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Forgetting words mid sentence

Alien0n3arth

Has anyone here such issue? I struggle with it for at least 20 years (I'm in my late thirties) and it happens consistently,  that I forget words that I already know. It happens in all foreign languages I speak (English,  German and Russian) and also in my first language. 

It causes me a lot of stress frustration and anxiety, that I will forget the word again. I tried to research on it, because I got afraid that I may have developing Alzheimer, but it seems to not be the case. This is what I found in Google: 

  • Passive vs. active vocabulary: You may understand a word when reading or listening (passive vocabulary) but struggle to recall it on the spot for speaking (active vocabulary).

I don't experience any other memory changes over the years, I have brilliant biographical memory (I remember events like movies with unusual precision and details, also events that occurred and places I visited as a toddler). I seem to relate to this piece of information above. Does anyone else experience this? How to deal? I remember a situation before my B2 German exam, I prepared speeches in various topics, given in advance. But I really struggled to recall some words and they were quite trivial words. One of them was Spedition.  This is an international word, that sounds similar in all the languages I speak. And still I had to repeat this word before the exam because I noticed I tend to forget it frequently in speech. And as a result I forgot this exact word during the exam. I got maximum points anyway. I have good linguistic skills but this problem made it impossible for me to become a translator (once my dream). 

Does anyone here relate to this? How to deal? I recall once I saw a video of a youtuber Orion Kelly, he mentioned this issue and it was supposed to relate to autism. It was just one youtuber and maybe the information is fals. I tried to check but couldn't find anything else about it.

  • in reply to Martin

    Perfect analogy! Waiting for magazine to send more rounds! In my 20's  I had this problem. But people also told me I talk too fast. So I've learned to slllloooowwww dooowwwnnnn. No one notices but me! But by forcing myself to consciously pause when I speak, I give the ammunition time to reload, and don't come up with empty chambers mid sentence like I did in my 20's.

  • Thank you for this post. It is good to know I am not the only one. It can be embarrassing in work situations, although people are usually happy with me describing what I mean. It is like my brain has slowed down and I am trying to search a dictionary. I usually think of the word later when it is too late.

    At work I have quite a few things written down as back up when they are technical things. If I am referring to an object I tend to use the word thing or point to it.

  • in reply to Martin

    Thank you, the explanation with gun locker a bit confusing fir me but I think I got more or less what you mean. Yes, I have to talk about it around and it's complicated.  And word poping up later aldo makes me angry.

  • in reply to Iain
    Iain said:
    Being autistic we probably have a drive to complete the sentence properly and this was the tough thing to let go of for me.

    Absolutely,  I always prepare it in my head and it must be perfect as I want it. Or i get frustrated with myself. Thank you for your response. 

  • Yes, I have always had this. In mid sentence there is the perfectly apposite word for what I want to say, only it is not there. Then I have to come up with a work around using a different word or circumlocution. The correct word usually pops into my head within a minute or two, far too late to be useful. In my imagination I liken it to naval gunnery. For medium sized naval guns there is a ready-use shot locker that holds ammunition for the gunners to use, but that is fed from a much larger magazine that is further away. If the ready-use locker is empty, you cannot fire the gun when you want to, but have to wait until the magazine sends more rounds. 

    I think that my 'mental shot-locker' for words is a bit on the small side, and/or that the mechanism for filling it from my 'long-term memory magazine' is slow.

  • I do get this quite a lot and like you have looked into the possibility of it being dementia or anomic aphasia - luckily both were discounted as the cause.

    It does seem related to a weaker mental connection to the word we are trying to recall so the technique I use is to either substitute another word or to pivot the sentence I am talking about to something else to avoid stalling there.

    So if I was talking to someone about this thread and I couldn't recall the word dementia I would either use:

    "AlienOn3ath said that they had checked for ... (the word dementia isn't coming to me) other mental issues around this and"

    or to pivot

    "AlienOn3ath said that they had checked for ... (the word dementia isn't coming to me), you know what, they checked all the normal stuff and drew a blank.

    Both save embarrasment and still get the point across.

    Being autistic we probably have a drive to complete the sentence properly and this was the tough thing to let go of for me.