Hi, anyone else struggle and hit a brick wall? I am trying to learn European Portuguese and have hit a spot where I just can’t remember the words… I was doing ok, got to level 11 and just can’t progress after that! I think I have finally got it and then the next day its gone 
I don’t have a great memory as it is. I am 56 years of age and wondering is it just me or do you all have these stumbling blocks, Any Advice, should I move on to the next level or just keep trying to get these words into my head?
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I’m sorry to hear that you are struggling but don’t give up!!! The rewards that can come later will make up for your struggles now, I am sure of it!
Do you make mems when you are trying to memorize your new words?
How do you go about using memrise? What kind of device do you use when you are memrising?
Do you do anything else to help you to learn the words?
Before I offer you any tips, it would be helpful to have a little bit more information about how you have been learning so far and maybe then we can see what else you could do.
Oh, and 56 is a FINE age! I have just turned 54 and find language learning a great way to keep the old grey matter exercised 
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words will not stick in your head right away, and if it does, you’ve basically crammed it into your head and may forget it in a few weeks
It takes months and sometimes years of hearing and using words to remember them
watch this for more info. this guy has been studying langauges for like 50 years or so and knows 10+ languages
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I love Steve Kauffmann!
I basically - before I even knew about him, actually - followed his strategy to learn Swedish. I read it and listened to it and watched it (children’s programmes, which I LOVE), only using content that I enjoyed (crime fiction, other fiction and movies and children’s programmes, YouTube videos, songs). It wasn’t until quite late on in my learning that I paid any attention to grammar.
I have been told that I speak Swedish with a German accent (I am British, but have lived in Germany for nearly 30 years), but my grammar is good. Not paying attention to grammar at the beginning doesn’t seem to have done me any harm.
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Which children’s shows?!
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Kalles Klätterträd - totally trippy stuff from the 1970s. Absolutely brilliant.
Charlie och Lola (originally British, but with animated stuff it really doesn’t matter, they are fun in Swedish, too).
Alfons Ahlberg
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Hi All, thanks for replying
I’m learning on a laptop at the mo, when struggling with difficult words I write them down again and again. also write I them out like flash cards. As for making mems, if only I could think of something to make as a mem, for the words that I’m struggling with. But I wont give up. Just wondering should I go to the nest level to learn new words or should I stay where I am till I know these words for sure?
Watching that vid (thanks, very interesting) I think I will go on till the next level…
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The same thing keeps happening with me when I’m learning, I think it is normal.
One day it seems I’ll be able to keep learning as many words/phrases as I want of the languages I’m learning, then another day I’ll struggle to learn even one new word, or struggle remembering words I think I’ve all ready learnt.
When struggling with words it can sometimes help to go back and review stuff you think you’ve got down and just go over it all again just to make sure, that is what I do and then by the time I get back to where I was struggling everything seems much easier to learn again.
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It’s better to be efficient than proficient. I would not worry about mistakes or forgetting things, especially if you are less than 5 years deep in learning. Also redundancy is underrated. There are tens of ways to say the same thing, but often times people only learn one way to say one thing. For example… if you learned 2 to 3 different ways to say one given phrase - chances are… you might forget 1 or two of those phrases, but pretty high chance you learned one of them pretty well. This is efficiency.
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From what I have read about learning vocabulary over the last thirty years (I teach English to native speakers of German in Germany), I’d say the following:
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Writing words down is a really good way to help get them to stick in your brain as the act of writing - it is said - creates more neural pathways than, say, just reading a word.
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Creating connections on different levels (visually, aurally etc.) with new words is also really useful and you can start listening to and/or watching native speakers speaking Portuguese right now, even if you don’t have much Portuguese.
I remember doing this when I first started learning Swedish, letting “Charlie and Lola” (the Swedish version) babble away in the background on my Chromebook in the kitchen whilst I did the washing up. I didn’t understand much at all at first, it was really just the odd word here and there, but the feeling of JOY and accomplishment at having recognised a word was amazing “He just said ‘hus’!!! That means 'house”!!! (As you can see, I am quite childlike in some ways 
). What this has also given me is a benchmark to see how far I have progressed, because I can go back to this video every now and then and see how much more I understand now.
I know not everyone likes “Charlie and Lola” (I am pretty sure I found some episodes in Portuguese, though, just for your information), but anything in Portuguese, whatever floats your boat, will help you to learn the words better because you will make new neural networks each time you hear the word(s) in different contexts. Listening or watching the same thing more than once is a good idea, too, because each time you listen, you understand a bit more each time and learn how the words you are learning are used in context.
I hope this gives you a few pointers and ideas for the future
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