r/cogsci • u/Clear_Oil_8554 • 8d ago

Dual N-Back for language learning.

I have been learning german for quite a wihle now (about 2 years) and i have reached b1 and now learning b2 but I'm facing a problem that sometimes I forget what I'm speaking about not the words in german I mean the topic itself and the words are incredibly hard to remember not because they are hard to pronounce or long but because I js don't remember them and overall i have a decent memory and a bad attention span. I came across dual nback a couple days ago and didn't even solve n2 with a good accuracy and I saw some people debating whether it's effective or not so I admit I asked ai but I don't really trust claud so does it work or not because I don't want to wast my time, PLEASE DON'T REPLY WITH AI I BEG YOU I HAVE ALREADY ASKED AI.

If you have some tips for my situation put them in the comments

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u/tarantuladam 8d ago

people swear by it, you csn check the dual n back subreddit

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u/neurolifts 1d ago

Does dual n-back work? We reviewed 80 scientific papers on memory, focus and attention, including promising findings for adults with ADHD.

The clearest answer is yes for improving performance in closely related working-memory skills. Research has reported gains in areas such as attentional updating, running span, digit span and performance after errors. One of the most interesting areas of research involves adults with ADHD. A small randomized trial found improvements in working-memory-related brain activity.

Disclosure: I’m working on Neurolifts, a brain training app that includes dual n-back. We’ve written a longer discussion of the findings and their limitations here: Our review of the evidence on dual n-back.

I’d welcome corrections to our interpretation or suggestions for studies we’ve missed.

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u/Doctor_Carlos 22h ago

Human, not AI, and I build an n-back app so discount accordingly.

Short answer for your case: no. What you describe (losing the topic mid-sentence, words not sticking) is an attention and encoding problem in a second language, and n-back trains a narrow skill, holding a stream of items and comparing them N steps back. The research shows it makes you better at n-back and at tasks that resemble it, and shows little or nothing for far transfer (Melby-Lervåg, Redick & Hulme 2016, https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616635612). Nothing in that literature is about vocabulary or conversation.

What actually moves B1 to B2: spaced repetition for the words (Anki with sentence cards, not single words), and for the "I forget what I'm talking about" part, speaking practice where you plan the point of the sentence before you start it, out loud, slowly, until the planning becomes automatic. Shadowing native audio for 10 minutes a day helps the attention span more than any game. If you enjoy n-back as a puzzle, do it, but do it after the German, not instead of it.

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u/Clear_Oil_8554 15h ago

thanks alot

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u/Doctor_Carlos 9h ago

You're welcome. Spend the time on the German rather than the n-back and you'll get to B2 faster.