Did You Remember It or Memorize It?

This is an All-Ears English Podcast episode 2582. Did you remember it or memorize it? Welcome to the All-Ears English Podcast. Downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio Girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. And to get your transcript delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com/subscribe. How do you know when to use the word memorize versus the word "remember" in English? Get all the subtle and not so subtle differences today. English is part of how you're evaluated, whether you like it or not. In meetings, in interviews, in negotiations. The question isn't whether your English is okay or good enough. It's whether it's working for you. Is it getting you the promotions and the salary raises that you deserve? If not, this is the year to do something about it. Our free two-minute fluency quiz shows you your true English level. B1, B2, or C1. And where you can level up for real-world success for your career or your global life in English. Take the quiz now for free at allearsenglish.com/fluencyscore. That's allearsenglish.com/fluencyyscore. Hello there, Michelle. How's it going today? Good, Lindsay. How are you? Feeling good? Feeling good? Michelle, are you good at remembering all of the birthdays in your family? It sounds like you have a pretty big family. My family isn't that big, but Dan's family is big. When you add them all together, it is a big family. As far as the birthday goes, the birthdays go. I'm pretty good, but there is a week in October where it's like everybody's birthday in the family. Okay. It's my dad's, his dad's, his sister's, his, our niece and nephew. Interesting. Everybody's. And so sometimes that gets a little confusing. Yeah. And so that can be hard to remember. What about you, Lindsay? Are you going to remembering birthdays? Yeah, family. I'm usually good friends. You know, it's so frustrating because I decided to recommit to remembering friends' birthdays. I wrote them all in this app that I decided to get a membership for for birthdays. And then the app offloaded and I lost all the birthdays. Well, so now I just have to go back. It's better just have it in the old noggin, right? In the old noggin. Well, it's funny. Yeah. Sometimes I always think, oh, it's better to just be able to remember things. And you know, not have always everything written down. It's good for your mind, but then I do forget. I know when I feel so bad, when a friend remembers and I forget theirs, oh, it's such a mind trip. Yeah. What are we talking about today, Michelle? So today we are going to talk about this really interesting topic that you brought up, which is very important. And I bet a lot of our listeners are a little confused about this. And it's the difference between remember and memorize. Yeah, I was having a conversation with a student sometime in the last couple of weeks. And I heard this used incorrectly. And I thought, oh, this would make a great episode, Michelle, for our listeners today. Yeah, definitely. So this is a great idea. So I'm excited to talk about this. And before we do get into it, we are just so excited to say thank you to our reviewers. Yes. I want to say a huge thank you to Pejohn 101 from Taiwan, who gave us a five-star review, by the way, on January 25th and Apple Podcast. Huge thank you. They said, I really like your podcasts. They're so interesting that I keep listening every day. That's fantastic. And then we have Mack Shack from the US on January 23rd in Apple. He said, my best podcast finding for this year. Thank you both a ton. So that sounds like a brand new listener. So huge shout out to our two amazing reviewers. Guys, if you want to hear your name announced on the show, go ahead and review our show wherever you listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Cast Box, in the iOS or Android app, whatever it is, leave us a review. We'll do our best to announce your name on the show. All right. Excellent. Perfect. Okay. So let's start with Memorize. Yes. Very different. Right? Yeah. Very different. Lindsay, what is Memorize? Tell us about it. Well, actually, they're not that different, but they are different. Right. They're related. Right. So they're very related. Of course. Memorize and remember. So Memorize is about learning something by heart. We always say this expression, learn it by heart. Why don't we say it, learn it by mind or learn it by, I don't know. We say learn it by heart. So we keep it in our mind with the aim of not forgetting it. This is pretty intentional. I remember doing a lot of this in school. Michelle, Memorizing dates, historical dates, events, that kind of thing. Names. Do you, is that ringing any bells for you? Oh, yeah. Of course. Well, and I, and I used to, you know, when I did a lot of theater, I used to have to memorize my lines. Yes. Oh, you know, oh, my gosh. So it's really, it's about that process of learning and trying to keep something, get something to stick. Right? Yes. Yes. Yes. What about phone numbers, Lindsay? Do you have your partner's