Abstract:Although college students have learned English for many years, most of them can not mastery it well. They don’t know how to communicate with foreigners and even find it hard to understand English articles. Lacking of vocabulary is the main reason for all of the problems. As to the vocabulary, the college students have ever met most of them during their school time, but they can not put them into their memory permanently. The reason for this bad situation is that the college students don’t have a right method in vocabulary memory.
Hermann Ebbinghaus, a famous psychologist in German, tells us the truth in his well-known article—the law of memory forgetting that there are two kinds of memory—short-term memory and long-term memory. The short-term memory is formed after we get the information. But we will forget the information soon if we don’t give it a timely review. On the contrary, the short-term memory will turn into the long-term memory with timely review and application. Thereby, the information will be kept in mind for a long time.
Therefore, to have a good memory of vocabulary, students must enhance the memory right after they meet the new vocabulary and give it as much as application as possible. Only in this way can they have a firm memory of vocabulary. And they will have a good command of English.
The present study aims to discuss the application of forgetting curve in vocabulary memory, find out why students find it hard to keep a large vocabulary in mind and how to keep a long-term memory of vocabulary.
Key Words: vocabulary memory, forgetting curve of Hermann Ebbinghaus, method
中文摘要:我们学习英语十几年了,可是很多人还是不能掌握好英语,看不懂英语文章和听不懂外国人说话。出现这种情况主要是因为缺少词汇量。其实十几年的英语学习过程中，我们遇到过不少的单词，但老是记不住它们，因为我们没有正确的记忆方法。
德国著名的心理学家艾宾浩斯（Hermann Ebbinghaus）在他著名的记忆遗忘规律中告诉我们，记忆的保持在时间上是不同的，有短时的记忆和长时的记忆两种。输入的信息在经过人的注意过程的学习后，变成为了人的短时记忆，但是如果不经过几时复习，这些记住过的东西就会遗忘，而经过了及时复习和运用，这些短时记忆就会成为了人的一种长时记忆，从而在大脑中保持着很长的时间。
因此，要想牢固地记住英语单词，必须在刚学会的时候短时间内加强记忆，重复运用。这样，记忆就会牢固了。
本选题研究记忆遗忘规律在记忆英语单词中的应用。通过研究记忆遗忘的规律探讨我们为什么很难记住英语单词和怎样有效地记住英语单词。
关键词：词汇记忆 艾宾浩斯遗忘曲线 方法
