How to remember the phrases you are learning

In Fluent Forever, Wyner gives two methods for keeping a phrase in memory: test yourself instead of rereading, and space your reviews over days instead of repeating a phrase many times in one sitting. The app's recall practice does both with a fixed five-box schedule. This article says exactly what that schedule does, and what no source read for this site can tell you about it.

What Wyner says, and how well it is known

Wyner wrote Fluent Forever for adults who teach themselves a language with flashcards. It does not study young children or heritage-language homes, so it is a source for how memory works in general, not for what suits a family. Two points from chapter 2 matter here.

• Test yourself; do not reread. Wyner's phrase is "Don't Review. Recall." He describes an experiment in which students read a passage once and then tested themselves on a blank sheet of paper. A week later they remembered 35% more than students who reread the passage. That is Wyner's account of the experiment. The notes for this site did not check the original study (REPORTED).
• Space the reviews. Wyner states that reviewing a fact just before you would otherwise forget it gives much stronger long-term memory than repeating it many times in one sitting. He illustrates this with Hermann Ebbinghaus's forgetting-curve experiments of 1885, which we know only through his account (REPORTED).

Neither point gives a figure for how fast a given person forgets a phrase, and no source read for this site does. So these sources cannot tell you whether you will forget a phrase by Friday. They tell you what Wyner reports helps.

How the app's schedule works

The recall practice sits on the practice page. It uses nine phrases for three daily moments: bath time, breakfast, and putting shoes on. For languages without ready-made phrases, you write them in yourself. Each phrase sits in one of five boxes, and each box has a waiting time before the next review:

• Box 1: 1 day
• Box 2: 2 days
• Box 3: 4 days
• Box 4: 9 days
• Box 5: 21 days

A phrase is due when today is on or after the date of its last review plus the waiting time of its box. A phrase that was never reviewed is due today. A phrase with nothing written in it is skipped. The section "Today's recall practice" appears only when at least one phrase is due, and its title shows how many.

For each due phrase, the app shows the moment and the meaning in your language, and nothing else. You try to say the phrase aloud from the meaning alone. Then you tap "Show phrase". The phrase appears, with your phonetic guide if you wrote one. Then you press one of two buttons:

• "I got it": the phrase moves up one box, to box 5 at most, and today becomes its review date.
• "Still learning": the phrase goes back to box 1 from any box, and today becomes its review date.

The app does not hear you and does not check your answer. The mark is yours. If you skip days, the phrase stays due and appears the next time, and the most overdue phrase comes first. The app keeps no streak and no score.

What the boxes look like on a calendar

ILLUSTRATION from the table above, not data about real learners. Take one phrase you have never reviewed, and press "I got it" every time, on the day it becomes due:

• Day 0: first review, box 2, next review on day 2.
• Day 2: box 3, next review on day 6.
• Day 6: box 4, next review on day 15.
• Day 15: box 5, next review on day 36.
• From then on: every 21 days.

One "Still learning" changes this. If you miss the phrase on day 6, it returns to box 1 and is due on day 7. These intervals are the app's arithmetic. They do not predict how long you will remember a phrase.

What to do this week

1. If a phrase is blank, write it in with help from a fluent person, so you are not guessing.
2. Open the practice page and say each due phrase aloud before you tap "Show phrase". Saying it aloud is the test.
3. Mark honestly. "Still learning" is the right mark when you did not recall the phrase. It brings the phrase back tomorrow.
4. Say each phrase at its own moment: at bath time, at breakfast, at the door. The phrases are written for those moments.

What is still unknown

• Whether the intervals of 1, 2, 4, 9 and 21 days suit you. They come from a classic five-box card system, simpler than the spaced-repetition software Wyner recommends, which adjusts intervals card by card. No source read for this site gives these numbers, and the app does not claim they are best (UNVERIFIED).
• Whether what Wyner describes for adults with flashcards carries over to a parent with nine phrases. His book does not test it.
• Whether your own mark is accurate. The app cannot check it.