Tutorial Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome back to my channel! So, if you've been following me for some time, you know that I sometimes like to do these videos slightly more... conversational in which I give you some advice on how to improve your Italian, in our case. But this advice can also be applied to other languages. Today we'll talk about an interesting topic, which is the memorisation of new words and phrases that one encounters when studying or when reading a book or magazine, a newspaper, or website, etc. So, I'll tell you immediately my advice: to memorise well, in an effective and long term way, a new word or a new phrase, you need to write it down by hand. So, when you discover a new word or a new phrase, write it down by hand. It's preferable to make a list written by hand, instead of a list on a phone or computer. So, to explain the reason for this, it would help me to read a few sentences from a book that I recently bought and started to read some days ago. This: "La bellezza del segno - Elogio della scrittura a mano" by Francesca Biasetton. Well, this book actually focuses on calligraphy, on the art of calligraphy, but it is also about the importance of writing by hand, which is becoming more and more lost. Unfortunately now who would write by hand? We're always using a phone, tablet, or computer. Fortunately in Italian schools one still writes everything by hand and I'm very pleased about this from homework to assignments, one writes everything by hand. And to write by hand is in reality an activity that really benefits the brain: when we write by hand, in our case new words or structures or new phrases, we are present in that moment, we are aware of what we're doing, so the movement of the hand makes the brain more active, so the brain is an active part in the process of writing and for this reason we memorise what we write by hand. Then, if you look on the internet, there are many scientific studies on the effectiveness of writing by hand. Writing by hand favours learning much more than typing with the keyboard. If you research online, you'll find lots of information about it. I underlined some sentences from this book that I want to read to you. "Writing by hand presupposes and contains an incontestable physicality, carrying with it the visible trace of the gesture of writing." "When we write by hand we organise a space, the space of the paper, and we acquire a visual memory related to this space." So, when we write by hand, our gestural and visual memory come into play. When we write by hand we are aware of what we're doing and the paper in front of us and, as a result, of what we write on paper. Therefore, we're more sensitive; we're more receptive. On the contrary, when we type on the computer with a keyboard, we're not very present, as if there's a bit of distance from what we write. I'll read a phrase from the book: "There can be no relation with the shape of letters without it being marked: I indicate / press down on the corresponding sign. The letters follow one another, the words are composed: all the same letters between them." Well, I'm not saying that you don't need to type with a keyboard, because obviously the computer is needed for work, for study, and it is inevitable nowadays, in 2019, to type with a keyboard. We all do it and we always will, but for memorising something, what you study, I advise you to write by hand because phrases, words or some concepts that you rewrite by hand will enter your head more easily and remain in your memory. What does writing by hand assume? It assumes that we take a moment for ourselves, a moment for study. When it comes to writing a quick point or message, obviously it is preferable to do it on the computer or with a keyboard, because we are quicker. Well it always depends on your intention and on what you need to do. If you ask me for advice on how to memorise new words or new phrases you discover when studying, I would respond with the best thing to do is to write it down by hand, pin these new words, these new phrases down by hand in a notebook, in your exercise book. I'm sure that many of you would agree with me, in the sense that you are already writing by hand, pinning everything down by hand and so you know what I'm talking about, you have tried this advice. So maybe write a comment recalling your experience to convince others to start writing by hand, when possible! If you are interested in this book, I'll leave all the information in the video description below and also some links to websites from which you can acquire it, if you want; it is an interesting book, it isn't a story, it is an essay on calligraphy, on the importance and beauty of writing by hand. So, I think I've said everything that I wanted to say on this topic. If you have any questions or if you want to add something to what I've said in this video, feel free to leave a comment below. Let me know if you'll try to write down by hand the next new words and phrases you discover and, especially, let me know if this method helps you. Thank you for watching this video and I hope to see you in the next one. See you soon, bye!

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