I don't believe in intelligence quotients. I believe in intelligence. I believe that there are as many different forms of intelligence as there are people. And I think that makes sense.

For me - as a visual thinking person with a photographic memory - it is essential to use pictures for memorizing vocabulary. I can't remember words or phrases which are only written as a list - I need an image, a vision in my mind that works like an anchor. Once in a while my mind creates its own anchors and then I'm struggling with my new vocabulary, because the anchor image leads me in the wrong direction.

I'm learning with Duolingo, a language-learning platform. I love its modern mindset: neuroscientists figured out that it is a useful way by surprising our brain again and again with new input. Another aspect is the relaxed learning - then our brain absorbs the knowledge better and stores it as positive.

Okay, Duolingo is a funny tool. I often feel like playing a game. Doing my exercises I don't know what comes next: a written sentence in English that I have to translate into German, a voice that speaks English and I have to write down what I have understood or just a word, for which I have to click on the right picture. My brain is always wide awake, I have to be focused all the time.

So my brain and I drove comfortably on our learning highway and collected words and pictures and phrases. Then we came to our first pit stop labeled "to turn": Turn left! Turn right! Turn off the light, turn on the radio.

First I had a picture of a road with traffic signs and a little robot marched to the right or to the left. But it didn't fit to turn something off or on, the picture with the road and the robot fitted for the phrase "turn left, turn right", but it not fitted for the phrases " turn off the light, turn on the radio". With this picture I just couldn't remember those sentences and Duolingo instantly showed me the red error button! Help!

Okay, I changed the right-angled roads into soft curves. Do you remember those old light switches you had to twist? And those old radios with knobs? Now my little robot made only backflips, but he still walked on his road, and lamps and radios worked excellently, too.

With the phrase "It's your turn" the situation became a little more hectic. In between my robot Robby had to sit down at a round playing table, where several people played cards and whenever their neighbor should make his move they shouted: "It's your turn!". They looked impatient and angry, and Robby hurried up. The speed accelerated when I had to translate "We turned into doctors." Wow, I thought, in Germany the medical education takes at least ten years and now those young people have become doctors in a few seconds just by a quick turnaround! I got dizzy just by watching!

"One chapter turned into a book", and "The house turned into a hotel" slowed down the momentum a little, because there was a lot of stuff to move. However, the player on their round table looked angry and so we worked faster. Books and houses flew through the air…

My picture had taken on a life of its own and it stopped at the imagination of a chairoplane, in German called "Kettenkarussell". So I can place the young doctors in the seats while books and houses fly around them on the outside. Oh, of course, my little robot is also sitting in the carousel and having fun!