I’ve scoured the forums for tips on memorizing things verbatim and like the idea of using the first letter of a word as it’s representation and then placing the set of letters from a sentence in a journey along with some contextual images if necessary. I’ve been debating if I should have a set image for each letter or if I should use whatever image I associate with the letter in the moment, perhaps creating unique (and maybe more memorable) images for different contexts instead of having predetermined images. I’m looking for advice from someone who has experience using this particular strategy since I can see the benefits and drawbacks of both: Predetermined images would become more ingrained and easier to recall, however making it harder to recall the context… Non predetermined images would differentiate from other strings with the same letters and perhaps provide some contextual clues, however making it harder to recall the string than if all images were predetermined.
I anticipate using both, but I’m debating if I should even invest the effort to creating an alphabet, any thoughts?
lol… um… hell no, is the answer I think I’m trying to find… yea I’ll go with that, hell no. Oh, and in case there might be some question of me still deliberating on that possibility, how about, hell ■■■■■■■ no?
I use a PAO system along side spaced repetition to learn verbatim.
I usually only take the first couple of words of a phrase as other systems (spaced repetition of the initials of each phrase) are enough to cement them. I just want a guide to the different phrases rather than store a code for each word.
The A and O part are mostly preconfigured with set words. I have a -z of action words for the A and then for the O I have a a-z of adjectives and nouns. These are placed on a journey a POA at each spot.
On the journey I’ll also superimpose certain keyword(s) from the original text if it / they are vibrant enough.
Also, you’ll often see words within the initials or acronyms, one phrase that springs to mind is “POTA” which can stand for Planet of the Apes, so as I was recalling the original text I could “see” POTA too. Something I’m learning now has “UAE WPC”, so at that point I think “United Arab Emirates, Woman Police Constable”.
There;s a few other things I do, but I won’t complicate matters by discussing them all as they generally are just to mix things up.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
O M U T B D F O M
O C T W U W O E D
I P T N S B A M
A M S A H
So, I might split that up into
Oscar Mayer Opens Cat
Iggy Pop Arrests Magpie
Oscar Mayer gives me OM for “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”
Opens Cat - OC for “Or close the wall up with our English dead.”
Iggy Pop at the next location for IP and “In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man”
then at the same location arrests magpie (AM) for “As modest stillness and humility:”
So if I understand this correctly, you’re using two loci for those 4 lines?? It doesn’t seem like you’re encoding the entire line, not sure how you’re doing that… is it just the rest of the line pops in your head after you’ve successfully grabbed the first part? That seems like it may work for things verbatim that might not be absolutely necessarily verbatim like poems (and if you’re not absorbing huge amounts of information in a short period of time), but what about things like formulas where all those details actually matter?
For poems and speeches I use various techniques and testing for the entire line, then I only need a hint to have it appear.
If I was learning formula then I’d encode the entire thing, but I would still use the same testing / spaced repetition techniques to make sure I had the data stored properly.
I very often use multiple techniques to store something. I cheat something awful and have no problem with it! For instance, looking again at that section from Henry Vth above I see “O C T” for “Or close the wall up with our English dead.” so would be likely to put an Octopus at that point instead of “opens cat”.
pi = C / d
pi equals circumference of a circle divided by diameter.
P E C O A C D D
Paul Eddington Cleaning Orange Ant
Cameron Diaz Dancing.
a = pi * r ^2
Area of a Circle equals Pi times Radius Squared.
A O A C E P T R S
Anita O’Day “Ace”
Pete Townsend Running Swan
Feel free to post a couple of examples of what formulas you mean here and I’ll try show you what I’d do. I’m not saying it’s the best method. I’d likely want set images for equals and certain mathematical functions for instance, but it should be pretty simple to implement and be almost immediately useful.
I personally find it easier to use the first image that comes up in my head when reading then linking it to the previous line for context. So for example when i hear quantity I think of a clear beer bottle that is shiney and appealing then I cut out words like “to”, “there”, or “and” and splice them together to the rest of the words in the sentence; and based on the prepositions that I cut out the location of different objects within the image change, i.e. if the sentence had Tokyo TO Toronto I would picture something related to Japan about to make any form of contact to something related to Toronto(preferably physical so no extra codes need to be used). I memorized an 2,000 word essay with this method in addition to a memory palace with pegs in each loci in 2.5 h, so it worked well although I do recommend making obscure locations more vivid through having an image to locate each peg.