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0:00If you do nothing, in just one day you
0:02will forget about 2/3 of what you
0:04learned today.
0:06That is how memory works. This was
0:07measured back in the 19th century.
0:10But there are people who remember almost
0:12everything on the first try, as if they
0:14had a built-in camera in their head.
0:16And this is not an innate gift. In one
0:19experiment, two groups of students
0:20solved the same problems for the same
0:22amount of time.
0:24A week later, one group remembered 20%,
0:26the other 63%—more than triple.
0:30The difference was not in intelligence.
0:32The difference was in one technique that
0:34you most likely never use. And the
0:36strangest thing is that while they were
0:38studying, those who were losing felt
0:40like they were doing great, and those
0:42who were winning felt like they were
0:43failing. Think about how many years
0:45you've been learning English, how many
0:47times you crammed the night before an
0:49exam and remembered nothing a month
0:51later. Did you think the problem was in
0:53you, in your memory, or in your
0:54abilities? No. You were simply taught to
0:56study in a way that feels pleasant, not
0:59in a way that works. Today, five laws by
1:02which those called geniuses learn, and
1:04you will test them yourself right in
1:06this video without a notebook or
1:09cramming. Let's start with a little 20-
1:11second game. Look, on the screen are 10
1:14words in Swahili with their translation
1:16next to them. 20 seconds. Just look at
1:18them, don't strain yourself.
1:35That's it. Guess how many of the ten you
1:37will remember at the end of the video.
1:39Just remember that number; we will
1:42return to it, and by that moment you
1:44will know exactly why some words stick
1:46and others disappear. But for now, meet
1:49two people. This is Sasha, and this is
1:52Kostya. In a month, both have a job
1:54interview in English at a dream company
1:56. The same textbook. The same number of
1:59hours, roughly the same abilities. Sasha
2:02does everything by the book. Every
2:04evening he rereads the chapter,
2:06highlights the main points with a marker
2:08, watches lessons on YouTube, and every
2:10evening he has a pleasant feeling. I
2:12know that feeling. Kostya does something
2:15strange; he reads a page and immediately
2:17closes the book.
2:19He sits, winces, mumbles something,
2:21makes mistakes, gets confused.
2:23From the outside, it seems like he isn't
2:25succeeding at all. Guess which one of
2:27them will be speaking in a month and who
2:30will remember anything at all in six
2:32months. If you bet on Kostya, you are
2:34right. But the most interesting thing is
2:36something else. All month, Sasha felt
2:38like he was studying better. And Kostya
2:41thought so too. The difference between
2:43them is not in talent or effort. It is
2:45in what each of them did with the
2:47material during those same hours. Why
2:49does this happen? Why do the most
2:51popular study methods barely work, and
2:54why does the brain deceive itself so
2:56easily? We'll figure it out now. And the
2:58fifth law, the very one that makes
3:00people call such individuals geniuses, I
3:02will save for last. Let’s start with a
3:04person who revolutionized the science of
3:06learning. Psychologist Robert Bjork from
3:09the University of California has spent
3:11decades studying one strange pattern.
3:14What slows down learning often makes
3:16knowledge more durable, while what
3:18speeds it up often makes it weaker.
3:21Bjork called these "desirable
3:23difficulties." Difficulty is not the
3:25price you pay for learning. Very often,
3:27difficulty is the very mechanism of
3:29learning itself. To understand why, you
3:31need one idea.
3:33Bjork, together with his wife,
3:34psychologist Elizabeth Bjork, split
3:36memory into two different things. The
3:39first is storage strength.
3:40How deeply is the knowledge woven into
3:43everything you already know? The second
3:45is retrieval strength.
3:47How easily can you access it right now?
3:50And here is the catch. You only feel the
3:52retrieval strength. When it seems: "I
3:55know this." You feel that the
3:57information is close at hand. But have
3:59you actually learned it? That is storage
4:01strength. And these two strengths can
4:03diverge significantly.
4:05Cramming all night is the perfect
4:07example. By morning, retrieval is
4:09excellent, everything is fresh and
4:11accessible, but storage is almost zero.
