Language: Learning French

Brussels is truly a multi-lingual city. Almost every person I have met speaks English - though of course not all. The bartender of The Flash Bar on Charleroi speaks French and Portuguese ( at least - she probably also speaks Dutch). The grocery store clerk at the Carrefour Express speaks no English (though another at the same store speaks it fluently, being from South Africa).

So, I can say that after experiencing some of Brussels, I don't need to learn French. But, my experience in Brazil tells me that if I can, I will see a side to the city and the culture that is very much worthwhile. Also, the benefits while visiting France itself is overwhelming, so I'm going to.

There are many approaches to learning a new language. Some would have you believe it too difficult in adults (absurd, I would be a vegetable if neurogenesis didn't exist). Tim Ferris says that you only need to deconstruct the language using a few sample sentences ( you can read about this technique on his blog here ).

I think his approach helps immensely, but represents only one piece of the puzzle. There is, in addition to the schema of a language a critical mass that must be achieved through acquisition of vocabulary. There was a 'moment of clarity' for me in Portuguese when I had enough words to talk with anyone just enough to learn more words from them. So, in the end memorization plays a key role, not just recognition of the more important patterns.

So, along these lines I found an interesting approach that deals with how you forget things, not how your remember them. Apparently, the best time to practice something is at the exact moment you are about to forget it.

Gary Wolf has authored an excellent article for Wired! called "Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm". It really seems insightful to me. With the approach described, you develop a system (or use a program called SuperMemo) to remind yourself when you need to reinforce information. The timing of these reinforcement sessions is critical to success. It is also quite difficult to live your life using this algorithm, but I like this rather optimistic view of memory - that we don't forget things, but that over time they become just inaccessible because of our natural mental processes.

Retrieval Strength is a measure of how well you recall something, and Storage Strength measures how "strong" or "rooted" the memory is. Your average waiter's name has high retrieval strength (during dinner), but low storage strength - you are unlikely to recall the name a week from now, and practice won't help all that much. So I suspect that the emotive aspects of a memory impart a certain Storage Strength to it. We all have experiences in our life that were very emotional, and require no reinforcement to recall perfectly. Not all knowledge can have this emotive power, so a system for reinforcement must be used.

If this theory on learning is true, then I feel it poses one rather frightening question - What if all that we identify as our 'innate' strengths, aptitudes and proclivities are nothing more than those bits of information we committed more fully by an accident of reinforcement timing? If so, then we are each shaped more by chance and our brain's peculiar cycles than any specific act of will. Of course, we do more often those things we 'like' therefore we have more chances to stumble upon effective reinforcement as well.

I hope to put this into practice to learn French. I won't be as strict as Wozniak from Wolf's article, I enjoy the company of others a bit too much for that. Wish me luck.