Flashcards: Why I Forgot Five Hundred Words

Look at this! Five hundred flashcards!

快看！五百张单词卡！

I made every single one by hand.

每一张都是我亲手做的。

Wow, I was so proud of myself.

哇，我当时特别为自己骄傲。

Every night, I went through the whole pile.

每天晚上，我都把整摞卡片过一遍。

Ugh, front, back, front, back, for hours!

唉，正面，反面，正面，反面，一连好几个小时！

I really thought I was learning so much.

我真的以为自己学到了很多东西。

Then, a month later, my friend tested me.

然后，一个月后，我的朋友考了考我。

She picked twenty cards and said, 'Ready?'

她抽出二十张卡片，说：“准备好了吗？”

And I remembered... four. Just four!

结果我只记得……四个。就四个！

Oh man. Where did all those words go?

天哪。那些单词都跑哪儿去了？

So, I did some reading about how memory works.

于是，我读了一些关于记忆是如何运作的资料。

And guess what? I was doing it all wrong!

你猜怎么着？我的方法全都错了！

Our brains forget new words really quickly,

我们的大脑会很快忘掉新单词，

unless we review them at the right moment.

除非在恰当的时间复习它们。

It's called spaced repetition.

这叫间隔重复。

Here's the idea, and it's super simple!

道理是这样的，而且超级简单！

Difficult words, you review almost every day.

难的单词，你几乎每天都复习。

Words you know well, you review less often.

熟悉的单词，复习的频率就低一些。

After three days, then a week, then a month.

三天后，然后一周后，然后一个月后。

So you spend your time on the words you forget.

这样你就能把时间花在会忘记的单词上。

Now I use a flashcard app on my phone.

现在我在手机上用一个单词卡应用。

It decides when each card comes back.

它来决定每张卡片什么时候再出现。

Oh, and I add a full sentence to every card,

哦，我还会在每张卡片上加一个完整的句子，

not just one word and its translation.

而不只是一个单词和它的翻译。

Words are much easier to remember in context.

单词放在语境中要好记得多。

And the result? Way better than before!

结果呢？比以前好太多了！

Last week, my friend tested me again, and I got eighteen!

上周，我的朋友又考了我一次，我答对了十八个！

So, my advice? Fewer cards, more often.

所以，我的建议是什么？少做点卡片，多复习几次。

Twenty minutes a day beats three hours on Sunday.

每天二十分钟，胜过周日学三个小时。

Oh, and please, don't make five hundred cards at once!

哦，还有，千万别一次做五百张卡片！