When learning a foreign language, why do we remember certain words or phrases, but quickly forget others? From my own experiences both as a teacher and as a student, I've come up with some reasons why some words stick in our heads:

a) It's the first thing you learn - I will never forget how to say "How's the weather" in French, thanks to my Grade One teacher, Mrs. McGee (yes, she was Scottish!), who made us sing the phrase to the tune of "Skip to my Lou".

b) You say it or hear it a million times over - As a teacher in a high school, I learnt the word "uso" (no way!) pretty quickly!

c) It's useful - One night at the bar, a sleazy guy said "You're pretty" to me in every Asian language he could think of until he hit the right one!

d) It's funny - I can still say "You are as ugly as a frog" in Spanish...now there's a useful phrase!

Now if I can only figure out why my brother's knowledge of French consists mainly of Halloween vocabulary...