When Benny Lewis turned 21, the only language he spoke was English. Actually, he's done quite poorly with languages in school. Truth be told, he initially had problems even with English, and had to go to speech therapy when he was young because of it. So Benny's not naturally gifted with languages. He has a degree in electronic engineering. So, where I went from language to engineering, Benny went the other way around. Benny's love affair with other cultures and speaking foreign languages began in 2003 after graduation from the university. When he moved to Spain, he discovered that learning languages wasn't so hard when you apply the right method. In his current career as a full time language hacker, over the last dozen years, he has discovered people from all around the world who have learned to stop making excuses about why they can't learn a language. And have instead learned, how to learn a new language. I've read Benny's book, which is the best book on language learning I've ever read. His advice is absolutely brilliant. If you think you don't have the language gene, or you're too old and don't have time or are just too shy to try, Benny's book will help you get past these hurdles. So it's a pleasure to welcome here, Benny Lewis.
Benny, your life is always filled with so many adventures. So, tell me what is your latest adventure?
>> My latest adventure is that this year I am trying to make America multilingual and other countries multilingual that generally only speak English. And I am currently about one, or 2,000 miles into my 7,000 mile, road trip across America. I did the whole West coast to Northeast and I'm going to every single state, and I'm trying to encourage people to learn languages.
>> Wow, what an endeavor, and what an important endeavor. You know, you talk about people sometimes wanting to learn languages for the wrong reasons. What are those wrong reasons, and what have you discovered is a more motivating factor for learning languages?
>> Right, well, there are quite a lot of wrong reasons. The worst of all is to show off, if you think that I will learn this language so people will think I'm smart, or people will like me more or I'll be able to pick up girls or anything along those lines, then it's, it's not going to work because I found that what you really do need, is a passion for that language. For the culture, you want to really speak that language inherently for the reasons, of how fascinating that language is. And that's going to motivate you to, to speak it. If you have other things like you just want, you just want to get an A in an exam, or a B just so you can get into university, then that's not a very good motivator, because you are not actually interested in using that language. So, I highly recommend people try to embrace the culture, try to spend time speaking with other human beings, and then you'll get the, the motivation that's going to help you to skyrocket your progress.
>> I like that approach. You've talked about how children have one big advantage, can you tell us what that advantage is?
>> sure. So, I think that the fact that children are not so much perfectionist like adults tend to be, children are okay with making mistakes. They kind of stumble and fall and we, we help them along and they play games in the language and they live the language whereas, in language learning adults tend to study dusty old grammar books, and can be so afraid of making mistakes that they won't speak at all. And this is a huge mistake because, in language learning it's not like we visualize this in an academic setting, where every mistake you make gives you a red X and if you make enough you make an F. That's not the real world, in the real world you can make lots of mistakes but people will still understand you. If I have just started to learn language, you may think I should wait until I say, excuse me kind sir, could you direct me to the nearest bathroom please? Or, I could just say bathroom, where? And people understand that, that's not a perfectly formed sentence, but you have to be a good beginner learner. And a good beginner learner, knows to make a few mistakes, or a lot of mistakes, to get their point across. And I find children, that's the, their main advantage is that they're, they're okay with just saying something. And they're not going to over analyze everything that comes out of their mouth. The good news is, this is not an inherent advantage that is built into them, and not built into us. It's just kind of the way children act, and we can learn from that. We can learn to, try to have some fun with our language. Laugh at the fact that we're making mistakes, and realize people are a lot nicer that you think and they're going to be very patient with you.
>> I, I think that's an important point, is well of course, just being willing to make mistakes, making those mistakes, and then realizing that most people are actually pretty friendly and accommodating, as you're learning and adjusting and getting situated.
One, one thing that you've talked about that I, I think is a really important point is the idea of self-fulfilling prophet, prophecies. Can you talk a little bit about that?
