Since I've been a kid at elementary school I hated to memorize statements word by word without further explanation and now I am an adult I still can't memorize like that. The only type of learning, that is good for me is when I udnerstand the statement by my own mind, I have to figure out why and how and then I can learn, but if I don't understand the point of something it's extremly hard for me to memorize. I always break down the statement to parts and then collect them and try to put them in an order that makes sense in my own thinking process and then I can create my own explanation and learn further about the problem and actually memorize what I have to learn. I just need to catch the general idea of it and I need to get into this idea by my own analysis. I've been wondering if this is the Ne learing process?
Save for a period when I was younger, I've been pretty much unable to remember sentences word by word even if it is my own sentence I said ten seconds ago. I can reword it based on the meaning that I remember so this isn't really a problem. Well to be more precise, I can still do learn word by word e.g. some verses back in school, it's just a pain in the ass trying to learn. I did manage though. I just forgot the memorized texts very fast.
There was a technique my literature teacher shared with us in middle school, read the verse once or so every morning, after three days you've got most of it memorized effortlessly and it feels like it's automatic/implicit memory. I tried it once, it did work
But really my memory is best for numbers and sometimes even seemingly random characters stick better than words. (They aren't actually random to me because they have my synesthesia associated with them and that's what facilitates the memorizing of them, I'm pretty sure about that.) Numbers get retained automatically a lot of the time. When learning a foreign language, I can learn words though by rote memorizing if I have to. So my semantic memory is alright, just not the whatever kind of memory is needed for recite stuff word by word. That is, I can learn word by word but I will forget so fast it doesn't matter... I don't know any songs word by word for example
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Other than that, in general, I learn the fastest if I break down the statements into parts and build some structure, it's all about logic though, not Ne. It's even better if I can then put the freshly gained understanding into practice. I will master the thing much better then and with more practice it will be really on an automatic level too so it'll be a really solid skill then.
I can also do rote memorizing really well if I build up a structured system of categories and subcategories of the elements. Not without the help of such a structure, however.
I wouldn't know what that means in terms of MBTI.
Yes. And, like you say, i first need to understand the generals. I need to understand what the borders of the topic are, and then i can work out the relationships between the small things and etc.
That seems to have no connection with the issue of not learning well word by word, then. I don't need to start with the borders. I don't even like to start with reading the summary of the topic. I build it all up in my mind from reading the details. I will then do what I talked about above, the logical stuff.
The only rote memorizing I was ever really good at was remembering important historical dates, but even then, I think I associated particular ideas or themes with each date, so I don't know if that even counts as rote memorization. Perhaps my ability to retain historical dates and important events is related to Si?
Maybe. I also remember dates well but not because of any kind of associating with themes or ideas. It's a more musical thing, it's related to my number synesthesia I think.
edit: I also remember having trouble memorizing vocabulary words in grammar school unless I understood the word and started utilizing it in my everyday speech. Other kids would memorize them long enough to know for the quiz, then forget them, it seemed. I would keep using the words, especially if I liked them, which led other kids to think I was a weirdo. I'm serious--they'd make fun of me and ask where a particular word came from. Uh, from last week's vocabulary lesson, don't you remember, fucktards? I was often told by adults that I spoke like a little professor. Anyway, what the fuck is the point of learning new vocabulary words if you're not going to retain them and enrich your own vocabulary?
Nice you kept using the words after the quiz
I didn't :/ I was fine learning them for the quiz but that was all. That wasn't enough to start using them. I figured out later that I learn a word best if I meet the word in several kinds of context within a limited time frame (like a few days I think). Then it results in automatic knowledge that I can call on easily when I want to use the word or when I just want to understand it in another text.
