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Native language, comprehension and recall | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5640 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 1 of 9 22 December 2011 at 12:57pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everybody,
After thinking about where to post this thought of mine in recent days I couldn't go past my favourite forum even though if this is not technically about learning foreign languages. Over the past few days I've been thinking about an apparent problem I face when reading. I'm talking about reading comprehension in my own native language, English. Around two years ago I made a conscious decision to read more widely with the goal to improve my general knowledge. In this time I've probably read 80 books, daily and weekly newspapers, articles and general rubbish on the internet/RSS feeds. Now I'm trying to gauge how much this has helped me reach my goal of becoming a walking encyclopaedia. I suspect not a whole lot. I'm thinking that part of the problem is reading comprehension and recall. My underlying question is a simple one. How much of a piece of writing are we supposed to remember 2 days, 1 week, 3 months or a year after reading it? I often am concerned with how little I am able to recall and this naturally raises the issue of how useful all this reading business is. Over the last few days I've read a number of articles which appeared in the Economist and Time - of which have now reached the fuzzy recesses of my brain and almost feel beyond retrieval. Here are two examples. 1. An article about frogs in India. I can't remember the name of the PhD that it followed, the types of frogs they discussed, the name of the rainforest they explored on India's west coast. What do I remember? There is a large diversity of frogs in India and they've been under threat in recent years due to excessive logging. Was my investment of time in the article worth the output, considering the absence of my ability to recall some of this knowledge? 2. The 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan's independence. I can't remember the name Kazakhstan's president (terrible) or really the underlying premise of the article. What do I remember? Kazakhstan surprised central Asia and led the way with economic growth through its exploitation of oil in the Caspian. I repeat my question, Was this worth it? I don't know. How much can we expect from ourselves when it comes to recall? I imagine that learning many of the forgotten facts I referred to could be achieved by strengthening the memory Anki-style, but I don't see how this can be practically achieved on a day-to-day basis of consuming news. It would be great to hear some thoughts on this. Has anyone else thought about this when it comes to their own native language? Cheers Edited by Oasis88 on 22 December 2011 at 12:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6086 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 2 of 9 22 December 2011 at 1:39pm | IP Logged |
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The issues you're facing remembering the article are similar to problems in learning a foreign language. Regarding the frog article you're forgetting the new nouns you've encountered such as the name of the frogs, the rainforest and the author.
Similarly, the article on Kazakhstan has a new noun for the presidents name. If you'd never heard of the country you'd also have a hard time remembering where the event took place. I'd lay a bet that if the article was about language learning you'd remember a lot. Aside from interest, which focuses are retention, your domain knowledge around languages means you don't have that much additional information to retain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4894 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 3 of 9 22 December 2011 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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I don't think we can expect ourselves to remember too much - at the end of the day our
brain is similar to a hard-drive, it saves data - but the data does eventually become corrupt and we lose it, or we simply have too much to retain. But as DaraghM said, if you have a genuine interest in the article you are reading - you will have a significant increase in retention, as you already know the facts, so your brain can work optimally to retain it. Edited by NickJS on 22 December 2011 at 4:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 9 22 December 2011 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
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There's a reason that a university education consists of more than reading. We have to start to apply new knowledge actively before it sticks.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5462 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 5 of 9 22 December 2011 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
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I think the main reason for this is that you don't really work with the texts you read. (Which in turn may be due to your lack of interest.) There are some techniques (asking questions while reading etc.) which are explained in the book "How to read a book" by Adler/van Doren (Amazon link).
I found the techniques explained helpful; you'll need to invest more time for one text, but you'll (probably) retain far more from it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5895 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 6 of 9 22 December 2011 at 9:42pm | IP Logged |
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Your brain is doing you a favor by forgetting stuff you read only once that is of no particular interest to you. Your memory will surely be more robust concerning information you come across repeatedly or information that is of some interest to you. Perhaps the lesson of the story is to follow your interests when reading widely.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4823 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 7 of 9 23 December 2011 at 10:51am | IP Logged |
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There have been psychological studies done on how we remember
things. It suggests that we tend to remember the first few pieces of information and also the last few pieces given. A way of remembering more is to think about the article once you've read it. Go through it all and think of how the people mentioned must have felt, what they would do next, what it means for the future etc. If you can put more emotion and feeling into it and get a stronger connection to it, you should be able to recall more. By creating more neural links from what you're reading to your own personal life and feelings you should create deeper memories. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6844 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 9 24 December 2011 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
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Give me a few pages about something I like and I can give a summary of it. Give me a one-minute newscast about economy/politics and I won't be able to name even one person mentioned. Interesting things stick. Others don't.
It's a bit like the Woody Allen quote: "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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