The Feynman technique: learn it by teaching it

Physicist Richard Feynman was famous for explaining hard ideas in plain words. The study method named after him turns that habit into a tool: you find the gaps in your understanding by trying to teach the topic to someone who knows nothing about it.

The four steps

1. 1Pick a topic and write its name at the top of a blank page.
2. 2Explain it as if to a 12-year-old. No jargon, no copying from your notes. Use examples and analogies.
3. 3Find where you got stuck. Every place you hesitated, reached for a technical word, or said "basically" is a gap. Go back to your notes for exactly those parts.
4. 4Simplify again. Rewrite the explanation until it flows from start to finish without a single hand-wave.

Why it works

Rereading makes material feel familiar, and familiarity is easy to mistake for understanding. Explaining forces you to rebuild the idea from memory, step by step, which shows you very quickly which steps you actually know.

When to use it

• →Before an exam, on the three topics you feel least sure about.
• →After a lecture, to check you really followed it.
• →Whenever a definition feels memorised rather than understood.