You learn 5 times faster, and you remember forever, if you have a contextual or emotional connection with the content you are learning.
We’ve all heard that, but how do we actually do it?
Well, we solve the problem for you.
Create and learn your own example sentences
Use Taalhammer when you search for a meaning or a translation and it will include your search history in your repetitions.
Have you found a great word or an interesting sentence on the web? Just paste it into Taalhammer. It will not only help you remember it forever but it’ll train you to use it, with speed and confidence, very quickly.
Or imagine you had a conversation and wanted to say, “Let’s have a drink after work,” and didn’t know how. Just start typing it in our editor and Taalhammer will search for some examples that you can click and save. You’ll see that you will quickly be able to say that sentence fluently. You can also use our auto-translation to translate your own sentences .
When you save it we will add pronunciation audio for you. But more importantly, we’ll add it to your Spaced Repetition queue. The item is saved in the currently active collection if you would like to open it later.
If you use Taalhammer on your desktop, you can also add images for even stronger memory stimulation.
Create variations of sentences around a certain topic
I encourage you to add a few example sentences as often as possible. For example, let’s add also “Are you coming for drinks after work?”
That way you’ll quickly remember and be able to say a few things around a topic. Let’s add not only a question but also a negation: “Aren’t you coming for drinks?”
It’s a very good way of learning. By remembering the whole sentence you also learn the structure and the way of saying something. There is more to it, our Spaced Repetition algorithm trains you on that sentence so you can easily recall, say and even swap parts of the sentence fluently. This is how we create native-like language reflexes.
Create sentences with variations of the same verb
Working with the Taalhammer Board will allow you to quickly automate things in language like asking questions, negating, accepting, confirming something etc. With a few clicks you can easily create many variations of sentences by changing the person speaking or moving it to the future or the past.
Repeat, repeat and repeat
Our statistics reveal that if you show an element only a few times, but spread over time, our brains will usually need 45 days to master this element really well.
People often think of remembering the whole sentence as something hard or laborious. Not true at all! And as we said before, everything that you searched for or translated, and then saved, will be added to your repetitions.
Make sure that your sentences are quite short, and that you are familiar with at least 50% of the words. This is a very powerful and natural way of learning a language.
Don’t worry about the workload. Our Spaced Repetition algorithm called Atom will optimize your repetitions in such a way that you repeat less but remember more.
Train your ears by listening a lot
Last but not least, you can hack your memory even further and train your ear by listening to everything you’ve saved or learnt from other collections.
This is a hands-free activity where you can listen to everything you’re learning.
Studies report that combining language learning and physical activities improves your ability to remember information by 25%.
Enjoy language learning with Taalhammer, language learning that works!