4:13In a couple of weeks, nothing remains of
4:15that night. Back in the 19th century,
4:18Hermann Ebbinghaus memorized nonsense
4:20syllables and tested how much he would
4:22forget over time. Most of it is lost in
4:25the first hours and days.
4:27In 2015, his experiment was repeated,
4:29and the forgetting curve turned out to
4:31be almost the same.
4:32And now, the most important part.
4:34When you struggle to pull something from
4:36memory, storage grows more than when it
4:38is easy to recall.
4:40The more you have managed to forget, the
4:42more benefit you gain from finally
4:44recalling it. It’s like finding your way
4:46in an unfamiliar city. If a navigator
4:48drives you, a week later you won't
4:49remember the route. But if you looked
4:51for it yourself, got confused, and took
4:53a wrong turn, you will remember it for a
4:55long time. And that is why Sasha is
4:57losing without even realizing it. He
4:59rereads a chapter, and the text seems
5:01smooth and familiar. That means I know
5:03it. He watches a lesson and easily
5:05repeats every step. That means I
5:07understood it. Psychologists call this
5:09the illusion of fluency. The brain
5:11mistakes ease for knowledge. In 2006,
5:14psychologists Henry Roediger and Jeffrey
5:17Karpicke had students read a text.
5:19Some reread it afterward, while others
5:22tried to recall what was in it. After 5
5:24minutes, those who reread it remembered
5:26better, but after a week, it was the
5:28opposite. Those who recalled it
5:30remembered 56%.
5:32Those who reread it, 42%.
5:34And the most unpleasant part: in the
5:36second experiment, those who only reread
5:38were the most confident in their memory
5:40, yet they remembered the least after a
5:42week.
5:43It was easier for them, and so it seemed
5:46they were learning better.
5:48Since we're on the topic of illusions,
5:50you've probably been told that you're a
5:52visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner
5:54, and that you should learn in your own
5:56style.
5:58In 2008, four psychologists, including
6:00Bjork himself, analyzed all the research
6:02on this subject.
6:04The conclusion: there is not enough
6:06evidence that tailoring learning to such
6:08a style provides any benefit at all.
6:11It turns out you spend years searching
6:13for your style, the perfect app, or the
6:15best note-taking system, when in reality
6:17, you're looking for a way to learn that
6:19won't be unpleasant.
6:21There is no such way. And adding more
6:23hours is useless, too. 8 hours of an
6:26ineffective method is just 8 hours of
6:28fatigue. It’s not about how hard you try
6:31, but where your efforts are directed.
6:34So let's direct them correctly. Five
6:37laws. Law one. Recall, don't reread.
6:41In 2008, Karpicke and Roediger published
6:44a study in Science magazine that should
6:46be shown in every school.
6:48Students learned 40 pairs of words:
6:51Swahili and English. Yes, those very
6:54same Swahili words. Now you understand
6:56where our experiment came from. When a
6:58student correctly recalled a pair at
7:00least once, it was handled differently.
7:02Some continued to reread it, others
7:05continued to recall it. A week later,
7:07those who continued to recall remembered
7:10about 80%of the words. Those who only
7:12reread remembered about a third.
7:14Rereading what you already know added
7:16almost nothing. Almost the entire effect
7:19came from recalling.
7:20And here is a detail that makes me
7:22uncomfortable. Students were asked how
7:24much they would remember, and all groups
7:27answered roughly the same: half. Their
7:30predictions had nothing to do with the
7:31result. They simply didn't feel which
7:34method was working. What does Kostya do
7:36? He reads a page, closes the book, and
7:38tries to recount what was there himself
7:41. Not to recognize, but to reproduce.
7:43The first few times, it’s unpleasant. It
7:45turns out you remember much less than
7:47you thought. This is not bad news. This
7:50is the very moment learning begins. And
7:53now let's test it on you. Do you
7:55remember the words from the beginning? I
7:56will show you five of them now. Only the
7:59Swahili word. Try to recall the
8:01translation yourself before it appears.
8:22It didn't go perfectly for everyone. You
8:24just did exactly what the students in
8:26Science magazine did. Remember, you
8:28recalled these five words, but not the
8:31other five. At the end, we'll see if
8:33there is a difference. Law two. Let
8:36yourself almost forget.
