In your experience, is it easier to use a PAO where the Person, Action, and Object ALL follow the Major? Or is it justcas efficient to assign Action ans Object that go with the Person, but don’t necessarily follow the Major?
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You’ll have to make that determination for yourself. Different approaches will have different results for different people. There is no one-size-fits-all technique. Until you try a few, you won’t be able to know which one is “best” for you.
I love my “fully Major” approach. It made sense to me, gave me consistency when learning, and was really satisfying to build out knowing that every element in it followed from a simple set of rules. I also like how by building this way, all of the elements relate directly to the number without having to add extra conversion steps back to the person. I think the ultimate goal of a number system is to build reflexive recognition where you see the number and you directly think of the correct element. Building everything off major allows for this to be practiced from the very start.
Some people dislike that approach. It can be a little more challenging to build and to learn at first compared to a “classic style” PAO where everything relates back to the person.
Whatever way you decide to go, the important thing is to just get started. Don’t let fear of better options prevent you from making progress. Its also something you can change down the road. Right now, creating a 300 element list may seem daunting, and it is a big task, but if you stick with this, it won’t seem as tough later on and you’ll find yourself regularly revising as you find words and images that are better fits for your system. I started with a traditional 2-digit PAO, switched to fully major, built a 3-digit major PO, modified some of those sound assignments for cards, all told learned over 3000 associations between numbers and cards before I was “satisfied” with my system. It’s ok to try one thing for a while and see how it goes, then as you learn what works for you and what doesn’t, update it as you go.
In the end the specifics of the system matter far less than the amount of practice you give it. The goal of any system is to get to a point where you don’t consciously use the system anymore and the numbers just BECOME the elements, just like you don’t have to sound out every letter in a word anymore in order to read it. Most systems can get you to the same place with enough time spent working with them.
So, pick one and give it a go! Good luck!
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Honestly the reason I never gave the major a shot is pure laziness. Sure, rationally I “know” it only appears confusing on the surface and just gives a little structure to work with.
My brain though? It reacts like, “I’m not learning this Aztec cypher just to go through hundreds of demon summonings so you can make me hallucinate numbers! You have a pen!”
For something that never shuts up, it is amazing how stubbornly lazy it can be.
Whatever you do, I suggest trying to practice with your system immediately, rather than trying to grind every association into your head before using them. Grinding the associations is what I did with my A-Z, and it took quite a while to really set in.
I have a 0-9 PAO that was sitting dormant in my notes for something like a year. There was a major life event before I had a chance to grind that into memory. Well, on a whim I used a few elements out of it and ended up learning them immediately just by encoding something and decoding it a few times.
It was quite the aha moment. Extremely obvious in hind-sight, since encoding and decoding other information on the fly you tend to learn that association immediately.
If or when I expand to a 00-99, I might use the major to help pick out some of the people, then just get the actions and objects from them… Learning the major may seem irrationally hard and unpleasant, but just looking at a chart to see a few letters and check if a name appears is alright. The brain is a bizarre beast.
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Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I developed a classic PAO (didn’t know that was what it was called, so thank you) and i have been sitting here today shuffling around 00-10 to start practing and learning it. So far so good! Thanks again for the advice
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I began with what Tim calls a “full major” (0-99) (somewhat by accident because I’d no idea we were supposed to do anything else really).
But then I didn’t made a list and drilled it, I just chose which letter I would use for each number and tried to find words for the numbers I encountered whenever I needed it (my car is parked at the slot 69 on the 9th floor? it’s jeff playing with fire (in my car! shouldn’t have let that kid there waiting for me…) .
Only later I realized that I only missed a few numbers out of the hundred necessary and I made a list and anki cards with them (no fancy picture or anything, just text).
Now my current ongoing project is a 000-999 PAO and I’m more deliberate. I have only one keyword, which is directly linked to both people and object.
Like 098 (rêve bleu), which is the title for the French version of “A whole new world”: the person is the couple, the object is the flying carpet.
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