phone number memorized? I do. Thank goodness. Right? Because I feel like I remember the days when we didn't have cell phones and the, I remember like dialing my best friend's phone number next store, right? And so it's still a concept to have a number, a phone number in my head. Right. It's good to have a memorize. I remember it took down a very long time to memorize my phone number and I'm like, come on. I know, I know. Come on. Right? I also, I also try and have my son. He, he has our phone numbers memorized. So it's good to have your kids know your phone numbers. Um, so, um, wait, I was just going to say about something about phone numbers. Oh, I forgot what it was, but it was fun. The whole idea about being an actor on stage, I've always wondered about this. I mean, how much time did it take you to memorize your lines for acting? I just don't even know how this works. And even in Hollywood, I don't get it. Yeah. Depend, dependent on how many, how many lines I had, but if I had a lot of lines, I mean, I, I, yeah, it's hard. You kind of just chunk it up and have small goals and, um, wow. It's, um, I remember I had a process. Oh, oh, you know what I would do? I would learn it and then I would write it down. Okay. That's a good trick. Yeah. So I would, I would, I felt that writing it down kind of solidified it in my mind. Um, and yeah, so that, that was helpful. Oh, I know what I was going to ask you. Do you still have phone numbers of, you know, you mentioned your friends and like childhood phone numbers memorized? Kind of, I still can remember my childhood home phone number, like the landline. Uh, me too. Yeah. I don't, I don't think I could get my best friends number, but almost maybe. Yeah. I could get, I can get that. I know my mom's old work phone number. I know, um, my best friends, you know, landlines. So it's all up there somewhere. It's in there. It's in there. I mean, it makes me worry a little bit. Sometimes with, with Google maps and everything, are we just going to forget how to, like, how to memorize or how to remember? We're going to forget how to remember. Don't forget how to remember. Yeah. Um, so, so I guess what we're getting at here is memorize is a little, is it more technical? Is it a more technical term? Like it's about the process. I would agree with that. It says this process, you know, to an order to keep something in your mind. Yeah. Right. So, yeah. Let's show how, look in some sentences. Okay. So here's one about play. So when I was in a lot of plays, uh, it took me, uh, it took me a lot of time to memorize my lines, right? To do that process. That's a good one. Yep. And again, I'm still intrigued by that. I'm teaching my kids to memorize my phone number and address. Very smart thing to do, right? Mm-hmm. Or I have to memorize these formulas for my math tests. So, yeah. I think it's also the different, one of the key differences here is that memorize is a process, but it's also more word for word, like number for number. Whereas, remember, we're going to go into it now, Michelle. How is it different? Yeah. So, let's move on to remember. Um, so to remember is to actually have that information in your head or to recall something. Right. So this is more about the actual product of the memorization, right? The results, the ability to recall something. So you, you know, I mean, Lindsay, do you remember much about what you learned in high school? I would say maybe half. That's pretty, that's not bad. I feel like I'm relearning everything, especially historical stuff. Yeah. I couldn't relate to history as much when I was a kid growing up in a small town. Like, what do you know about? World War One, right? But now that I've gone to the battlefields in Belgium, like I'm much more likely to remember what I learn when I learn history now. So it sounds like though, Michelle, the difference here is like when we would use it. Like I could ask you, oh, Michelle, you had a performance last night. Did you memorize your, did you remember your lines? And you could say, yeah, because I had, I had what? I had memorized them, right? - So if I remembered them, it means I didn't forget them. - Right. - Right, I was able to recall them. So yeah, actually you could use these sometimes, I mean, like listen, like if I said, for the math test example, I have to memorize these formulas for my math test. I could say I have to remember them. - Right. - But it's still, yeah, sorry, go ahead. - No, no, no, you go ahead. - Well, I'm just saying like, it's a different process. So the idea of when was that memorization happen? It happens before the test. Whereas on test day, you hope that you remember them. - You don't hope you memorize them. You hope you already have memorized them. - Right, it's the result of the memorization. - Exactly. So it's like, if you memorized something, then you remember it. - Exactly, exactly. And then I think not everything that is remembered is always memorized, right? Like I remember my grandmother's face, but I didn't memorize her face, right? - Right. - She's gone married. - Right, so