857 : You Know Thousands Of Words - Why Can’t You Use Them?

So here's the deal. You know thousands of English words. The problem is you can't use them. You know what I'm saying, right? It's frustrating. You read a word. You hear someone in a conversation or while you're watching a movie or reading a book. And you hear the word or see the word and you understand it instantly. You know what it means. You've seen it before and there's this sense of accomplishment. The problem is, 10 minutes later, 10 minutes later, when you're in a conversation and you're speaking that word. The word you just recognized when you were reading or when you were watching that television program. That word seems to have vanished in thin air. You can't find the word to use it. For example, let's say the word is meticulous, right, which means very careful. You know the word meticulous, but instead of saying meticulous, you say very careful. The word actually exists in your brain. It just won't come out. And that's the frustrating thing. This is a gap. You see, research shows that your receptive vocabulary is actually two to four times larger than your productive vocabulary. And when we say receptive vocabulary, we're referring to the vocabulary words you have stored in your brain. The words you can recognize and we'll go deeper into this. And your productive vocabulary refers to the vocabulary you can actually use when you're having a conversation. You can produce those words. This gap, my friend, actually exists for everyone, including native speakers. We have two different systems. But for learners, traditional study methods actually widen this gap dramatically because traditional study methods mainly focus on receptive vocabulary, not productive vocabulary. So let's dive deeper into these two systems, starting with the receptive vocabulary system or the recognition system. What it is basically is pattern matching. And this is how it works. Your brain asks when it ever is exposed to a new word or a word that it hears or that it sees. Your brain asks, hey, does this word, this term, this expression match something I've already stored in my brain. This is what's happening. It's a pattern matching. So your brain is looking through all of the words you've been exposed to to see, hey, we've seen this word before, pattern matching. We're talking about the recognition system. Now, when you think about the cognitive load, it's actually low. Why? Because you're given the answer and you're just confirming it. You're given the answer, meticulous. Ah, meticulous. Yep, I have this stored in my brain. So the cognitive load is actually very low because you're already given the answer. And when you're thinking about training this system, the recognition system, right? It basically happens when you read, when you listen to something, when you use flashcards or when you prepare for a test or take an English test. These are ways of training the recognition system. This is why it's two to four times larger. Think about it. You read a lot in English. You listen to a lot of English podcasts. You watch a lot of English television. You use flashcards to memorize words. You prepare for tests. So you're constantly building this recognition or receptive system. But what happens to the production system? The productive system of your brain, where vocabulary needs to be accessed. So what is it? Let's call this the retrieval from scratch system, right? This is how it works. Your brain asks, what word do I have for this meaning? Notice we're not matching. Now we're saying, hey, this is the meaning. But what word do I know that has this meaning? Your brain is trying to access or retrieve something from scratch. Now in this system, the cognitive load is actually quite high. Why? Because you're generating something, you're accessing something, you're trying to retrieve something without a prompt. You're trying to produce it without giving the answer from the very beginning. And the way you train this system is by speaking, by writing or by forced recall. So when you have to let's say take your phone or take your camera and record yourself speaking, as you're speaking, you have to say, all right, brain, I need you to bring the words to my memory as I'm speaking. Or when you go to write in your journal, you're not given the answer. You're literally trying to recall, you're trying to produce something without a prompt. This is how the production system is trained speaking, writing or forced recall. Now these aren't separate storage locations. That's what's interesting. It's not like you have a storage location for the receptive system or recognition system and a separate storage location for the production or productive system. No, they're the same storage location. The same words, the challenge is there are different pathway strengths. You see, recognition pathways are well worn. You're hearing all the time, you're watching people use certain words, you're reading all the time. So that recognition pathway is accessing that storage all the time. However, the production pathway, these pathways are actually kind of weak because you don't write as much as you listen. You don't speak as much as you watch. So even though we have all of the words in the same storage location, the pathway for the recognition system is stronger. While the pathway or pathways for the production system, they are weaker. This is what is happening. Now, I want to give you an analogy, a warehouse analogy. I want you to think about your vocabulary like a warehouse with two doors. You have this storage, this warehouse, and the warehouse has two doors, two doors to access the warehouse. There's an input door, which refers to the recognition system, right? There's an input door. It's fast, it's well oiled, opens easily. Hey, you said meticulous, bam, that sounds familiar. I kind of understand what that word means. So the input door, the recognition system, well oiled, you can open that door so easily to access the warehouse. However, on the opposite side, the output door. So input, I'm going into the warehouse. The output door is I'm bringing things out of the warehouse. This is the production system. It's rusty. It's stuck because it's rarely used. We're going in often, but we're not coming out of the warehouse, bringing things out often. So again, when you're thinking about that warehouse, same warehouse, two different doors. So what has happened to you over years and years of studying? You see every textbook, every test, and every flash card actually oiled the input door. You're putting things in, yep, going into the warehouse, whoo, putting them in textbook, test, flash card. However, the output door was never opened. You're sitting in classes, you're putting things in, you're putting things into the warehouse. But you're not necessarily bringing things out. The result is thousands of words are inside your brain. Remember, you are intelligent. Thousands of words are inside. The same 50 words, though, are coming out. Putting in tons of words, but the same words are coming out. So let's kind of