Memories and Experiences
Learn 20 B1 English words for memories - vivid, nostalgic, remind, bring back, bump into - plus the remember/remind rule, with a story and quiz.
This lesson contains the error I correct more often than any other. In many languages a single word covers both remember and remind; in English they are two different verbs with two different subjects, and mixing them up is the fastest way to sound like a beginner. Fix that, add eighteen more words for talking about the past, and you can answer any “tell me about a time when…” question an examiner has. Read the story afterwards – it happened in a hallway in Norfolk.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˈmeməri/
Something you remember, or the ability to remember.
I have one clear memory of that house.
/rɪˈkɔːl/
To remember something. Slightly more formal than remember.
I cannot recall her surname.
/rɪˈmaɪnd/
To make somebody else remember. Needs an object: remind me.
This song reminds me of my father.
/ˈtʃaɪldhʊd/
The time when you were a child.
I spent my childhood near the sea.
/nɒˈstældʒɪk/
Feeling gently sad and happy about the past.
I get nostalgic every September.
/ˈvɪvɪd/
Very clear and detailed, as if it happened yesterday.
I have a vivid memory of the smell of it.
/fəˈmɪliə(r)/
That you know or recognise. Familiar to somebody.
His face was familiar but I could not place it.
/ˈrekəɡnaɪz/
To know somebody or something because you have seen it before.
I did not recognise her at all.
/lʊk ˈbæk ɒn/
To think about something in your past.
When I look back on it, I was very young.
/brɪŋ ˈbæk/
To make you remember. Bring back memories.
That smell brings back the whole year.
/kʌm əˈkrɒs/
To find something by chance, without looking for it.
I came across it in a drawer.
/bʌmp ˈɪntə/
To meet somebody by chance. Informal.
I bumped into my old teacher in town.
/tɜːn ˈaʊt/
To be discovered to be true in the end.
It turned out she had been waiting for me.
/ˌʌnfəˈɡetəbl/
So good or so strange that you can never forget it.
It was an unforgettable evening.
/ɪkˈspɪəriəns/
An event you lived through (countable), or knowledge from doing (uncountable).
It was a strange experience.
/ˈɪnsɪdənt/
A single event, usually unpleasant or unusual.
Nobody mentioned the incident again.
/ˌænɪˈvɜːsəri/
A date remembered each year because of what happened on it.
It was the tenth anniversary of the move.
/ˌsuːvəˈnɪə(r)/
An OBJECT you keep to remember a place. Not a memory.
I kept a small souvenir from the trip.
/blɜːd/
Not clear. Used for memories as well as photographs.
Everything after that is a bit blurred.
/teɪk ˈpleɪs/
To happen. Used for organised events.
The reunion would take place in the same hall.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
The Woman in the Hallway
We cleared my mother’s house over four days in February, which is the wrong month for it, and on the third afternoon I happened to come across a biscuit tin at the back of a wardrobe with somebody else’s name on the lid.
Inside were about sixty photographs, two school reports that were not mine, and a wooden bird about the size of a thumb – the sort of souvenir you buy at an airport and then keep for forty years because throwing it away feels rude.
I did not recognise most of the people. That is the thing nobody warns you about: you inherit the objects and not the names.
What I did have was one absolutely vivid memory, unlocked immediately by the tin itself rather than by anything in it. I am six. It is on top of the fridge. I am not allowed to touch it. That is the entire experience and I can still recall the exact colour of the lid, which had not been that colour for thirty years.
Objects bring back more than photographs do, I think. A photograph shows you what a room looked like. A tin gives you back the height of the fridge.
On the last day I went into the village to return the keys and I bumped into a woman outside the post office who said my mother’s name as a question.
Her face was familiar in the way that means nothing at all – I had spent a week looking at strangers in photographs. I said yes, that was my mother, and she said, “I taught you.”
She was ninety-one. She had taught me for one year, when I was seven, in a classroom that no longer exists in a school that is now houses. She remembered where I had sat. I want to be careful here, because it would be a better story if I remembered her instantly, and I did not. My childhood in that village is honestly quite blurred. But she remembered a specific incident involving me, a jar of tadpoles and a radiator, and at that point the whole afternoon came back with a completeness that frightened me slightly.
It turned out she had been at my mother’s funeral in October. She had stood at the back and not come to the house afterwards because she did not want to be a bother. I have thought about that sentence a great many times since.
We stood in the road for twenty minutes. She asked what I did now. She told me about two other children from that class, one of whom is a vet in Lincoln and one of whom died at thirty-one, and she said both facts in the same tone, which is what ninety-one does to you.
It was, in a very small way, unforgettable. Nothing happened. Nobody wept. I simply learned that somebody I had not thought about in three decades had been holding onto a version of me all that time, and had been kind about it.
When I look back on that week now I skip the wardrobes and the paperwork entirely and go straight to the road outside the post office.
This September was the first anniversary. There was no service – the family gathering will take place next spring, when the weather is more reasonable and my brother is back in the country.
I get nostalgic about places I did not especially enjoy at the time, which I am told is normal. The wooden bird is on my desk. It does not remind me of an airport, because I was never at that airport. It reminds me of a woman in a hallway who was ninety-one and did not want to be a bother.
The upgrades here mostly replace a whole clause with one verb. That compression is precisely what the B1 examiner is listening for.
| I found it by accident. | I came across it. |
| I met her by chance in town. | I bumped into her. |
| It makes me remember my father. | It reminds me of my father. |
| That song makes me remember things. | That song brings back memories. |
| In the end we discovered she was right. | It turned out she was right. |
| I remember it very clearly. | I have a vivid memory of it. |
| I do not remember it clearly. | It is all a bit blurred. |
| When I think about my past… | When I look back on it… |
| a bad thing that happened once | an incident |
| The meeting will happen in May. | The meeting will take place in May. |
Remember and remind are not the same verb. Many languages use a single word for both ideas, so this error is close to universal – and it is very visible to an examiner. The rule is about who does the work:
You remember. I remember her name.
Something else reminds you. The photograph reminds me of her.
✗ This song remembers me my childhood.
✓ This song reminds me of my childhood.
Remind can never stand alone – it always needs a person after it. And it takes two different structures with two different meanings:
remind me of + a thing = it makes me think about the past: You remind me of your mother.
remind me to + a verb = make me not forget a future task: Remind me to post it.
Souvenir is a false friend. In English a souvenir is only a physical object – a keyring, a magnet, a wooden bird. It is never a thought in your head. What you have in your head is a memory.
✗ I have a beautiful souvenir of that summer.
✓ I have a beautiful memory of that summer.
Experience is countable and uncountable, with different meanings:
an experience = a single event: It was a frightening experience.
experience (no article, no plural) = knowledge from doing a job: She has ten years of experience.
So I have five years of experiences is wrong, and so is it was frightening experience.
Spelling: British English writes recognise, realise and apologise with -ise. American English uses -ize. Both are accepted in Cambridge exams, but be consistent within one piece of writing.
Happen or take place? Use happen for accidents and surprises (the accident happened at six) and take place for arranged events (the wedding takes place in June). Never the wedding happened unless you are being funny.
The rule: I remember – but a thing reminds me of something.
Describing memories: vivid, blurred, nostalgic, familiar, unforgettable.
Nouns: memory, childhood, experience, incident, anniversary, souvenir.
Verbs: recall, recognise, take place.
Phrasal verbs: look back on, bring back, come across, bump into, turn out.
Exam task: describe an object you have kept for a long time. Say where you came across it, what it reminds you of, and whether the memory is vivid or blurred. Four sentences, no use of the word nice.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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