When you stop speaking a language, you begin to forget it.

Not immediately. You search a little longer for words that once came easily. You hesitate before saying something simple. The language is still there, though it no longer feels like home. Mathematics is no different.

Most students spend long stretches without speaking it. They finish the homework that is due. They prepare for the test. Then they put it away until school asks for it again. When they finally return, everything feels strangely unfamiliar, and they assume they have forgotten mathematics. Usually they have only fallen out of conversation with it.

Languages stay alive by being spoken a little, often. Mathematics is much the same. A single good problem. A few minutes following an argument. An idea written clearly enough that another person could understand it. These small conversations keep the language familiar.

The Practice Room is where that conversation carries on. A set of problems arrives each Monday to work through in your own time, and on Saturday a letter from me about what the week was really asking. The goal is not to keep relearning mathematics. The goal is never to stop speaking it.