I am trying to memorise the names of important kings, monarchs, pharaohs, princes but some have a weird name And i have no idea how i can remember their names and a short story who they are, what They did, when They lived.
Does anyone know how?
Or can anyone help me?
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For the names, I’d make small scenes to get the sounds from. For my A-Z, I chose Jubokko for my J, and have always struggled to get the word straight (but it didn’t really matter, since I could link the image to J anyway.)
To fix it, I have a tree feeding jujubes to a chicken that I have decided is named bokko and which boks in that manner. Bokkun from an old Sonic cartoon likes to superimpose himself over the image since he was a rejected association while puzzling out the scene. He slows down decoding a little, but it’s fine, he can hang out.
I find it very useful to give everything it’s own avatar (or character as Lynne Kelly would put it), then you can use that same avatar whenever you need to make it clear who/what you’re remembering details about. If not a likeness per ruler, then some object to symbolize each of them.
I’ve had to wrestle with how to memorize unfamiliar-sounding names when memorizing the 233 countries (and their capitals) and territories of the world (according to a U.N. list).
What has worked best for me has been to create memorable images using words that sound like or sound close to the unfamiliar word I’m trying to remember. (Keep in mind that you may not need help recalling every single syllable.)
“Azerbaijan” sounded like “Azure, by Jean,” which sounded like the name of a luxury perfume. So I pictured a beautiful woman dressed for a night on the town wearing this perfume. On her shoulder, I pictured a giant black crow saying, “Baa-coo,” which gave me the capital, Baku.
On the other hand, to me, “Kyrgyzstan” just sounds like someone clearing their throat! It called nothing to mind. So I ended up imagining an angry monster that just growled, “Krrrrg,” at me. That was enough to trigger the complete name of the country. For it’s capital, Bishkek… I thought that sounded a bit like “fish cake,” so I then pictured this creature eating a “Bishkek”/fishcake.
Each country, then, is represented by an image (or images) placed in a specific location in a memory palace. (If that makes no sense to you, check out the Resources tab for a lot of great information regarding the variety of and uses for memory techniques.) I’d recommend storing your own information in this way; memory palaces are expandable and can help you store a lot of information.
The only other advice I’d offer at this point is that it might be helpful to store consistent amounts of information for each person you are wanting to remember. That way, you won’t have 10 bits of information about William the Conqueror and only two facts about King Ferdinand. If you’re consistent across all of the people, I believe that will aid recall. (FWIW, I’m currently doing this with the rulers of England, but only memorizing names, dates, and a single descriptive fact about them.)
Bob
Sorry, forgot to mention this…
If you’re going to be memorizing dates, you’re going to need a memory technique for turning numbers into images. There are several of these, but the most popular (I believe) are the Major System and the Dominic System. (I’m a fan of Major.)
More information is available on the Resources tab, but, in a nutshell, the idea is that each number represents a consonant sound.
1 - t, d
2 - n
3 - m
4 - r
5 - l
6 - sh, ch, j
7 - g, c, k
8 - f, v
9 - p, b
The idea is that you then use those consonant sounds to create memorable words that you can recall using the Linking system, a memory palace, etc. (Vowels don’t matter at all in the Major system.) So, for me, “22” is a nun. “35” is a mule.
It doesn’t always work well, but when I’m trying to remember a year, I like making the first two numbers an animal that will then interact with the next two numbers. “17__” is a duck. “18__” is a dove. “19__” is a TaBby cat (which is one I kind of had to fudge). So my way to remember “1922” would be to picture a TaBby cat interacting in some outrageous way with a NuN.
Since you’ll be including ancient dates as well, I’d recommend just coming up with an arbitrary symbol that could represent BC/BCE and AD/CE for you. (In the U.S., there’s a comic strip about a caveman called “B.C.,” so I would insert a cartoon caveman next to the relevant person/date I’m memorizing.)
Bob