Have you heard of muscle memory? Of course you have, and you use it every day to do things that feel almost automatic. 

Once you learn to ride a bike, or the moves of a dance, you don’t really forget them, do you? Or at least they “come back” to you fairly quickly.

But did you know you can use muscle memory to help you speak a language better? And did you know that you use around 100 muscles when you speak? This includes muscles in the neck, chest and other areas, but the muscles we use in the face total around 70. Most of these are muscles we are probably not conscious of, but if we focus in on our mouth and tongue, we can put them to use to help us remember how to say things.

Personally, I’ve used this muscle memory technique with song lyrics. It seems like most people can remember them and can easily sing along to songs they like. But I can’t. I don’t know why, but even if I listen to my favourite song a thousand times I just can’t remember the lyrics. I can remember what someone said in a conversation almost word for word but when it comes to the words of a song, I have no luck. This was particularly problematic for me as one of the lead singers in a band! Even though I wrote the lyrics, I couldn’t remember them when I had to sing them. So, I focused on the position of my tongue or on the formation of my lips at the start of each phrase or set of words, and used these muscle positions as anchors for the words I needed to sing or rap. The results were fantastic! I didn’t even have to think about the lyrics while performing; my muscles did all the work of remembering!

You too can use this technique to help you remember words, phrases and sentences. Let’s try an example. For the sentence, “There’s a cat on the car,” start with the first word (of course!) and use it as an anchor by focusing on placing your tongue lightly between your teeth for “There” (ðɛr) and then link the next three sounds as well: ”There’s a” (ðɛrz ə). Don’t forget to pay attention to the /z/ sound in “There’s”. Next, focus on the /k/ sound of cat and pay attention to where your tongue is. Put “cat” together with “on” (kæt an). Then, when your tongue touches the roof of your mouth for /n/,  re-use the first anchor /ð/ and /k/. Simply emphasizing and focusing on the sounds and positions in your mouth rather than thinking in your head about the grammar will give you faster recall.

Still not sure? Try my pronunciation lesson for these and other pronunciation tips and tricks!

Vocabulary which appears in this article:

automatic                 無意識

conscious                 意識的　

It seems like ~          のようだ

lyrics                         歌詞

problematic              問題点

anchor                      錨

to link 　                   繋がる

simply                       単に

emphasize                強調する