>> Well for myself for instance, I got into language learning as an adult. But, I failed at five years learning German in school. I barely passed my exams after ten or eleven years learning Irish And I lived in Spain for six months and I did not pick up, pick up any Spanish. And I really truly, genuinely feel that the reason this happened was because of a series of self fulfilling prophecies. When I was in Spain and 21 years old, I told myself, you know, I'm too old to learn a language now. I passed this cut-off age 14, and the thing is, it's a self fulfilling prophecy because I believed this was true, so I thought, okay, well there's no point in doing any work now, so I only put like minimal effort in and because of that I don't make any progress. And then I look at that lack of progress and I'm like, you see, this just goes to prove that adults are not good language learners and it makes no sense, when you actually look at it that way, and it was the same in school. In school I initially didn't do so well on my exams, and I was thinking, oh I can't do so well on these exams so I guess there's no point in really studying. And then of course I did worse in my exams, and it was just a constant feedback loop. And like there's a quote from Henry Ford that I like relevant to this, he says, whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. And I think that's the case with self fulfilling prophecies. People need to put these excuses aside, that I don't have any time, you have, you make the time. I'm too old, you're not too old. There are so many ways you can realize that none of these are real issues, that the actual reason you haven't learned the language, is your devotion to these reasons.
>> You say that successful language learners learn, despite the challenges. What did you mean by that?
>> So people have this idealized vision. You know, the grass is always greener on the other side. They see someone who successfully learned the language, and they think to themselves, this person has had it easy. They must have had rich parents who, who paid for tuition their whole life. They must have just been lessed to have had the right, DNA to give them the language learning gene. They must have had it so easy and just stumbled across native speakers and, had a perfect situation, this is simply not the case. This is what we like to tell ourselves once again, in our self-fulfilling prophecies. I don't have the ideal situation, I don't have good luck in all of this and the other person does. And in talking to a lot of language learners, I have found each one of them have their own challenges to to go through. There are some really, well known language learners on YouTube who are, very impressive in their language skills but they, they're family people, they have a family to raise, they may be working one or two jobs. You know, it's not like they laze around with millions of dollars and just spend all day long learning languages, they have their own challenges. And I even came across a very inspirational story of a lady who's partially deaf and clinically blind at the same time, and she still managed to learn five languages. So this shows me, that no matter what the set backs people have, they find a way around them. And you know, and you can say oh, that guy has it easy, because he can travel, and I can't, but then find a way to learn a language despite not traveling. There are actually great ways to get immersion virtually, you can get Skype based conversation practice, you can listen to streamed radio 24 hours a day if you wanted to. You could create a virtual immersion environment. But any one of the things are issues that other people may have. You may have advantages that other successful language learners, may not have had. You may be able to afford a private teacher, you may be, you may have spare time on your weekends, when someone has worked two jobs, or has a family to support, and has less time flexibility. So, every single person in the world, has had challenges to go through. And it's just unrealistic to think woe is me, I have this unfortunate situation no one else understand. I guarantee you no matter what your problem is a successful language learner has had that if not more problems and still manage to overcome.
>> people sometimes have a history of failure when they've tried to learn a new languages, what do you say to someone whose is failing when they're learning a new language, and have you ever felt like giving up in your language studies.
