I have seen there are a few posts on country memorizing but I am starting a new thread so others can share or contribute to this challenge of learning the countries of the world geographically instead of just as a list.
More importantly the techniques used. I liked the way Ed Cooke did Europe so here goes in a similar fashion.
I’ll kick off with South America please follow with your own ideas or comments.
I see South America as a head.
Brazil as the face with the Amazon river as the eyes, easterly point as the nose, going down the mouth.
Uruguay or U-r-gay (Please don’t take offence) is the double chin under Brazil’s mouth represented as a bare bottom.
The face needs some ears and these are made of bowls for BOLIVIA.
Ears need earrings and this one has a paracute as earings for PARAGUAY.
The neck is made up of the spine which is Chile - Chills going down your spine
The throat is ARGENTINA with a fork stuck in it for the FALKLAND ISLANDS
Heading up the west coast after Argentina we come to the hair of this head and a Purring Roo (kanagroo) for PERU
Above that is door made of snooker cues or a cue door - EQUADOR
Above EQUADOR is obviously a cloud for COLUMBIA
Out the left of the top of the cloud is a Pan for Panama (North America) and out the right of the cloud is a van for VENEZUELA.
The van is right next to the faces eyebrows which are a guys eyebrows of which there are two for GUYANA on the left and French Guys eyebrow on the right for FRENCH GUIANA.
In between is the faces surname or SURINAME.
No takers?..come on…sharings caring and I need a bit of motivation!
How’s about Central America.
I see a beautiful Mermaid with the end of Mexico as the Mermaids hair and face,
Her lovely lady lumps aren’t covered by shells but bells with lizards as the clapper - BELIZE
Her arms come down to the south coast on her arms are tattoos of gates with someone waiting GUATEMALA
the hands coming off the arms are playing in hells salvage for doors EL SALVADOR
the legs now have lots of honda motorcycles driving over them, or maybe you see the she has her hand on your arse HONDURAS
On the lower legs you can see the mermaids knickerbockers a little wet from the water or agua NICARAGUA
Her feet see the heel to the west show the costa of rice shoes COSTA RICA
And all mermaids have tails and this one has a frying pan for a flipper for PANANMA.
Notice how she is throwing up cigars in a nice long projectile vomit! looks like CUBA to me… to be continued?
An interesting approach, which I will certainly utilise should I ever have an interest in memorising geography (right now, I do not, sorry :P). Hope you find some like-minded-memorisers, but for me it just holds no pull right now.
Thanks for your honesty. Ill carry on as I like the idea of visualising the location insted of just on a journey. I think it will be good once I get a kid friendly version as I’m going to try teaching this to my young kids, something we can draw together and have some fun with.
tThanks to this post, I’ve just discovered this Cooke’s technique : imaging persons, animals and else that remind us the shape of the country or continent, and try to associate words or a story with it.
Sounds interesting. Indeed, South America DOES really look like a face (well, more a cartoon one, of course) and by know, I can’t see anything else than eyes, nose and mouth on Brazil, a double chin, a neck, etc.
I didn’t work on geography memory a lot, but the techniques I knew was O’Brien’s : associate a country’s name with a word sounding like it and put it in a loci, then for the country next to it, do the same in another place next to the previous one.
Imagining images like face (or eagle for Switzerland, as Cooke’s did) sounds great, but in fact, when I just tried for south America with my words (I’m french, your examples don’t work for me), it seemed that finding a shape’s name (face for Brazil is great, but the door for equador doesn’t mean a thing for me) plus a word to associate, plus a story to link them if the country is not a part of the previous image (i.e. the ears of the face) is just too hard and too long for me to find and memorize.
How long did it take for you to find something for South America ? Do you feel it really helped you memorize it ? When you try to recall, do you still use that images/story ?
I’m sure it’s like everything : try hard and it becomes easier.
But compared to other methods, how does it stand ?
Thanks.
