eli5 why do we “forget” long practiced skills after a period of time of not using said skills? and how can we regain those skills

Question

i noticed that after the holidays my math plummeted and teachers told me its because of the break i took… why does this happen and how can i regain those skills acquired prior to the break

In: 356

Answer 1

So those neural connections are still there and it’ll take you much less work compared to another brain who hasn’t had the same practice.

Here is a long example. I grew up speaking Mandarin and I took ESL (back when it was still called ESL) throughout elementary school. As I aged, I spoke better and better English as I had more and more ability to describe the world with English but not with Mandarin. And basically around highschool my spoken Mandarin (since spoken and written AND reading skills are all separate) got so bad that when I first met my Mandarin speaking wife I actually needed my dad to help me translate.

Well, in between getting to know her and taking Chinese in college for two years, and now married for over ten years a lot of native speakers of Mandarin can’t tell I’m not a native speaker until they have a conversation with me. I definitely had a way easier time learning Chinese in school and relearning spoken Chinese since I had known some of that stuff before. Hope this helps!