>> I felt like giving up millions of times. And even in my more experienced stages of learning a language, and the thing is, it's like I said before nobody has it, has it super-duper easy. Including successful and experienced language learners. So at the very start, for instance, when I tried to learn Spanish, I tested out a lot of things that, that were huge failures. I spent six months trying to learn Spanish, and I got nowhere in that time, one of the things I did was I, I bought El SeĂąor de los Anillos, which is The Lord of the Rings. And I thought if I just went through this book page by page, with the dictionary, then after I reach page 700 I'd be fluent in Spanish. I had this like, ridiculous idea and it took me a whole week to get to page two. So, when I was on page two, I was thinking to myself, it's going to take me a decade to read this book at this rate. And I was thinking, I'm just, I'm just an idiot, I'm not destined to learn Spanish or any other language. And even, like more recently a couple of years ago I was learning Mandarin, and I didn't find the Mandarin language itself to be so complicated. It's actually a lot, straight forward than you may think. But I was, learning it in the country, which I actually do not recommend to people, I recommend you learn the language in advance via the internet. So, that when you're in the country you can experience the culture. I think it's kind of a bit of a waste to, be in the country to be in study mode when you should out enjoying it, but I at the time I was not, doing that and I found it very difficult to adjust to the cultural side of things. And that slowed me down dramatically on the language side of things. So, no matter how experienced some one is, they're going to run into problems, they're going to get slowed down and it's it's like anything. If you've, if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. And like a lot of people in language learning would reach a plateau, as well, they may make a bit of progress and get stuck. And then they think I'm broken, I'm not a good language learner. And I found that, that it's the exact opposite, people need to try different techniques. So my suggestion is people get into speaking the language immediately. I give tips for people to speak from the very first day, and then that may work for you it may not work for you. But you try something else and if you still say after trying this out for a few weeks, I'm still not making any progress at all. Then that doesn't mean you're not a good language learner, it means you're using a system that is not good for you. If you're studying a lot, and you're not making progress, you may need to abandon a study based approach, and try to interact with the language a lot more. So that's, that's what I'd suggest.
>> I love these ideas and these approaches. I know they were very helpful for me with Russian. In, in this course, one of the things we talk about is the importance of pushing your attention very hard. For example when you're using something like the Pomodoro Technique, and then relaxing. You talk about something like that, with your mini-mission brain melting technique, could you tell us a little about that?
>> Right, yeah, I, I'm actually a big fan of the Pomodoro Technique as well, I've used that a lot during my intensive study days. So I definitely agree with that, I've tried to study all day, it just doesn't work, you need little breaks. But they then, that also applies over the longer term, so when I was learning some languages intensely over a couple of months, then that's all my focus. I'm like, I've given up TV, I've given up like, you know, going to the cinema, going out and so on and I find, I reach a certain point, where my brain just feels saturated, and I can't really take it anymore, and it's unfortunate, and I try to study, but it just goes in one ear, and out the other. So, I applied this to the kind of medium term scale. And what I would do is, I would start, like if I'm in an intensive learning period, so this is not people who are studying an hour a week, but people who are studying like three or four or more hours a day, so you're putting every spare second you have in to it. Then I would be working hard for five or six days a week, and then I would take one day off. And I just repeat that process, because if you it consistently for too long, you you may over exert yourself. So I'm, I kind of I find that I kind of apply this Pomodoro Technique in over, over several days. And then, even bigger than that, I would repeat this process for four weeks, and then on at the end once a month, I would take the whole weekend off. So, so it's weird, you would think you know, oh, I just have to study intensively. And once again, this is not something necessarily true for everybody, but I found that I, my limit is about six days of consistent study, and I need a little break, and then three or four weeks of consistent study, and I need a proper longer break.
>> Well, boring into some of the specific details of how you learn, you mention that, that rote rehearsal, just repeating a word over and over again, for example, is not a good way to remember. What is a better way?
