>If you understand what the concepts involved in a symbol mean, you won't have a problem recognizing the commonly used symbols. >And if you don't understand what the concepts involved mean, then having memorized the symbol does you no good.

this would imply in learning a new language if you know what the concepts a word refers to means that you won't have any difficulty recognizing the word - no matter how many words there are, how long the statement you are reading is, and how similar various words are to each other?

When learning something it is nice to have a reference.