages from head to toe on  your body for reference whenever you need it.

Yeah, I'm really impressed honestly, that I  have never done a memory technique like this.

And like I said, I was very nervous I  wasn't going to remember any of them.

And I I'm very proud that I got 9 out of 10.

That's that's pretty good.

And then, you know, test yourself later.

You'll be surprised it's still there.

I could even ask you.

Like what's?

Yeah, because those images, especially Big Ben,  

coming out of my eye, I feel like I'm going  to remember that for quite a long time.

And for some reason, the boats coming out  of my armpit really stuck with me too.

Yeah.

And you know, you have that list forwards,  

you could probably say it backwards  just traveling the different direction.

Oh, that's a good.

I could even ask you like, what's  the 5th largest language, right?

And you'd say, OK.

1/2.

3-4 Whatever was in my mouth,  What was in your mouth?

Oh, in my mouth, that was the ****.

So hind Hindi.

Yeah, exactly.

That is so cool.

Wow.

I am impressed.

I am.

Wow, this is awesome.

I hope all my students are impressed.

And don't worry, I know some of this vocabulary.

You might not have had a strong association  because of the the word choice, but that's OK  

because Nelson has lots more memory techniques  that I know you share on your YouTube channel  

which I am going to start watching more  because I am very impressed with this.

So, Nelson, can you share with  my students how they can find  

you and learn more about these memory techniques?

Sure.

Yeah.

So my websitesjustnelsondallas.com,  you can always reach out to me there.

My YouTube channel is where  I post most of my content.

I make videos about memory sometimes.

I talk about language sometimes.

Nothing to do with language, but I do  love languages and so I often will feel  

the need to write or make some videos about that.

And then I have a couple books about memory.

If you just search my name on  Amazon or whatever sells your  

books wherever you are, I'm sure I've  had some translated around the world.

Not everywhere, but yeah, it might  be a good place to practice English.

Exactly.

Well, I will put all the links  in the description and I wanna  

leave my students with one very practical thing.

Other than subscribing to your YouTube  channel to learn more of these techniques,  

what is one thing they can do this week?

Only one thing to improve their memories.

I would say it's just try to memorize something.

I know that's such like a a lame  answer, but it really makes a  

difference when you have this intent of  sitting down and memorizing something.

It's so easy these days to just default to putting  something in your phone or writing it down.

But just the act of actually  trying to memorize something,  

while it may feel a bit uncomfortable at first,  

if you do that quite often and you push yourself,  you'll actually find it's easier and easier.

And then when you add memory  techniques, it's even easier.

And that'll help you in your  your language learning as well.

Excellent advice and thank you so much for  sharing all of your tips with everyone and I'm  

excited for them to learn more on your channel.

So thank you again for being here.

Great.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.