8:38When people finally get down to studying
8:40seriously, they usually do the opposite
8:42: they set aside an entire evening and
8:43go through the material five times in a
8:45row.
8:46But remember the way in an unfamiliar
8:48city. If you drive the same route five
8:50times in one evening, by the second time
8:52there is nothing left to explore, which
8:54means there is nothing left to remember
8:55. Retention grows in the intervals, not
8:58from repetitions. A pause between study
9:00sessions is not a hindrance to your
9:01schedule. That is the active ingredient
9:04. Let the material get a little fuzzy. a
9:07day, two, a week, and only then pull it
9:10back out. This will do more for your
9:12memory than reading it six times in one
9:14night. A simple rule: if it's easy to
9:16remember, you returned too soon.
9:19If you can't remember even with a hint,
9:21it's too late.
9:23You need that state where the word is on
9:25the tip of your tongue and you have to
9:26fight for it.
9:28Sasha studied for 3 hours an evening,
9:30but all in the final week. Kostya
9:32studied for 40 minutes, but returned to
9:34old material every few days.
9:37Law three. Mix it up. Almost any
9:40textbook is organized into blocks. 10
9:42problems for one rule, then 10 for
9:44another. This is convenient. By the
9:46third problem, you aren't even thinking
9:48about which rule to apply. The page gave
9:49the answer away for you. Mixing is when
9:51problems of different types are
9:53presented in a jumble. Every time, you
9:55first have to figure out what kind of
9:57problem it is and how to solve it. In
10:002007, Doug Rohrer and Kelly Taylor
10:02tested this on students.
10:05During training, those who solved
10:07problems in blocks did almost perfectly
10:10, 89%, while those who mixed them had
10:12only 60%.
10:14And a week later, there was an exam. The
10:16block group got 20%, the mixed group 63
10:19%.
10:20Remember those numbers from the very
10:22beginning? That's where they came from—
10:24they were more than three times higher.
10:25The method that looked like a failure
10:27while being used ultimately yielded
10:29three times the results.
10:31If you were one of those students in the
10:32middle of training, you likely would
10:34have quit and gone back to blocks. Later
10:36, Rohrer repeated this in actual schools
10:39. Seventh graders solved problems for 9
10:41weeks either in blocks or mixed. Two
10:44weeks later, there was a surprise quiz
10:47with 72%versus 38%.
10:50Kostya didn't learn all the verb tenses
10:52first and then all the prepositions. He
10:54mixed phrases from one topic, questions
10:56from another, words from a third, and
10:58was constantly making mistakes. Sasha
11:00laughed at him. Law four. Explain it
11:04with the book closed.
11:06Understanding someone else's explanation
11:08and being able to explain it yourself
11:10are two different things, but the brain
11:12distinguishes them poorly.
11:14In 2002, psychologists Leonid Rozenblit
11:17and Frank Keil asked people to rate how
11:19well they understood how common things
11:22work.
11:23For example, a zipper or a toilet flush
11:25tank.
11:26People gave themselves high marks, but
11:29then they were asked to explain in
11:31detail how it works, and after trying,
11:33their ratings dropped significantly.
11:36Psychologists called this the illusion
11:38of explanatory depth. So, close
11:40everything and explain the topic out
11:42loud, in simple words, as if to someone
11:44hearing about it for the first time,
11:47without notes, without peeking. Very
11:49quickly you will hit a wall, a sentence
11:51will start and fall apart.
11:54You will catch yourself hiding behind a
11:55clever term because you cannot say what
11:57lies behind it.
11:59This point is the most useful thing your
12:01study session will provide. A precise
12:03mark on the map. This is where you don't
12:05know. Rereading will never reveal it. It
12:08feeds you ready-made words and creates
12:10the illusion that they’re yours. Found a
12:13gap? Close that specific one.
12:15Then close the book again and explain it
12:18once more. Kostya explained how to form
12:20questions in English to his cat every
12:22evening. The cat was unimpressed. But an
12:25interview is essentially an explanation
12:28aloud, without a book. And the fifth law
12:30, the one that makes people call such
12:33individuals geniuses. Collect chunks,
12:36not facts. In 1973, William Chase and
12:39Herbert Simon conducted an experiment
12:41with chess players.