that's where we were talking about, more carbon copy, this idea of word for word. That's a systematic process, but it's not done for everything we remember. We have memories of our first memory. We didn't memorize it, right? - Yeah, yeah, very good point. So let's show how remember looks. So here's one, I can't remember her name, right? You wanna say, I can't memorize her name. It's like, you're basically saying I didn't memorize it. And so I can't remember it. Versus a good example here is one of my favorite movies. I don't know why I find this movie really good with Ben Affleck, the movie Argo. - Oh, that was great, yeah, that's a great movie. - Very dramatic. - Evolving the CIA, et cetera. And okay, so when it comes to remembering names, they were given identities that they had to memorize. They had to memorize every detail of their fake identity, right? They were supposed to be Canadian. And so the question is, when they got to the airport to leave Iran that day, did they remember it because they had memorized it? But you wouldn't memorize your best, like you haven't memorized your best friend's name from childhood. You don't need to, right? So it's just that, I just know it. - Right, exactly. - Yeah, exactly. It's different. It is that process. It's a little more technical. Yeah, I definitely agree. - Yeah. - Right here's another one. Like if you said, if you were talking to your friend, you could say, do you remember when we used to have food fights in the cafeteria? - Yeah. - Right. You wouldn't memorize that. It's just, it's a memory. It's something that happens. - You don't have to. - There was no process. There was nothing that you had to really try for. It's just that it, it naturally seeped into your mind as an experience. - Perfect. So in a sense, we can remember both things we've memorized in our memories, right? (laughing) Hopefully we're making this more clear, not more confusing for listeners. Here's another example. I'm trying to remember where I met him. Right, that's not something you would have memorized. - Right. - That's just a life memory, right? - Right. - Perfect. So yeah, essentially if you memorize something, if you do go through that process, if it's that kind of a thing that you really have to try to remember, your goal is to remember. - Right, got it. Love it. Okay. All right Michelle, so let's go over a couple grammar points. What do we need to know about grammar? It's not enough just to know the differences between these two words. We need to know what grammar goes with these two words. - Yeah, how to use them. Yeah, and there's more to all of this, but we're gonna, that we could follow up on, but we're gonna teach the most important parts, the basics today. - Yeah. - So with remember, right? One way you can use it is to say, remember to and the verb. - Yes. - So for example, remember to buy milk at the store. So that's, have it in your mind. - Yeah. - And do what is needed, right? Like put this in your head. - Yes, exactly. I remember it's like a command. Now please remember to buy milk. You ask your husband or something. Remember to pick up the bread in the milk at the store, whatever, right? This is not something we've memorized, but again, remember to do something. Remember to verb. Good. Or this is looking back. I remember watching that show every day after school. This is memories, right? - Right, so that would be verb and I and G. So I remember watching that show. I remember reading that book. I remember going on vacation with my friend, right? - Yes. - Yes, exactly. Love it. And then what about memorize, Michelle? - Yeah, so we're not, you wouldn't use memorize with the verb and I and G, right? You wouldn't say I memorize going to the store. - Right, that doesn't sound right to me. Generally, a memorize would just be followed by a noun, so to memorize something, or I mean, of course, if you're using in a different form to have something memorized. So she memorized all the words to the monologue just in time for the audition. - Exactly. You wouldn't memorize going to the store like the event of going, you might memorize like unconsciously memorize the root to the store. Maybe without even trying, right? You just learn it, right? - Right. - Right, exactly. So I mean, like if you say, okay, here, I mean, this is what I was just mentioning. So if I say I have something memorized, is that the same thing as remember? I don't think so. - No, no, I think it comes back to the process. - The process. - Exactly. - That's what I was gonna say. - The more intentional process. I think that's another key. - It's more intentional. - Yeah, it's like I'm gonna sit down. I'm gonna have a test tomorrow in my senior history class. I have to memorize 10 different dates. - Yes, right. - Right, you're using index cards, whatever it is. - Exactly. - So you know, there was more of a process. So all right, should we do a role play? - Let's do it. So here we're roommates and we're leaving for a trip. We're locking up the house. Okay, very specific context. - Yes. - Did you remember to turn