<story><title>In Praise of Memorization</title><url>http://www.pearlleff.com/in-praise-of-memorization</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>historia_novae</author><text>&amp;gt;I&amp;#x27;m of the opinion that this leads to a good rule of thumb: never memorize anything&lt;p&gt;Did you ever learn another language? It&amp;#x27;s impossible without memorizing a massive amount of things, especially when the writing system is different than the one one is familiar with. In fact the most famous researcher in vocabulary learning (Paul Nation) states in one of his book that rote learning is one of the most efficient use of time.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m of the reverse opinion that memorizing things is a &amp;quot;secret trick&amp;quot; particularly effective, that is put aside by a lot of people because it takes effort.</text></item><item><author>turboponyy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never regarded memorization highly. Whenever we had to learn the times tables or the squares at school, I would just work them out in my head instead of memorizing them.&lt;p&gt;Of course, I still ended up learning the squares and the times tables by heart, but not because I actively memorized them, but because I just used them so much that I couldn&amp;#x27;t help but remember them eventually.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m of the opinion that this leads to a good rule of thumb: never memorize anything - if you use the thing often enough, you can&amp;#x27;t help but memorize it anyway.&lt;p&gt;Of course, you could argue that how often you use something isn&amp;#x27;t necessarily equivalent to how much utility you might get out of memorizing said thing, and I don&amp;#x27;t disagree with that.&lt;p&gt;All that being said, I do agree with the article&amp;#x27;s premise that an expansive knowledge base aids reasoning, which does seem to be in conflict with my principle. I definitely do possess a basic knowledge of geography, and it does definitely aid my reasoning, but I don&amp;#x27;t ever remember actively memorizing that - not at school, nor elsewhere.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Yoric</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t speak for the GP, but my personal experience is also that I really dislike memorization. That being said, I speak 5 languages, have written books in two of them, have given public presentation in three and can introduce myself and go and buy bread in a few more.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s in addition to computer languages, of course :)&lt;p&gt;I suspect that the parts of the brain involving in learning by rote and learning a new language are somewhat different. When I learn a new language, I&amp;#x27;m desperately trying to connect anything I see to something I already know. When I learn a multiplication table or a list of unrelated dates, it doesn&amp;#x27;t work nearly as well.</text></comment>
<story><title>In Praise of Memorization</title><url>http://www.pearlleff.com/in-praise-of-memorization</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>historia_novae</author><text>&amp;gt;I&amp;#x27;m of the opinion that this leads to a good rule of thumb: never memorize anything&lt;p&gt;Did you ever learn another language? It&amp;#x27;s impossible without memorizing a massive amount of things, especially when the writing system is different than the one one is familiar with. In fact the most famous researcher in vocabulary learning (Paul Nation) states in one of his book that rote learning is one of the most efficient use of time.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m of the reverse opinion that memorizing things is a &amp;quot;secret trick&amp;quot; particularly effective, that is put aside by a lot of people because it takes effort.</text></item><item><author>turboponyy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never regarded memorization highly. Whenever we had to learn the times tables or the squares at school, I would just work them out in my head instead of memorizing them.&lt;p&gt;Of course, I still ended up learning the squares and the times tables by heart, but not because I actively memorized them, but because I just used them so much that I couldn&amp;#x27;t help but remember them eventually.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m of the opinion that this leads to a good rule of thumb: never memorize anything - if you use the thing often enough, you can&amp;#x27;t help but memorize it anyway.&lt;p&gt;Of course, you could argue that how often you use something isn&amp;#x27;t necessarily equivalent to how much utility you might get out of memorizing said thing, and I don&amp;#x27;t disagree with that.&lt;p&gt;All that being said, I do agree with the article&amp;#x27;s premise that an expansive knowledge base aids reasoning, which does seem to be in conflict with my principle. I definitely do possess a basic knowledge of geography, and it does definitely aid my reasoning, but I don&amp;#x27;t ever remember actively memorizing that - not at school, nor elsewhere.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>marginalia_nu</author><text>Curious, I&amp;#x27;ve learned English to a nearly native level without memorizing a single word.</text></comment>