oh, I would be completely wrong if I said this video has no good points in it. there is one great advantage - mr. Foer speaks in a very understandable way so that even I am able to hear every single word he utters, though I am usually bad with non-British pronunciation. yep, this is a great thing
'tis not that I was expecting this vid to open my eyes. however, there were at least vague hopes of mine that mr. Foer would pay some attention to the real problems of memorizing things... instead, he reinvented the wheel spending 20 minutes on that
oh, thank you very much. as if I did not know about how associating something with something else helps to memorize it. I have thought of dozens of 'strange and bizarre' images and association links to memorize kanji, you know. this does not help, however. I still lack the knowledge of kanji which made me so worried and frustrated the day before yesterday, when I took Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken
since December - when I attempted to 'upgrade' myself to the 2 level for the first time - I did gain much experience in translating due to both my baito and interests, and I did watch many doramas, performances and a bit of anime, so my knowledge of Japanese increased considerably, though not greatly. therefore, on July 1st, when I tried for the second time, my reading the texts was much better, though still difficult, and the grammar part was not as challenging as before, but the very first 10 questions where I should have chosen the right kanji for the spelling provided, or vice versa, was a real catastrophe. why?
I have a firm belief that everyone has his own way of memorizing things. and this is a fact that mr. Foer and many other people, who speak of memory, pay no attention to. I still remember very well the words of Gulenko
Психология, декларируя индивидуальный подход к личности, тем не менее «выписывает» всем практически одинаковые рецепты: всех учит быть лидерами, хотя в обществе велика потребность в надежных исполнителях, улучшает память или развивает воображение всем желающим без разбору, повышает вашу общительность, к какому бы стилю коммуникабельности вы по своему типу ни принадлежали. Соционический же подход утверждает, что норма для одного типа людей часто оказывается патологией для других. Массовый охват пусть даже самыми лучшими, но не индивидуализироваными по типам методиками неэффективен. Социоанализ для каждой категории людей указывает свои природные пределы привычных, не приводящих к невротизации реакций. На этой основе разрабатывается не одна-единственная «сверхэффективная» методика, а целый их набор, учитывающий индивидуальные особенности восприятия и мышления людей разных типов.
That I could translate as:
While declaring the individual approach, psychology nevertheless prescribes the same things for everyone: it teaches everyone to be a leader, though the society lacks reliable executors greatly, indiscriminately helps everyone to improve his memory or develop his imagination, and helps you to increase your sociability irrelevantly of the communicative style you have. The socionic approach, however, states that what is normal for ones can be a pathology for others. The mass spread of techniques without dividing them according to individual types is non-effective, however great those techniques may be. Socioanalysis of each category of people determines a certain natural limit to reactions which should not lead to neuroticism. With this basis not the only 'super-effective' method is developed, but a whole complex of them, which takes into account the individual peculiarities of perception and thinking of different types of people.
this seems just a bit more realistic to me. people do think in different ways, therefore 'tis only natural that the process of memorizing and recalling is also different
the reason how I came to this conclusion, however, lies in my own weakness which is so noticeable that I am almost proud of it, though it should be otherwise. I have great problems with visual memory. I am particularly bad at memorizing faces (read - people), and this lack of visual memory of mine was once again proved by a very nice game I downloaded at Google Play - here 'tis
the rules are simple - you are given several seconds to memorize the circles with numbers in them and when they are covered with red circles - press each of them in the increasing order. you can fail for 3 times, then the app tells you the 'age of your brain' and how much of it you are using. my best result was near my real age - 20 years and 3 months. this was, however, only the 6th level of the game. in other words, I could not proceed too far. moreover, it took me really a long time to get there. instead, my mother, who was very tired and sleepy that moment, tried to play, too, and she was able to get almost the same result as me, and her first results were also much better than the first results of mine. when I asked her how she memorizes the numbers, she revealed her secret to me, which was a thing I thought of myself, too. she memorized the first several numbers (the ones in a particular place on the page you start from - like, top or left or corner) and the last ones, and between the ones that were in the middle she usually doubted, but then used her intuition and the vague image of them that she managed to capture. however, that is not the point. her memorizing was visual. the reason I could not proceed any further was that my memorizing type is not like this. as far as I understand visual perception, 'tis a process that enables the person to grasp and memorize a lot of elements together, as a whole. my memorizing is built on memorizing not all the numbers together, but each of them in an order. in this case, the order was of course determined by reading the numbers silently to myself. after the numbers were hidden, I had to recall the ORDER in which I pronounced the numbers with my inner voice, together with tracing them on the page with my eyes or with a slight help of my fingers. in other words, I memorized not the numbers themselves, but a 'phrase' consisting of them, or even more precisely - how it sounds. this is what I thought to be the proof that I am the 'audial' type, exactly what INTj is
however, thinking over kanji lead me to another conclusion. this happened first when I understood that I am not able to count the strikes in a kanji without imagining how to write them. then I thought of why I like calligraphy so much, and dislike learning kanji. so, I like the process of writing kanji with a brush, a certain characteristic of which is - a nice feeling in your hand when the brush slides down the paper with proper smooth movements, and the moderately high speed of writing. therefore, I like the ORDER of strikes and radicals in kanji. moreover, when I wanted to perfect my handwriting in Japanese, I was not successful until I was honoured to attend a lesson and explained every single letter of the Japanese hiragana, and after that - payed attention to both kanas and started writing them properly. same goes for kanji, where the order of strokes and their direction makes ALL the difference between an ugly kanji obviously written by a clumsy foreigner, and a nice cute kanji written according to the rules
therefore, I can memorize not the picture, but the ORDER. that makes me think I am not a static type, but dynamic. BTW, this is a problem, because INTj is a static, therefore I am either mistaken of my socionic type, or my views of static and dynamic
anyway, imagining a cookie monster on a horse is not a good advice for me when I need to memorize a speech. I have my imagination developed enough to create a visual image of what I speak about in my mind, and I have always, ALWAYS been doing this. I believe this is due to me being an intuitive type and a synesthete together, and my parent raising me properly and giving me proper education. reading books, watching movies and whatever, and listening to music enabled me to be that capable of imagining things. what it takes for you to have a good imagination is for you to decide, not without the help of socionics, if you wish
BTW, this is probably the reason why I cannot imagine things with my eyes closed. I am not sure, because everyone reads books,
watches video and listens to music, but I have been doing this with my
eyes open - since I was born. I had no need in closing my eyes, I could
imagine what I wanted absolutely simultaneously with reading/watching/listening. closing my eyes makes me unable to see anything, and even if I see - unable to control my imagination. and mr. Foer, as well as all the people speaking of imagination, pays no attention to it, as well. in the very beginning he tells the audience to close their eyes, and he does the same. I have met people who literally demanded me to close my eyes in order to think of or recall something. what makes them so sure???
I am happy that many people have discovered for themselves that the techniques mr. Foer is speaking about were invented by ancient Greeks. however, mr. Foer who bestowed us with this knowledge seems to be an average poseur is not doing what I could appreciate. and I needed something usable, you know?
