EAP IELTS students in Sydney, Australia

Memorising and remembering memories

I take photographs so that I can memorise the occasion.

Here an Indonesian IELTS candidate is confusing the different forms of the Indonesian words ingat and hafal.

I'm going to need to check with an Indonesian native speaker, but I'm pretty sure this is right:

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  • ingat > remember (something)
  • ingatkan > remind (someone)
  • hafal > memorise (something)

When we memorise something, we devote a great deal of cognitive effort to it. We often do this when we are preparing for an exam:

I have my maths test tomorrow. I need to memorise the equations we learned in class.

For an event that you're recording with a photograph, there is unlikely to be an exam, and so the following is more appropriate:

I take photographs so that I can remember the occasion.

As for remind, this might also be part of the preparation for a test or an exam:

I take photographs of my lecture notes to remind myself about the formulae used by Feldman.