01 July 2009 | 06:25 pm
To not remember or to forget.

At times when we don’t remember something, we claim that we have forgotten. Other times, when we forget about them, we claim we don’t remember.

Now the question is, are the two terms interchangeable or are they different?

We don’t remember something if we have never committed it to our memory; we can only forget something only if it was ever committed to our memory, right? No?

Just a random thought, from a forgetful person.

Not


  • Zi Lei commented on 1 July 2009, 08:30pm:

    Hmmm… I think ‘forget’ is more of the purposely kind, while ‘don’t remember’ is unintentional. Like when you say “Let’s forgive and forget,” it’s purposely not to remember the thing, whereas don’t remember means you really can’t recall the thing.

  • loser commented on 1 July 2009, 09:32pm:

    有时候，我觉得悲伤的事情留下深刻印象，反而快乐的事情会很快忘记
    anyways,to not remember rather than to forget.
    to not remember -有印象
    foget-完全没印象。

  • selma commented on 2 July 2009, 01:27am:

    can’t forget=still rememberforget=remembered before but can’t remember at the moment=don’t remember

    sama sama la!

    both have the commitments of putting information to memory. not exactly commitment, but it definitely was stored in memory before.

  • Esther commented on 18 July 2009, 06:16pm:

    haha.. just wanted to say : people tend to ‘forget to remember'(忘记要记得） happiness. at the same time,unwilling to ‘remember to forget’（记得要忘记） sadness.