Eli5 How is it possible for people to forget things they studied for years?

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Like highschool or even university level studies where someone actually studies and understands their subjects then finds himself a few years later with ZERO memory of the things he studied? where does the information go? is it lost forever?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Re the “is it lost forever” part of the question, my dad’s family spoke Polish at home growing up, but in adulthood four of the six kids lost their Polish except for a few isolated phrases. When his brother was dying of Alzheimer’s, he talked to himself in Polish all day long and seemed to have lost his English. So all those years the Polish was still in there somewhere, although he could neither speak nor comprehend it.

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