>> It's not a good way to remember, but it kind of, it kind of works a little bit, I mean repetition is part of learning any language. But the catch is I see rote repetition as very asymmetrical. So, for instance, when I was learning German, and I saw that the word for [NOISE] table is tisch. So I just said to myself, tisch, table, tisch, table, tisch, table, tisch, table, whatever it was, 100 times, or 1,000 times. And it kind of works such that when I was reading German and I saw the word tisch, I was like table, because I kind of had that repetitive association. And if I heard it spoken, I would remember it, but there's a huge downside is it doesn't work symmetrically. It doesn't work the other way, if you want to say the word table in German, you don't have anything that latches you to that, you just have the tisch kind of association. So, in that case, I highly recommend people consider using mnemonics, because this kind of glues the word. To your... to your memory. So for instance, in that example with the German tisch. I would think to myself, okay let's imagine, a table made out of tissues. So I have you know, a table made out of kitchen roll or whatever it is, and I put a drink on it, and the table collapses, the drink spills everywhere, I have to get all of this, all of these tissues and I have to wipe it up because it's created a huge mess. So what that does, is it puts this association in my mind of visualizing a table made out of tissues, so that when I'm speaking German, and I want to say table, I can just think for a second, the table was made out of tissues, and I have that association. So, you have a link that connects the words you want, to, to the words you want to say, to the translation. Now, the thing is, you don't need to do this forever, because you only need the association a couple of times. And then the word just becomes a natural part of you. So, there's a great website, memrise.com, M E M (O) R I S E, and this has people voting up their favorite mnemonics, that's a great system. Another one is, other than mnemonics, I'm a big fan of spaced repetition, so there's an app you can install on your smart phone, called Anki. And