young woman writing Testing yourself on the material you're trying to learn is more effective than studying and restudying that material. Francisco Osorio/Flickr

In his book "Fluent Forever," opera singer Gabriel Wyner suggests that one of the best ways to learn a new language is to practice remembering it.

In other words, instead of reading and rereading a list of vocabulary words, you should read it once and then test yourself repeatedly.

The same strategy works for pretty much anything you're hoping to commit to memory, and there's a growing body of research behind it.  Psychologists call this phenomenon the "testing effect."



More recent research suggests that combining testing with immediate feedback — finding out whether you answered right or wrong — is more effective and can even boost memory right after the information is learned.


The other half took six tests in which they had to come up with the concept described on the screen. For example, if they saw "the improvement in retention of information presented at the beginning of a list," they would have to type in "primacy effect." Then they would see the correct answer.

At the conclusion of the learning period, all participants took a test in which they were presented with a fact and required to type in the corresponding concept. They took the same test 18 days and five weeks later.

Participants who had been tested performed better on all three tests.

Taken together, these studies suggest that the most efficient strategy for remembering something — whether you're learning a new language or studying for a science exam — is simply to practice recalling it. It's probably a lot more effective than trying to drill the facts into your head by staring at them for an hour.