off the sync upstairs? - Yes. - I think, I mean, I remember going upstairs and checking everything. I think it's okay. - Okay. - I'll check again. - Thanks. - Also, I memorized our hotel's address. So don't worry about that. - Okay, great, thanks. - I'm this way, I'm sort of a checker. - Oh, oh. - I question myself as to whether I turn off the sync. - I literally see where the same. - Or yeah. - Yeah, Dan will always be like, like even just this weekend we were going out for the weekend and it was before snowstorm. And I was nervous because you know, you have to make certain preparations on your house. You have to leave certain things open and whatever. So he got the kids in the car. And I said, he's like, okay, just lock up. And I said, I don't like being the last person. - Yeah, I feel that way too. - And he's like, I trust you. And I'm like, no. - Yeah, that's even worse. That's even worse, right? - Yeah, I think when you get that covered because you're like, what if I mess this up? - Yeah, it's true. It's true. We second guess ourselves with these little practical things sometimes. But these are good examples here. So let's go through this role, play Michelle and see what we said. So I asked you, did you remember to turn off the sync upstairs? It wouldn't make any sense for me to say, did you memorize the sync? - I think to do with memorizing, right? - Right, it's, like, cause you could have also just say, said, did you forget? - Right. - Yeah. - I mean, it's the opposite of the forget. - Which is what is the impression you want to give to your friend, right? - Right. - What do you assume about your friend? - Yes, this one is a little more optimistic. Um, then I said, yes, I think, and I said, I mean, I remember going upstairs and checking everything. So, verb, I and G. So I have this memory of doing that. It's fuzzy in my mind. I was checking a lot of things and now I'm, ah. - So I remember doing something, right? Good. - And here we bring in memorization, right? So you said, also, I memorized our hotel's address. So don't worry. So here, you went through the intentional process of sitting down and committing something to memory, maybe systematically, maybe you have tricks of how to do that. - Right. - Newmatic devices or something. - Right. - Well, those are the best. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know why I had to memorize the hotel's address. - Yeah, I probably don't know either. - I've seen the name. - I've seen the service we're all gonna lose our phone. - Sure. - But who knows? - Sure. - But in any case, I did it. And you're welcome. - And I'm sure we got to the hotel just fine. You're welcome. I mean, it is a good exercise to try now because with all this technology, we don't want our brains to just kind of like, the go to mush, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's true. - Well, they always say that what you remember most is song lyrics from songs from teenage hood, teenager years or childhood, right? Do you remember it? Do you ever hear a song that was from your childhood and you're like, how do I know all the words? - And they don't know what I did yesterday. - It's hilarious. So I'm gonna go to a workout class and the teacher will have like an 80s playlist from Spotify on there. And I'll just know every word of every song. It's just incredible. 'Cause it's not like I sat down and tried to memorize those lyrics. So it's a good reason to try to learn English with songs with lyrics. - Oh my God. - It's like we're having fun. There's a motion being invoked, right? And we learn chunks and phrases as long as they're correct, grammatically right, which is another thing. But anyways, so Michelle, what's another episode that we could check out? - All right guys, check out episode 2571 that was Don't Let English Vocabulary Breakdown on you. Nice, Edford, take away. I mean, I just, I feel like excited that we did this episode today 'cause I have heard this mistake being made in very subtle context with students. Michelle, any other final takeaway that we wanna leave our listeners with? - Yeah, I mean, we went over the basics today. Again, I would say, if you're going to remember one thing, I would say, think of memorizing being more of that process. - Yeah, the process. I think that's kind of the most helpful takeaway if you're wondering which one to use. - Yeah, and the emotional things don't need a process because they're baked into your mind. You don't need to memorize your wedding day. (laughing) - Yeah, you'll always remember. - Some people do. (laughing) - All right, good stuff today, Michelle. Well, you have a good rest of your day. Guys, hit follow right here on the show and be sure to leave us a rating or review if you love our style. All right. - All right, Lindsay, thanks for chatting about this with me today. And guys, we'll see you in the next episode. - Bye, Michelle. - Bye. (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two-minute quiz, go to allhearsenglish.com/fluencyscore. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time. (upbeat music)