12:43Masters and beginners were shown a
12:45position from a real game for a few
12:47seconds, then asked to recreate it from
12:49memory.
12:50The masters did much better, which is no
12:53surprise.
12:54But then the pieces were arranged on the
12:56board randomly, and the masters '
12:58advantage almost vanished. This was
13:01retested later. A small advantage
13:03remains, but it's very slight. In other
13:06words, the masters didn’t have a special
13:08memory. Their working memory was just as
13:10limited as everyone else's. However,
13:12they had thousands of familiar patterns
13:14, groups of pieces that are read as a
13:17single whole. A beginner sees two dozen
13:19separate pieces and retains only a few.
13:23A master sees five familiar combinations
13:25and easily holds them all. Remove the
13:27meaning, and the master is an ordinary
13:29person again. That is the entire secret
13:31of people who grasp new things at a
13:33frightening speed. They don't process
13:35the same pieces any faster. Their chunks
13:37are simply larger. Each new fact
13:39immediately latches onto a hundred. ones
13:42you already know, so don't collect
13:44individual facts. Ask what this is
13:46related to, what specific case it is,
13:49why it is so, rather than just what is
13:51written here. Each connection turns two
13:54things into one, and one is much easier
13:57to carry. A month passed. Sasha arrives
14:00at the interview feeling confident.
14:02He reread the textbook so many times,
14:03but the first question comes, and his
14:05mind is blank.
14:06The words are somewhere nearby, on the
14:08tip of his tongue, but won't come out.
14:10He learned to recognize, not to retrieve
14:13. Kostya is nervous. All month he felt
14:15like he was falling behind, but he
14:17answers the question—with mistakes.
14:20Slowly, but he answers, because he spent
14:22the whole month doing exactly this.
14:24Retrieving from his head what wasn't in
14:26front of his eyes. Six months later,
14:29Sasha remembers almost nothing.
14:31Kostya watches shows in English with
14:33ease, and acquaintances say about him: "
14:35Well, he just has a knack for languages
14:37."
14:38This is what matters. Learning quickly
14:40isn't a starting condition, it's a
14:43result.
14:44Every time you recall instead of
14:46rereading, let yourself forget a little
14:49, mix things up, explain with the book
14:51closed, and link the new to the old, you
14:53are forging a path, and paths eventually
14:56form a map.
14:58After a year of such work in one field,
15:00the new ceases to be alien. It arrives
15:03as a variation of what is already there
15:04. And one day, someone will say about
15:07you: "Well, they have a talent."
15:10Let them say it: "The price is one: for
15:12a while, learning slower and less
15:13pleasantly than you'd like."
15:15Everyone who seems unfairly fast to you
15:17right now went through that at some
15:19point. You just didn't see it. And now,
15:22the promised test. Do you remember the
15:25number you picked at the beginning? Now
15:27, all 10 Swahili words will appear on
15:29the screen.
15:30Recall the translation for each and
15:32count how many you got.
16:05Compare it with the number from the
16:07start. And now, the main thing. Look at
16:09exactly which words you remembered. Most
16:11likely, the five you already recalled in
16:14the middle of the video stuck better.
16:16Just once, a few seconds of effort. If
16:19that's what happened, you've just
16:20personally replicated a discovery from
16:22Science magazine. You didn't take my
16:24word for it, but tested it on your own
16:26head.
16:28And while we're at it, nothing from this
16:29video will truly be yours until you
16:31close it and try to retell it in your
16:33own words, at least to yourself.
16:36Write in the comments which of the five
16:38laws you've been breaking the longest.
16:41Recalling instead of rereading, letting
16:42yourself almost forget, mixing things up
16:44, explaining with the book closed, or
16:45piecing parts together.
16:47And how many words you remembered at the
16:49end. I wonder how you all did? And if
16:52you've spent years thinking you weren't
16:53capable, you're perfectly fine.
16:55Your internal indicator just let you
16:57down—that sense of ease you mistook for
17:00knowledge. Send this video to someone
17:02who is currently learning a language or
17:03preparing for an exam. It might just
17:05save them months of time. Subscribe.
17:08Next, we'll keep breaking down how our
17:09minds work. See you later. y

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