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AM Costanzo's avatar

I have been trying to learn Italian for - oh, just about three years! And I'm still a total beginner. I never thought of the the 1-5 boxes which would be perfect for all the flashcards I've made over the years and never use. And spacing out time spent reviewing material is another good idea - I tend to review right before a lesson and as you can imagine, not helpful!

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Derek Pharr's avatar

Wow thank you so much!

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Derek Pharr's avatar

Seems like more than anything you need to book and extended stay in Tuscany ;)

But yeah, I hope this helps. Memory is a funky thing, we can store things in our short term memory, but getting into that long term memory takes a different skillset at times than we are normally made aware of in school.

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Serena Camacho's avatar

Derek, I found this post so useful! I know firsthand about the forgetting curve (wasn’t familiar with the name, but with the phenomenon), but I didn’t know about the gaps for retention. I’ll share that with my kids who are in the middle and end of their high school careers and on the cusp of university. Thanks for this clear explanation.

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Derek Pharr's avatar

OH wow, thank you so much. I hope it helps!

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Dr. Lang Charters's avatar

I love how you move from mastery, and the overwhelming amount of time it requires, to being great, and the quite reasonable amount of time it takes. And the, how you show the power of consistency and repitition, which doesn't take a ton of time on the daily. Great stuff!

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