this presents the words to you in a way, that you see them just before you would forget them. And that's another problem with, like memorizing a big list. Is you may see a word that's important to you, but you may not see it again for a very long time. And you may see the simple words over and over again. So when you use a particular system it shows you the harder words way more frequently, and the easier words way less frequently.
>> I, I like your ideas of, not only mnemonics but, creative mnemonics for example with tonal languages. You use the idea of something falling or something rising in your memory tricks, and I'd never thought of doing something like that before, so I think these kinds of ideas are enormously helpful. And actually in your book, I have read your book, I love your book. There are dozens and dozens more helpful ideas, and I could ask you dozens and dozens more questions, but I want people to actually read your book, so I guess I'll leave off here. And with that, I'd just like to thank you so much for your wonderful and very insightful answers.
>> Thank you very much, really appreciate you having me on to talk to everybody, giving them some inspiration.
当本尼·刘易斯21岁时，他只会说英语。实际上，在学校里，他在语言学习方面表现得很糟糕。说实话，他最初连英语都有困难，小时候因为这个问题不得不去接受言语治疗。所以，本尼并不是天生的语言天才。他有电子工程学位。因此，我从语言转向了工程学，而本尼则走了相反的道路。本尼对其他文化和外语的热爱始于2003年大学毕业后。当他搬到西班牙时，他发现当你采用正确的方法时，学习语言并没有那么难。在他目前的职业中，作为一名全职语言黑客，在过去的十几年里，他发现了来自世界各地的人们已经学会了停止为自己不能学习一门语言找借口。相反，他们学会了如何学习一门新语言。我读过本尼的书，这是我读过的关于语言学习最棒的书。他的建议绝对精彩。如果你认为自己没有语言天赋，或者太老了、没有时间或只是太害羞不敢尝试，本尼的书将帮助你克服这些障碍。所以很高兴在这里欢迎本尼·刘易斯。
“本尼，你的生活总是充满了如此多的冒险。那么，告诉我你最近的冒险是什么？”
“我最新的冒险是今年我正在努力让美国和其他通常只说英语的国家变得多语种化。我目前正在进行的横跨美国的7000英里之旅中走了大约1000到2000英里。我完成了整个西海岸到东北部的旅程，我要去每一个州，试图鼓励人们学习语言。”
“哇，多么伟大的事业，多么重要的事业啊。你知道，你谈到人们有时出于错误的原因想要学习语言。那些错误的原因是什么，你发现了什么是一个更有动力的学习语言的因素？”
“对，嗯，有很多错误的原因。最糟糕的是炫耀，如果你认为我会学习这门语言这样人们就会认为我很聪明，或者人们会更喜欢我或者我能吸引女孩之类的话，那就行不通了，因为我发现你真正需要的是对那种语言的热情。对于文化，你真的想说话是因为那门语言本身的魅力。这将激励你去说它。如果你有其他的事情，比如你只是想在考试中得到一个A或B，只是为了能上大学，那就不是一个很好的动力器，因为你并不真正感兴趣于使用那种语言。所以，我强烈推荐人们尝试拥抱文化，花时间与其他人类交流，然后你就会得到那个动力，帮助你飞速进步。”
“我喜欢这种方法。你谈到了儿童有一个很大的优势，你能告诉我们那个优势是什么吗？ ”
