SuperMemo — software to build your English fast
What is SuperMemo?
SuperMemo is a computer program which lets you learn English words, phrases, and grammar structures, and remember them forever. It is based on scientific research on human memory.
With SuperMemo, you can learn English words, phrases, and grammar structures. However, in this article we are going to talk mostly about words (to make it simpler and shorter).
You can also read about Tom's personal experiences with SuperMemo in the past 9 years.
Stop forgetting!
Have you noticed how your vocabulary never seems to increase? You go to an English class, and you come back with 30 new words in your notebook. You learn these words. Next week your teacher gives you 30 new words. You learn the new words, but... you forget the 30 words from last week. So instead of 60 new words, you know 30 again. What a nightmare.
What can you do to help yourself and make progress? There is only one way. You have to do something to stop forgetting the words that you learn. How can you do it?
One of the best answers is: SuperMemo.
How SuperMemo works
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You add some English words to SuperMemo. In order to do this, you create SuperMemo items. An item has two parts: the question (Q) and the answer (A). It can look like this:
Q the mother of your husband or wife A mother-in-law (This is a very simple item, and there are other kinds.)
Items are held together in SuperMemo collections. One collection can hold thousands of items. To use SuperMemo, you don't have to make your own items. You can use collections made by other people and companies.
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You review the words. Every day, you run SuperMemo and review some of the words. Each day you review different words. For example, if you added 50 words to SuperMemo, on Monday you may review 5 of them, on Tuesday — another 4 of them, etc. The words that you review are chosen by SuperMemo.
Here's the best thing: SuperMemo knows how long you will remember each word. You review each word a short time before you forget it. For example, if you will remember the word greenhouse for a month, there's no need for you to review it tomorrow or in a week. That would be a waste of time. With SuperMemo, you will review the word in a month, just before it disappears from your memory. Because you reviewed it, it will stay in your memory for another two months. Then you will review it again, and so on. The word can stay in your head forever.
How does SuperMemo know how long you will remember a word? It collects information about your memory every time you review a word.
What happens during a repetition
Here's what happens during a repetition (when you review a word in SuperMemo):
- SuperMemo shows you the question, for example: the mother of your husband or wife.
- You answer the question (you think about it or you say it). You do not type the answer on your keyboard.
- SuperMemo shows you the correct answer, for example: mother-in-law.
- You compare your answer with the correct answer, and you give yourself a grade — between 0 (bad) and 5 (very good). The grade tells SuperMemo how well you remember the word.
- SuperMemo decides when you should review the item again. This is called repetition spacing. From your grade, your previous grades for this item, and other statistics, SuperMemo is able to calculate how long you will remember the word. It then plans the next repetition. The next repetition will happen just before the day on which you would normally forget the word.
There is a longer explanation of memorizing and reviewing knowledge in SuperMemo (with screenshots).
An everyday session with SuperMemo
Your everyday SuperMemo session may look like this:
- Review the words planned by SuperMemo for today. Usually, the number of words that you review every day is very small. For example, if you have 8,000 English words in your collection, you may have to review only 40 words per day.
- Review difficult words again. This is called final drill. You review all the words for which you got a grade of 3 or less. You review every word until you get at least a 4.
- Memorize new words. You learn words for the first time. The next review of these words will be planned by SuperMemo.
- Add new words to the collection. You can use a dictionary to make your own items with a question and an answer.
Why SuperMemo is good
We discovered SuperMemo in 1993. The program completely changed our way of learning English. In high school, we would spend hours making our own collections and talking about the program.
Here are the main advantages of SuperMemo's method of repetition spacing:
- You don't have to worry about forgetting. Simply add an English word to SuperMemo, and it will be in your head forever. The word is yours. You can learn other words, and you will remember them, too. You can build your English as much as you like.
- You don't review words that you already know well. You only review the words which you almost forgot. SuperMemo only asks you the difficult questions, so you do not waste time on the easy ones.
- You review each word less and less often. After each repetition, you remember a word for a longer time. For example, after the first repetition of the word greenhouse you may remember it for two days. After two days, you review greenhouse again, and this time you will remember it for 7 days. After the third repetition, you may remember this word for a month. The time between repetitions becomes longer and longer. After a year of learning with SuperMemo, you may have some words planned for the year 2010 and later!
Benefits of using SuperMemo
SuperMemo has a large effect on people's ability in English. After adding about 1,000-2,000 items to your SuperMemo collection, you should begin to notice big changes in your English. SuperMemo can help you:
- Increase your vocabulary. You will begin to use new, interesting words when speaking and writing — words like devour, appalling, or live down. In an hour, you can add more than 20 new words to your SuperMemo collection. You can start using these words immediately — at your next English class, in your next e-mail message, etc. Show other people that you are good!
- Read books in English and understand spoken English. With your growing vocabulary, reading and listening to English will become easier and easier!
- Be the best in your class. If you take English classes, you may notice that you are the only person who remembers vocabulary from last month. You may also notice that you don't have to study for vocabulary tests anymore.
- Improve your grammar. You can develop a grammar intuition if you add example sentences to your items. You can also use special items which test your grammar knowledge.
- Learn the pronunciation of words. You can add pronunciation information to your items or use special items for learning the pronunciations of words.
- Fight your mistakes. If someone corrects your mistake, just add the corrected sentence to your SuperMemo collection. SuperMemo will make you review the correct version, and forget the incorrect one.
- Increase your motivation to learn English. Only with SuperMemo do you really feel that you are building your vocabulary. Why? Because you know that every word you add will be with you forever.
Making your own collection is also a great way to learn English. When you add items to your collection, you improve your vocabulary, but also you read many definitions and example sentences in your English dictionary. You automatically learn new words and grammar structures from these definitions.
Getting SuperMemo
You can buy and download SuperMemo at the Super Memory Store (part of Yahoo! Stores). The following versions are available:
- SuperMemo 2004 for Windows
- SuperMemo for Pocket PC
- SuperMemo for Palm Pilot