reframe this. The fact of the matter is, your vocabulary warehouse is not small. Your vocabulary warehouse inside of your brain, whoo, is absolutely amazing. It's full. The problem is not storage. The problem is the exit. The input door, well oiled. The output door is not. So now we have to figure out the retrieval pathway. So how do your neural pathways actually work? You see every successful retrieval, every time you use a term, every time you use the output, the receptive, right? Every time the production seems productive system is used, you are strengthening that specific pathway. This is actually called retrieval practice. One of the most proven findings in cognitive psychology. The more you retrieve it, the stronger it is the next time you try to retrieve it, the easier it will be. Pathways don't disappear when they're unused. They just weaken. So it's not like your vocabulary is disappearing. It's still there. It's just dormant. And it's not like the pathway goes anywhere. It just gets weaker and weak pathways require more effort to activate. This is why you find yourself getting more stressed when you're in conversations and you're like, I know I know the word. I know it's there. But you haven't used it. You haven't retrieved it. You haven't participated in this retrieval practice so that neural pathway has been weakened because of a lack of activity. There's this asleep metaphor that is very applicable to the situation as well. The words are not gone. They're just hard to wake up under pressure. Think about it when you're in a conversation and you see the person looking at you waiting for you to answer automatically stress. Pressure is rising. Now you want to access. You want to go to the output door and you're like, oh no, okay, wait, I know I have it. But there's so much pressure. The pathway does exist. The neural pathway is there, but it needs to be strengthened. But when you're under pressure, you kind of get nervous. It's just asleep. This is why cramming actually doesn't work. You see, massive practice in one period. Yes, it builds recognition quickly, but it doesn't build retrieval strength. So yes, you can recognize practicing for a test, which is why if you have a test the next day, you'll do well in that test. But if you have a conversation two days later, you won't be able to access. Retrieve what you learned. You can recognize a word 100 times without strengthening your ability to produce it. Listen. And when you're stressed, it actually makes it worse. Stress hormones, cortisol, they impair retrieval. So when your body locks up and tenses up, that output door is like, I am not opening. I've seen it happen. I've been in conversations with students. I've been interviewing them or teaching them in a class. And I've watched their bodies seize up. I've watched them get stressed. And I say, hey, hey, before you try to speak, before you try to access that output door or retrieval, don't try to retrieve anything. Just relax. I make them smile. I make them laugh a bit. And all of a sudden, the stress hormones, the cortisol goes away. And suddenly, they're able to open the output door. You see, high-pressure situations lock the output door even tighter, extra bolt, extra bolt. My job as a teacher, when I'm speaking with students, in this situation is to help them unlock those bolts. This is why you freeze and interviews, but remember the words later. In the interview, in the test, you're like, oh, I can't think, but as soon as you're done, all of a sudden, everything comes back because of the stress. I want you to think about this metaphor. I want to make it tangible for you. Imagine your phone. Let's say you have 500 contacts in your phone. If shown a name, you instantly can recognize who that individual is. If you can recognize 500 people in your phone, you can recognize, oh, yes, I remember her. Oh, yes, I remember him. However, if I asked you to list everyone in your phone, you probably would only be able to name 50 of those 500 people. Think about this. If you go through the list of those 500 names and you see them, instant recognition. But if you have to retrieve them, you can only think of about 50. The same is true with vocabulary, with vocabulary. The contacts aren't deleted. They're there. Your vocabulary is not deleted. It is there. Your brain can't retrieve those contacts on demand. It's the same phone, just a different skill that's being required. Not recognizing it, but accessing, retrieving them. Here's the main thing I want you to understand. Recognition is, yes, I know that person. Production is, I can tell you who I know. Your vocabulary works the exact same way. You understand now. Tiffany, I get it. I understand the difference between production and also recognizing or actually seeing, right? I understand these two different systems, recognition and production. But Tiffany, what's the solution? How can I get out of this situation? So here's what doesn't work. Let me explain this. Adding more words just makes a bigger warehouse with the same stuck door. I'm not telling you not to learn new words, but I need you to understand something. Just adding new words is not going to solve your problem because your door of retrieval is still going to be stuck. Cramming new words. Yes, it builds inputs, but it ignores the output. You're not taking anything out. You're just constantly storing, putting things in. And remember that high pressure, if you're stressed and trying to access these terms, it's going to block your ability to actually retrieve them because of the cortisol. Remember, when you're stressed, that door remains stuck. Here's what does work. Repeated low pressure encounters. Repeated low pressure relaxed. And you're just retrieving your opening that output door over and over again, low pressure, but doing it over and over again. Spaced repetition over time, forcing retrieval without stress. Hey, what does it mean to be very careful again? Ah, yes. Meticulous. Forced retrieval without stress. Now, why does daily contact matters so much for this to actually work for you? You see, each time you retrieve a word, it strengthens the pathway. Remember I said earlier, the pathway has not gone anywhere. The pathway is still there. And each time you retrieve that pathway is strengthened. Remember that spaced encounters force the brain to practice retrieval. You tried it today. Today is from now. Try to retrieve the same word. Three days from now. Consistency is greater, more important than intensity. Again, consistency is more important than intensity. Daily contact actually transforms recognition into production. Daily contact transforms recognition into production. We want you to produce the words. You're not building a bigger warehouse. You're installing a better output system. This requires using the output door repeatedly. It makes sense, right? This is something you have to remember, the two systems recognition versus production. In order to strengthen that production, that retrieval door, you have to practice every day retrieving the information. You can do it. I believe in you.