Hey Bob,

Think about the last time you sat down with a fresh batch of vocabulary.

You test yourself with some flashcards and you get all ten words right. Success!

Then a few days later... nine and a half of them are gone.

If that's happened to you, I don't think you've got a bad memory.

I've taught languages for 25 years now, and I've become convinced that forgetting vocabulary has almost nothing to do with memory at all.

It's a method problem.

See, your brain doesn't store words in some big mental dictionary, waiting to be filed away.

It's already got a rich map of meaning, built from your actual life.

When you study words with flashcards, you never really learn the word. You learn the translation.

Luckily... methods can be changed.

There's a very specific reason some words survive and most don't, and it's not about effort or repetition drills.

You can check it all out here in this week's video.

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In this video, you'll find out...

• what your brain actually needs to make a word stick
• the ordinary habit that makes forgetting almost impossible
• and why new words suddenly turn up everywhere once you've learned them (there's a name for it)

Chat soon,

Olly