The Stupidity of Memorization

Are you trying to memorize vocabulary words? Learning English is not about speaking fancy or having a broad vocabulary. This is about being able to communicate in English like never before. Come along with me in this session and let me explain how memorization is bad for your English learning.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fluent-english-mindset-podcast--6526211/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
So are you over complicating English. I'm Matt and I
want to talk with you a little bit here about
using simple words. And this is something that I discuss
a lot. You hear me talk about this a lot. Okay,
using simple words, Okay. I want you to think about

(00:31):
some of the greatest music, some of the most powerful
novels that were written by some of the greatest English
speaking writers. And by English speaking, I don't mean translations
of Shakespeare either. I'm talking about great novels like Forrest

(00:54):
Gump by Winston Groom or you know, maybe The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, books like
this classic American literature, the Art of the Prose, if

(01:15):
you will. So, now that we've been discussing some of
this creative objectivism, I want us to talk a little
bit here today about how we use our language. There's
a lot of talk about expanding vocabulary, memorizing words, people

(01:39):
that want to do these incredible things through memorization. But
let me tell you something, friends, memorization does you little
to no good. You can memorize the entire English vocabulary,

(02:00):
but if you don't know how to use those words,
all that does is prove that you're a good memorizer.
That's it. It does nothing else for you. Playing the
memory game is pointless. Now you might be saying, well, Matt,

(02:21):
I'm studying for the tofo, or I'm studying for the
eye ELTs, or I'm studying for the oe t or
whatever the case may be. Whatever it is you want
to do, I'm gonna tell you that's great. This whole
idea that people judge you by the words that you use,
I don't know if I so much agree with that.

(02:44):
I look at great writers like Hunter S. Thompson, you know,
like I mentioned Mark Twain, the great writer. You know,
so many novels. C. S. Lewis, even into contemporary literature,
if you will, somewhat, people like Larry McMurtry. They didn't

(03:10):
use complicated words. The reason that people don't like complicated
words is it takes him longer to figure out what
it is that you're trying to say. You know. President
Kennedy's inauguration speech was known as the greatest speech that

(03:31):
nobody ever heard? Well, why was it the greatest speech
that no one ever heard? Because he used a very
complicated language. You see, when I was a young reporter
and I started working overseas in Europe. I had this

(03:51):
idea that I had to speak very eloquently, very strong,
very beautiful English. But then I realized the people that
I was talking to, they weren't these eloquent people. These big,
high falutint fancy people could understand simple English, but the

(04:17):
people that really mattered they couldn't understand complicated English. It's
the same way with American English. If you speak in
a language that everyone understands, that everyone knows, you're going

(04:37):
to be a lot better off than being able to
speak with fancy words. Ah. You can sit there and
you can quote Shakespeare and you can talk into these
and the vows and read like you're reading from the
King James version of the Bible. But the reality of
it is nobody talks like that. One of the examples

(05:03):
I like to use is the famous American country song.
And if you get a chance to look this up,
her name was Loretta Lynn. It was a song called
the coal Miner's Daughter. In the opening lines of this song,
she says, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter.

(05:26):
I remember well the well that I drew water. We
were poor, but we had love, and that's the one
thing that Daddy made sure of. He shoveled coal to
make a poor man's dollar. Very simple words. This song
went on to become a big hit in the United

(05:47):
States back in the fifties or sixties, something like this.
To put this in a little bit more modern style, right,
we take a Taylor Swift song or an rim song. Right,
let's take a look at the song by rim Man

(06:08):
in the Moon. Right, this was a very popular song, right,
very very popular song. Now, most people may not know
who mattin the hoopol is in the Game of Life
or Andy Kaufman, but it says Monopoly twenty one, Checkers
and Chess, Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, mister Fred Blassie in

(06:32):
a breakfast mess Yeah yeah yeah yeah. You see, simple words,
very simple words. Why because if you use complicated words
like thou art here, old friendest thou comest to me today,
to my home Earth for dinner Earth, who the hell

(06:56):
do you know? Speaks like that? Who do you know? Oh?
Speaks like that? Nobody? Instead they say, hey, man, how's
it going. You want to come over to my place
for dinner tonight? Pretty simple speak to your audience, speaking simple,