“当然可以。所以，我认为儿童不像成年人那样追求完美主义，儿童可以接受犯错。他们可能会跌倒并摔倒，我们会帮助他们一起前进，他们在语言游戏中玩耍并生活在语言中；而在语言学习中，成年人倾向于研究尘封的旧语法书，并且害怕犯错误而根本不会说出来。这是一个巨大的错误，因为在现实世界中，你可以犯很多错误但人们仍然能理解你。如果我刚开始学习一门语言，你可能会认为我应该等到我说“打扰一下先生，你能告诉我最近的洗手间在哪里吗？”或者我只是说“洗手间”，在哪里？人们会理解那不是一个完整的句子，但你必须是一个好初学者。一个好的初学者知道要犯一些错误或很多错误来表达自己的观点。我发现儿童的主要优势是他们愿意说出一些东西。他们不会过度分析自己嘴里说出的一切。好消息是，这不是一种内置于他们或我们身上的优势。这只是孩子们的行为方式，我们可以从中学习。我们可以学会对我们的语言有些乐趣。嘲笑我们犯了错误的事实，并意识到人们比你想象的要友好得多，他们会对你非常有耐心。 我认为这是一个重要的观点，当然是愿意犯错误，犯这些错误，然后意识到大多数人实际上都相当友好和包容的这一点在学习、调整和适应的过程中非常重要。”
“你谈到的一个我认为非常重要的点是自我实现预言的概念。你能谈一谈这个吗？”
“对我来说，比如我自己，我是成年后开始学习语言的。但是，我在学校五年学习德语失败了，我在爱尔兰学了十到十一年后勉强通过了考试，然后我在西班牙住了六个月，我没有学会任何西班牙语。我真的真的觉得这是因为一系列自我实现的预言。当我21岁在西班牙时，我告诉自己，你知道，我现在太老了，无法学习一门语言了。我已经过了14岁的截止年龄，问题是，这是一个自我实现的预言，因为我相信这是真的，所以我想，好吧，现在做任何工作都没有意义了，所以我只投入了最少的努力，因此我没有取得任何进展。然后我看到这种缺乏进展，我就像，你看，这就证明了成年人不是好的语言学习者，当你真正这样看的时候，这没有任何意义，在学校里也是一样。在学校里我最初考试成绩不好，我在想，哦我不能在这些考试上做得这么好，所以我想没有真正的学习的必要。然后当然我在考试中表现得更糟，这是一个持续的反馈循环。亨利·福特有一句话我很喜欢，与此相关，他说无论你认为你能还是不能，你都是对的。我认为这就是自我实现的预言的情况。人们需要把这些借口放在一边，我没有时间，你有时间，你创造时间。我太老了，你不老。有很多方法可以让你意识到这些都不是真正的问题，你没有学会语言的真正原因是你对这些问题的执着。”
“你说过成功的语言学习者尽管面临挑战也能学习。这是什么意思？ ”
“所以人们有这样的理想化愿景。你知道，别处的草总是更绿。他们看到有人成功学会了语言，他们会想自己，这个人过得很轻松。他们一定有富裕的父母为他们支付整个生活的学费。他们一定只是天生就有正确的DNA给他们语言学习的基因。他们一定过得很轻松，偶然遇到母语人士，有一个完美的情况，这根本不是事实。这是我们再次告诉自己的自我实现的预言。我没有理想的情况，我没有这一切的好运气而其他人有。在和很多语言学习者的交谈中，我发现他们都有自己的挑战要克服。有些在YouTube上非常知名的语言学习者在他们的语言技能上非常令人印象深刻，但他们是家庭人，他们有家庭要抚养，他们可能有一两份工作要做。你知道，不像他们整天懒散地拿着几百万美元去学习语言，他们有自己的挑战。我甚至遇到了一个非常鼓舞人心的故事，一位女士同时部分失聪和临床性失明，她仍然设法学会了五种语言。所以这告诉我，不管人们有什么挫折，他们都找到了解决它们的方法。你可以说哦，那个家伙过得很轻松因为他可以旅行而我不行，但然后找到一种方法来学习语言尽管不旅行。实际上有很多很好的方式可以在虚拟环境中获得沉浸式体验，你可以进行基于Skype的对话练习，如果你想的话你可以一天24小时听流媒体广播。你可以创建一个虚拟沉浸式环境。但是任何事情都是其他人可能拥有的问题。你可能拥有其他成功的语言学习者所没有的优势。你可能有能力负担得起私人教师的费用，你可能会有周末的空闲时间当别人有两个工作时或者有家庭要养的时候就没有时间灵活性了。所以世界上的每个人都经历了挑战。认为我很不幸我有这个不幸的情况别人不理解是不现实的。我可以保证无论你的问题是什么成功的语言学习者都有这个问题如果不是更多问题并且仍然设法克服它。”
“有时人们在尝试学习新语言时会有失败的历史记录，你怎么看待那些在学习新语言时失败的人？你有没有在你的语言学习中感到过想要放弃？”
“我有过无数次想要放弃的感觉。即使在我学习语言的更高阶段也是如此，就像我之前说的没有人能超级容易地做到。包括成功的和有经验的语言学习者在内。所以在一开始，例如，当我试图学习西班牙语时，我测试了很多东西，这些都是巨大的失败。我花了六个月的时间试图学习西班牙语，在那段时间里我一无所获，我做的一件事是我买了《指环王》。我以为如果我一页一页地读这本书，用字典，那么在我到达第700页时我会讲一口流利的西班牙语。我有这个荒谬的想法，结果我花了整整一个星期才读到第二页。所以，当我在第二页时，我在想我要花十年的时间才能以这种速度读完这本书。我在想，我只是一个白痴，我不注定要学西班牙语或其他语言。甚至，像几年前我正在学习普通话，我没有发现普通话本身是如此复杂。实际上比你想象的要直接得多。但是我是在那个国家学的，我实际上不建议人们这样做，我建议你通过网络提前学习语言。这样当你在那个国家时你可以体验文化。