Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey everyone,
I'm trying to learn German again. I've wanted to learn for years but have always had really bad memory problems. Hence trying to learn it at school didn't go too well, rote learning is tricky, just couldn't retain it, I know that was like a gazillion years ago, but I'm having another go. But puzzling over how the heck to get it to stick in my head?
Any tips?
I store hundreds of number plates in my head of all the cars in the neighbourhood in a wide radius (but only on sight if that makes sense) if you ask me to recite such-and-such's licence plate I haven't got a clue, I have a massive database of groceries & their prices in my head (nightmare when it all keeps going up week on week!) but this language thing just keeps confounding me!
It seems like some information is just sucked in by default, I mean not by choice, where some information you actually want to retain, is like trying to shin up a greased pole???
No tips unfortunately but I'm interested in how you get on with trying different methods of learning.
I think our brains naturally retain some types of information easier than others. For me it's definitely easier to retain numbers, rather than words, and I can do so without trying. Like you I store in my head the prices of hundreds of different groceries in different stores. I also retain bank account numbers, credit card numbers, assorted membership numbers, etc in my head all without trying.
However words and languages are a different matter entirely and it doesn't seem to stick. I managed to learn English as a child by reading a dictionary but I was always completely hopeless in languages at school. I posted on the thread about favourite subjects that I did so badly at O Level French that I was given a U grade (so poor it couldn't be classified as a fail). I would have preferred to do German but the lessons clashed with Chemistry on the timetable and I wasn't prepared to give that up.
I would like to learn a language one day and be able to travel more confidently as a result. I'm not sure how best to approach it though, unless there is a way to learn by numbers! I know that my auditory processing difficulties are likely to contribute to how difficult I find it.