Vocabulary practice · Episode 99

Review the useful expressions from the episode

Study the episode’s central expressions with English definitions, nuance and examples, plus reviewed support-language versions where available.

B1–B2Everyday EnglishAbout 20 min + dynamic ads5 PDF versions available
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Vocabulary from the episode

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Expression 1

walk away with

To finish an experience having gained something useful.

Nuance: A common phrasal verb for the knowledge or benefit retained after an experience.

You will walk away with three things.

Everyone walked away with one technique they could use immediately.

Expression 2

active recall

A study method in which you retrieve information from memory without looking at the answer.

Nuance: Retrieval, rather than rereading, is the essential action.

The solution is called active recall.

Close the book and use active recall to test yourself.

Expression 3

spaced repetition

A learning method that reviews material at increasingly long intervals.

Nuance: The timing is designed to refresh a memory shortly before it fades.

That is spaced repetition.

Spaced repetition brings a word back just before you forget it.

Expression 4

procedural memory

Long-term memory for skills and automatic actions.

Nuance: It is contrasted with conscious memory for facts and definitions.

Library number two, procedural memory.

Cycling relies heavily on procedural memory.

Expression 5

by design

Intentionally and as the result of a plan.

Nuance: It contrasts a deliberate result with something that happens by accident.

It happens by design.

The exercise feels difficult by design.

Expression 6

write down

To record something in writing.

Nuance: A separable phrasal verb: write it down.

Write down what you want to learn and ask yourself why.

Write down the answer before checking your notes.

Expression 7

illusion of competence

The false feeling that you know material merely because it looks familiar.

Nuance: A learning-science term explaining why passive rereading can be misleading.

That comfortable feeling has a name: the illusion of competence.

Rereading can create an illusion of competence.

Expression 8

pull the answer out from memory

To retrieve an answer from memory through deliberate effort.

Nuance: The physical metaphor makes mental retrieval feel active and demanding.

And force your brain to pull the answer out from memory.

Try to pull the answer out from memory before revealing it.

Expression 9

desirable difficulty

A learning challenge that feels harder now but improves long-term retention.

Nuance: Difficulty is beneficial only when it prompts productive mental effort.

Scientists call that healthy struggle a desirable difficulty.

The short delay adds a desirable difficulty to the task.

Expression 10

forgetting curve

The pattern showing how newly learned information fades over time without review.

Nuance: A core concept in memory research and spaced repetition.

Scientists call it the forgetting curve.

Regular review slows the forgetting curve.

Expression 11

flatten the forgetting curve

To slow the rate at which learned information is forgotten.

Nuance: A visual collocation based on making a steep graph become flatter.

Each review flattens the forgetting curve a little more.

Retrieval practice helps flatten the forgetting curve.

Expression 12

all the way back

Completely back to the original position or starting point.

Nuance: The intensifier all the way emphasizes the full distance of the return.

It falls all the way back to box one.

I had to think all the way back to my first lesson.

Expression 13

counterintuitive

Contrary to what instinct or common sense initially suggests.

Nuance: Useful academic adjective for a surprising result or method.

And this one is counterintuitive.

It feels counterintuitive to practise what you nearly know.

Expression 14

interleaving

A study strategy that mixes related topics or problem types within one session.

Nuance: The learner must identify the appropriate method instead of repeating one routine.

The alternative is called interleaving.

Interleaving grammar topics forces you to choose the right rule.

Expression 15

hide behind

To use something as a way of avoiding exposure, responsibility or a real difficulty.

Nuance: Here, complicated language conceals incomplete understanding.

Or hide behind a complicated word.

Do not hide behind endless highlighting.

Expression 16

change gears

To change activity, approach or subject.

Nuance: A figurative idiom from changing gears while driving.

And two quick bonus tools before we change gears.

Change gears when your concentration begins to fade.

Expression 17

get stuck

To become unable to continue or make progress.

Nuance: Common informal expression for a mental, practical or physical blockage.

Where you get stuck, that is not failure.

If you get stuck, wait a few seconds before checking.

Expression 18

keep something alive

To maintain something so that it remains active, effective or remembered.

Nuance: Here it means preventing a memory from fading through use in varied contexts.

The chair builds the memory, the world keeps it alive.

A weekly review keeps new vocabulary alive.

Expression 19

engineered

Carefully designed to produce a specific result.

Nuance: Figurative use of an engineering verb, emphasizing deliberate construction.

Engineered like a scientist.

The course is engineered to make retrieval unavoidable.

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