(07:17):
clear words. Don't try to over complicate it, don't try
to make this something it's not. Don't think that people
will respect you because you speak a more complicated language
than they do. They'll respect you more if they can
understand you. They will respect you more if they can

(07:37):
hear what you're saying. You know, there's a saying that says,
if you waste your time talking to people who don't listen,
who do you think is going to hear? Well, if
you waste your time talking to people who don't listen,
who do you think is going to hear? If you
waste your time talking to people who don't understand the

(07:59):
words that you're saying, who do you think is going
to hear? And that's my point. My point here in
this lesson is to encourage you to speak, not to
the highest level of your ability, speak to the people

(08:20):
that you're going to speak with every day. Can you
order food? Do you know how stupid it would sound
to walk into McDonald's and say, hither thou my servant,
I shall have a big macath with cheese and big

(08:46):
sizeth this thing for me with a Coca cola. Thou
art a good person. Many thanks? What is that say, well,
say yeah, give me a number six. They get a
large size with a coat. Thanks. Duh. You see, I've

(09:15):
given this lecture a lot. The English is an evolving language.
When you tell somebody that you want to memorize a
bunch of words, what do they see a gold mine?
Because the longer you stay memorizing new words and not

(09:39):
learning anything but memorizing a few new words and not
knowing how to use them, right, you're staying subscribed. You're
paying people endless amounts of money. So what I'd like
you to do is put people like me out of

(09:59):
a job. I'd like you to start speaking with real intent.
And you heard you hear me say this a lot.
I want you to start speaking with confidence. I want
you to start speaking with clarity. Don't focus on speaking
like Shakespeare. Don't focus on speaking like an academic. Focus

(10:26):
on speaking like the bus driver, the cab driver, the pilot,
the nurse. If you work in medical field, okay, in
a hospital somewhere, and you walk into somebody's room and

(10:47):
you say, good evening, I am hitherto to give without medication.
First off, don't call it medication. Call it medicine. Nobody
uses the word medication unless you're like a pharmacist or
you know, maybe internal jargon. And we're not using jargon.

(11:12):
That's not what we're using. We're using a simple language
that everyone can understand. You know. I was working with
a doctor one time and he kept calling a heart
attack and acute my cardial infarction. And I said, if

(11:34):
you walk into somebody's room and you say good evening, sir,
you've suffered from an acute my cardial infarction, they're gonna
look at you and say, what, just tell me what's
wrong with me? Well, I did tell you what's wrong
with you. I told you you're an acute my cardial
infarction and you have a blockage and the a ordit

(11:56):
blah blah blah blah blah, and we need to go
in and we need to do a cabbage and blah
blah blah blah blah. You know, speak to these people
in a normal language. Sir, you had a heart attack.
We need to do open heart surgery, or we need
to do a heart cath or whatever you're gonna do.
Speak in simple language that people can understand. You know.

(12:21):
This is what makes our field so great, This is
what makes English so beautiful is it doesn't have to
be complicated, It does not have to be difficult, It
does not have to be something it's not. It just
has to be understandable. And that's where a lot of

(12:45):
people are making mistakes. A lot of people aren't focusing
on being understood. So I want to ask you in
this lesson, are you more worried about sounding like Shakespeare,
who nobody talks on me? Or are you more worried

(13:06):
about talking like a friend, having a conversation like a
business acquaintance something like this? Are you more worried about
getting your message heard or trying to impress people that
you can speak like Shakespeare and you have a big, broad, vast,

(13:31):
complicated vocabulary. Now, chances are, if you've been watching this
or listening to this, or whatever the truth is, you
might have had to go back and look for words.
I did that on purpose, because while you were looking
for words, I kept on talking. And while I kept

(13:56):
on talking, you kept missing my point because you were
looking for words new vocabulary instead. If you didn't focus
on the word that you didn't know, you would have
learned a whole lot more. That's how this whole thing works.

(14:17):
You see, learning a language is kind of one part psychology.
You have to understand how this all works. If you
don't understand how this works, all of the rules don't
mean anything to you. Hey, I'm at Pierce. Thanks for

(14:39):
joining me. Please come back again and stick around. We're
going to learn more about this English theory and we're
gonna master this once and for all without memorizing a
bunch of stupid rules and new words.