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If you could learn something new and then remember it forever and use the new knowledge whenever you need it, it would be amazing. But that's not how things go in real life, right? Especially in language learning. You often learn a new word or phrase and hope to remember it, but a large portion of what you learned that day will probably be forgotten just the next day. When you're studying a new language, if you can actually learn a new word or phrase once and remember it for the rest of your life, it's usually either one of these two cases. The word or phrase sparked such a strong emotional reaction in you that it's simply unforgettable. Like it was shocking, thrilling, or very rewarding to discover that expression. Or you were able to completely understand the new grammar point or expression and why it came to be the way it is. Like, oh, your foot is wide. You cover a lot of ground so you can go far and wide. You know a lot of people. Of course, these two cases are also only possible when you are paying close attention to what you are hearing. And generally speaking, when we are learning a new language, it's not very easy to keep your attention level really high all the time. So what happens? A lot of new information that wasn't shocking, powerful, or remarkable will be just simply lost. But there is a way to prevent that from happening. And that is, as you probably already know, reviewing. Reviewing. It's 복습 in Korean. 복습. Which literally means to learn again or relearn. Many learners learn something just once and then don't review it. And what happens as a result is, when you see it again in a few months or in a few days even, it'll be like you are learning it for the first time all over again. I'm sure you get my point about reviewing being very important. And if you are a serial language learner and Korean is your third or fourth or eighth language, I'm sure you already know everything I'm going to say. But we also know, here at Talk To Me In Korean, that many people are learning Korean as their first foreign language. So here's when and how you need to review. This is what I've also done personally when I started learning English, and then French, and then Japanese, and so on. First, review. 복습하세요. Review right before you finish a study session. Just by going over what you've learned that day. So ask yourself, oh, what did I learn just now? And reread or underline or just rewrite just the key points. It's kind of like you watched a movie and you are leaving the theater and your friend was waiting for you at the door and this person is asking you, so what was the movie about? Tell me about the movie. I don't mind spoilers, so I'm not going to watch it anyway. So tell me about the movie. Just quickly going over the movie's storyline will help you remember the movie much more clearly a few months later. So before you close your book, take one or two minutes to review what you have studied. The second time you need to review is when you're about to forget the new information. You might have seen a graph that looks like this. It's the forgetting curve. Even after just a couple of days, a lot of your new knowledge evaporates. So that's when you need to review for the second time. Reviewing is, of course, less fun and exciting than learning something completely new. But remember that in the long run, you will improve much faster and have much more time left to learn new things, you know, shiny things. So just do it, okay? Whenever I personally don't feel like reviewing, the trick I use is to tell myself that I hate having to learn something or the same thing again more than I hate reviewing. So I hope that helps you too. So this review window of opportunity, if you will, will come usually around a couple of days after the first study session. Or depending on the person and depending on what you're learning, it could be three or four days later. So at first, go for reviewing three to four days later. And if you feel like you've forgotten too much, maybe make that shorter, like two days. And if that's too long, make it one day after the first study session. And by this time, you've already learned the same words or phrases for the second time. So you can do the third review after a longer gap. And then the fourth review, an even longer gap. Now, as you know, you don't have to do this all manually anymore because there are many apps and online services you can use for this purpose, like Anki, Memrise, and Quizlet, and so on. So find whatever easiest tool for you to use and let it determine the right amount of gap for you before you have to review. Learning my first foreign language, which is English, there were no smartphones, there were no mobile apps. So I used paper flashcards to do that. So I made six or no, seven boxes for each day of the week and wrote new words and phrases on flashcards and put them into the box for the next day. And I would review the cards the next day and the easiest ones would go to the box, you know, farthest away from today, which would be six days later. And the hard ones will go into the next day box. So when I guess the answer correctly several times and feel confident, I will just throw away a card because I know it's in here forever. But now you can do all of that with your phone. So do that instead. And finally, still talking about when to review. From time to time, you will feel like you're stuck and you need more fresh motivation. Then go back to the book or online course and skim through the contents really quickly. Like you watch a movie that you've watched many times before, but this time on three times fast forward. This will give you more of the confidence that you know the topic really well and help you further solidify the new knowledge. Remember these three points. Repeat, context, and different angles. The most basic part of a review is going over the same content one more time. So that's repetition. The first time I learn something, I usually study really hard with a 100% focus. And when I review, I relax a little bit more and just ask myself, Do I know this? Okay, I think so. Or I can also ask myself, Will I remember this five years from now? Maybe. This one, probably not. So that's repetition. Very simple. I just go over the same thing one more time. The second key point is giving more context to the word or phrase or grammar point. Instead of only learning the word 선물, which means a gift or present, 선물, give it more context. This means example sentences and imaginary conversations. So for a personal example, when I learned the phrase Estoy listo in Spanish for the first time, I made sentences like Estoy listo para hacer esto. Or No estoy listo para hacerlo. Or something like Estoy siempre listo para enseñar coreano. Or more dramatically, I also made this sentence. Estoy listo para conquistar el mundo, etc. I recommend that you do this when you're learning the word for the first time too. But by the time you're reviewing, you will have learned even more words in that language. So you will be able to form a wider variety of sentences. And the third key point is try different angles. Even if it's for a review. Review is all about repetition. But for example, if you are answering the same quiz question again and again, after a couple of times, your brain will quickly remember the pattern. And you will be able to answer the question too easily. So change things up and review through different materials and methods. Review through flashcards, review through quizzes, review through sample dialogues, crossword puzzles, etc. This will help you retain the new information more flexibly. And that's the ultimate aim, right? Being able to recall any information flexibly and quickly whenever you want in a real-life situation. So that is when and how you can review efficiently. And the good news is that you can do all of these things with our books and online courses to learn Korean. So we don't have the spaced repetition feature yet. So you'll need to do that separately. But we have review quizzes, a lot of sample sentences, and review dialogues in our Essential Korean Courses in the Learning Center of our website, talktomekorean.com. And we wanted to give you another way to quickly review what you've learned in each level of Talk To Me In Korean. So we've recently added a new feature to the site. If you go to the Learning Center now, at the end of each level of the Essential Korean Courses, you will see an additional review session available for the entire level. So we hope you take advantage of that too. So let's review this video about reviewing. Learning new things is fun, but it can be even more fun in the long run if you can remember everything more efficiently. So to do that, you need to review. We talked about when to review and how to review. First review, right before you finish your study session. Second review, right when you're about to forget most of the information. Third review, a little longer after that, and so on. And as for how to review, use flashcards or just quickly skim through your notes or books. And whenever you can, give context to the word or phrase by making new simple sentences. And whenever possible, review through different angles, through quizzes, simple dialogues, new materials, etc. And once again, we have an additional feature in our Learning Center where you can do an overall review of each level of the Talk To Me In Korean curriculum. So that's it for this video. Thank you so much for watching, subscribing, and turning on your notifications. I will see you then at TalkToMeInKorean.com. Happy learning!