[originaltext]Margaret: Good morning, Mr. White.White: Good morning, Margaret.

Margaret: Good morning, Mr. White.
White: Good morning, Margaret. Take a seat. How are your studies?
Margaret: OK. But I find I have a lot of things to learn by heart.
White: Yes, English is not easy to learn. Well, do you have a good memory?
Margaret: Yes, I think I do.
White: Most people do have a good memory but many of them do not really know how to use their memories to remember the things they want to.
Margaret: That’s interesting.
White: Yes, that may seem funny, but it is true. With a better understanding of how to use your memory, you will be able to remember more things and retain them for a longer time. There are three things to do to prepare your memory.
Margaret: What three things?
White: First is understanding. Before you can remember something, you must have a good understanding of it. It is very difficult to remember something you do not understand completely.
Margaret: Yes, I agree with this.
White: And the next is to associate.
Margaret: What does associate mean?
White: To associate means "to go together." When you associate, you think of some way in which the things you want to remember go together. It is easier to remember a set of facts if you can associate them in some way.
Margaret: It is very helpful to learn this way.
White: The last thing is to visualize. Visualizing is seeing something in your mind.
Margaret: I see. To visualize means to close our eyes and try to picture the things we want to remember.
White: Yes, try to picture how they go together. When you visualize the facts it will help you remember them.
Margaret: That’s very interesting. I haven’t done this before. I’ll try it next time and see how it goes.
White: Now we have gone through the three steps to prepare your memory. There are the three steps you should follow to memorize any set of facts.
Margaret: Tell me more about these steps.
White: You know that to memorize means to fix something firmly in your memory. One way is to recite the facts over and over again, until you can recall them all easily. Do you recite the things you want to memorize?
Margaret: Yes, I often read the new vocabularies out loud and try to memorize them.
White: That’s a good way to remember things. Tell me how do you recite things?
Margaret: Well, first I write the facts in a list. Then I begin to say the facts over and over again till I can remember them. The one thing I find most difficult for me is to remember either the beginning or the end of the list.
White: So how do you solve this problem?
Margaret: I place the easier facts to remember near the middle of my list, then recite the facts. I’ve found that when I do this it’s much easier to memorize the complete list without forgetting a single fact.
White: Oh, that’s good. The second step is to overlearn.
Margaret: What does overlearn mean?
White: To overlearn something is to learn it so thoroughly that you can recall it as quickly as you can recall your own name. If you cannot recall the facts that quickly and easily, you have not reached the overlearning stage.
Margaret: I see. To overlearn is to learn something so well that you can recall it very easily whenever you want to.
White: Yes, to overlearn something, you must recite it many times, even after you think you know it very well. The last step is to review.
Margaret: I often review my lessons.
White: That’s good. You know if you want to keep something in your memory for a long time, you must review it. To review is to go back over things you have learned. At first you may want to review every day. In short time, every second or third day should be enough. If you can still recall the information easily, you can cut your review time to only once a week. As long as you can still recall the facts, you can make the time between reviews longer and longer.
Margaret: These three steps are very helpful ways to remember things. Thank you very much, Mr. White, I have learned a lot from today’s talk.