How memory works: the forgetting curve and spaced repetition
Why words disappear within days and how to stop it. The forgetting curve, spaced repetition and mnemonics: how review intervals are chosen, how many repetitions a word needs, and which methods work rather than just look like they do.
How to Understand Spoken Spanish: Training Your Ear for Words
Why Spanish words you know go unrecognized by ear — dropped sounds, linking, speed — and how to train recognition: audio on every word, the Listening sprint game, one minute of speech taken apart three times, saying words aloud. A one-month plan.
How to Review Words: Recall or Reread
Rereading a list feels productive and teaches you almost nothing; covering the translation and trying to recall does the work. How reading fluency fools you, what the testing effect actually is, and how to review so words arrive when you need them.
Mnemonics for Memorizing Words
How to invent handles for words that refuse to stick: the keyword method, what makes an image work, which words need no mnemonic at all and why it never replaces review.
How Sleep Locks In the Spanish Words You Learn
At night the brain consolidates what you studied by day. How sleep and vocabulary memory are connected, why short sleep costs you twice, and how to build evening reviews.
The Leitner System: Flashcards Done Right
The Leitner system is a flashcard method with five compartments and growing review intervals. How to build it out of paper in one evening, where it breaks, and how an app does the same thing.
Why You Forget New Spanish Words (and How to Fix It)
You learn thirty words and a week later five are left. Five reasons Spanish vocabulary does not stick, and what to do instead: a review schedule, retrieval instead of rereading, and training in both directions.
False Friends: Spanish Words That Trick You
Embarazada doesn't mean embarrassed, and éxito is not an exit. A table of 15 Spanish false friends, why your brain falls for them, and how to learn the real meanings for good.
How Many Words Do You Need to Speak Spanish?
How many Spanish words you need to actually speak: active vs passive vocabulary, vocabulary size at every CEFR level, and what share of speech the first few thousand words cover.
Spaced Repetition: The Simple Science of Never Forgetting
How spaced repetition works and why it beats cramming: the two memory effects it rests on, how the algorithm decides when to show a word, where the system breaks and how to set it up for yourself.
How Often Should You Review Spanish Vocabulary?
How long should you wait before reviewing new Spanish words? A practical review schedule based on the forgetting curve, common mistakes, and how to put spaced repetition on autopilot.