我认为在你应该在享受它的时候处于学习模式有点浪费，但我当时没有这样做，我发现很难适应文化方面的事情。这大大减慢了我语言方面的进展速度。所以，无论某人有多经验，他们都会遇到问题，他们会放慢速度，这就像任何事情一样。如果你一开始没有成功，再试一次再试一次再试一次。就像很多学习语言的人会遇到瓶颈期一样，他们可能会取得一些进展然后停滞不前。然后他们会认为自己不行，不是一个好的语言学习者。但我发现恰恰相反，人们需要尝试不同的技巧。所以我建议人们立即开始说这门语言。我给人们提供从第一天开始就说话的建议，这样可能会对你有用，也可能不会有用。但是如果你尝试了几周还是没有任何进展，那并不意味着你不是一个好的语言学习者，那只意味着你使用的系统不适合你。如果你学了很多，却没有进步，你可能需要放弃基于学习的方法，尝试更多地与语言互动。所以这就是我要建议的。”
“我喜欢这些想法和方法。我知道它们对我学习俄语非常有帮助。在这门课程中，我们讨论的一个重点是强烈集中注意力的重要性。比如当你使用像番茄工作法这样的技巧，然后放松。你谈到了类似的东西，还有你的迷你任务大脑融化技巧，你能告诉我们一些关于这个的吗？”
“对，是的，我实际上也是番茄工作法的忠实粉丝，我在密集学习的日子里经常使用它。所以我绝对同意这一点，我尝试过整天学习，但那是行不通的，你需要小休息。但这也适用于长期计划，所以当我在几个月的时间里密集学习一些语言时，那就是我所有的焦点。我放弃了看电视，放弃了去电影院、外出等等。我发现到了一定时候，我的大脑感觉饱和了，我真的再也受不了了，我试图学习，但它只是进一只耳朵出一只耳朵。所以，我会把这个应用到中期规模上。我会做的是，如果我处于一个密集的学习期，这不是每周学习一个小时的人，而是每天学习三到四个小时或更多时间的人，所以你把每一个空余的秒数都投入到其中。然后我会在一周内努力工作五到六天，然后我会休息一天。我只是重复这个过程，因为如果你持续太久太一致的话，你可能过度劳累。所以我发现我会把番茄工作法应用到几天以上。然后，甚至比那更大的是，我会重复这个过程四周，然后在一个月的最后，我会整个周末休息。所以，你会认为你知道的，哦，我只需要密集地学习。再次强调，这并不是每个人都适用的真理，但我发现我的极限是大约六天的一致学习，我需要一点休息，然后三到四周的一致学习后，我需要一个适当的更长的休息。”
“好吧，深入探讨一些你学习的特定细节时，你提到机械性重复、一遍又一遍地重复单词并不是一个好的记忆方式。有什么更好的方法吗？”
“这不是一个好的方式来记忆，但它有点效果，我的意思是重复是任何语言学习的一部分。但问题是我认为机械性重复是非常不对称的。例如，当我在学习德语时，我看到桌子这个词是tish（德语中的桌子）。所以我就对自己说tish, table, tish, table, tish, table, tish, table,不管是100次还是1000次。这样做的效果是当我阅读德语并看到tish这个词时，我会想到table（英语中的桌子），因为我有那种重复的联系。如果我听到它被说出来，我会记住它，但一个巨大的缺点是它不是对称的工作。如果你想用德语说table（英语中的桌子）这个词，你没有任何东西可以固定你到那个词上，你只有tish这种联系。所以在这种情况下，我强烈推荐人们考虑使用助记符，因为这会把单词粘附到你的记忆上。比如在那个例子中德语的tish（桌子）。我会想我自己好让我们想象一张由纸巾做成的桌子。所以我有你知道的一张由厨房卷纸或什么做成的桌子，我把饮料放在上面，桌子倒塌了，饮料洒得到处都是，我得把这些纸巾都捡起来擦干净因为它造成了一个大混乱。这样做的是它在我心中形成了一个视觉联想——一张由纸巾做成的桌子——所以当我讲德语并想说table（英语中的桌子）时，我可以在一秒钟内想到桌子是由纸巾做成的并且我有那个联想。所以你就有一个链接将你想要说的单词连接到你想要说的单词和翻译上。现在的问题是你不需要永远这样做下去，因为你只需要几次联想就可以了。然后这个单词就自然成为你的一部分了。所以有一个很棒的网站memrise.com（发音为M E M（O）R I S E），这个网站上有人投票选出他们最喜欢的助记符，这是一个很棒的系统。另一个除了助记符之外我很喜欢的是间隔重复法，你可以在手机上安装一个应用程序叫做Anki（发音为安基）。它会以一种在你快要忘记之前向你呈现单词的方式展示单词给你看。这是另一个问题与记忆一大串单词有关的问题。你可能看到一个对你很重要的单词，但你可能会很长时间都不会再看到它了。而你可能会一遍又一遍地看到简单的单词。所以当你使用特定的系统时它会更频繁地向你展示更难的单词而不是更容易的单词。”
“我喜欢你的想法不仅包括助记符而且包括创造性的助记符对于声调语言来说。你在记忆中使用了下降或上升的概念作为记忆技巧的例子我从没想过要做一些类似的事情所以我认为这是非常有用的实际上在我的书里我已经读过你的书了我喜欢你的书里面有很多很多有用的点子我可以问你很多很多问题但我希望人们实际上读你的书所以我会在这里停下来最后我想非常感谢你的精彩而富有洞察力的回答。”
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