How can a person increase their speed of memorization?How can a person increase their speed of memorization?
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To memorize things verbatim, use the redux method. Write down the first letter of each word and practice recalling the text from those first letters. It often just takes three rounds of this to remember the whole text.
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Thank you very much Thank you very much
How would that work for something like times tables? Getting faster I mean.
There’s also the similar sounding word method and those images are placed in order on a journey. It works well, I’ve used it to memorize Isaiah chapter 53 verbatim, many Psalms of David, and various scripture verses.
So you pick images that sound like the word you want to remember or is close enough to the sound of the word to bring you to remember the actual word. For example in the prophecy about the messiah:
“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
â€â€Isaiah‬ â€53‬:â€5‬ â€
Looking at the first line,
“But” could be the butt end of a loaf of bread or butting someone with the stock of a rifle.
He is He-man, an action character from a cartoon. Or just picture the subject Jesus.
“Was” sounds like wasp or wassail is a cider drink.
“Pierced” is self evident could be a piercing or stabbing.
“For” I usually think of a golfer yelling “fore” before swinging the club. Or four literal items, Or a sail thats shaped like a 4.
Our could be hour glass
Transgressions is a transmission. I’ll remember once it’s pictured what it’s representing.
Anything that sounds like the word you want to memorize that is able to be pictured easier than the word itself is.
It seems like a lot but once you get in the mindset of looking for words it goes fast and is a fun puzzle. I like it better than rote repetition. Also the first letter method can be mixed in for some parts. Especially when they end up being an acronym or something you can contextualize.
So I would picture a but piece of bread held by He Man a wasp lands on his other hand and pierced through with a stinger like a nail. He stumbles and knocks over for (four) hour glasses that were stacked on two transmissions (transgressions)
If you wanna remember punctuation a ; could be someone mopping the floor. Or whatever it looks like to you.
In the next location of the scene He-man sees the wasp land and crushed it. Four(for) hourglasses Iniquities
Some words I make a picture for. Iniquities for me is a giant slimy capital letter “I” like a pillar to represent sins or iniquity. If it’s plural there are two of them.
Someone mopping up the slime ;
Then to the Next location. I try to spread it out to not have too much happening in one spot because the order can get mixed up.
For the next line I used some of the first letter method with added imagery.
Uh wtc tbup
“Upon him” I used an image of a story book since stories start with “once upon a time” and him (hymn or hem) so it’s a Hymn book.
World Trade Center “WTC” in next location
That is usually a hat. So the building has a hat on it.
“brought” I just remembered without an image. Well the image was coming into the scene like it was being brought in.
US (US Flag)
With a Peace (
) a peace sign on it.
It takes a lot longer when starting but worth trying out. If you don’t need verbatim it becomes easier to summarize or leave out words for needing less images but sometimes having pictures for the exact words needed is really helpful.
Also the cool thing is once you go through the journey enough and it becomes committed to memory, you don’t need to think about the silly images that helped you memorize it. They’re like scaffolding that go away and only the words you want to remember are there when you recite. But if you forget a word you can always retrace your path and review your mnemonic aids and get to the correct word.
You can also add images to remember the chapter and verses. The Major System is used to convert numbers to images and it’s well worth the time to learn ita simple rules, there are many posts on that here already if you search for it.
To make a quick example using the Shaper System which is more basic but easy to start out with because the shape of the number is turned to a picture.
To remember 53 you could picture the 5 looks like a hook and the 3 is a pair of open hand cuffs. So the very first location would be started with an image of that hanging above the scene for example. The verse 5 could be something else a 5 reminds you of. I think it looks similar to a wheelchair’s profile view. So there could be the subject of the verse sitting in a wheelchair. When you get to the start of the next verse what does a 6 look like? I would think of a whistle or a cherry. So that would be embedded in the imagery and so on. For the major system one option for 53 is a Lamb Thats laying down. 5=L and 3 = m the b is silent so doesn’t count and neither do vowels.
I have that for my chapter image since Jesus was called the lamb of God.
For verse 5, I use hail. It’s hailing throughout the entire scene. The next verse 6 is ash, so the hail abruptly stops and now it’s ashy everywhere.
Here’s a tutorial on this site for more details and ways of coming up with words
And somewhere on here there is a long list of common words and substitutes to use. If you search this forum for “images to common English words” a few posts will come up with some great examples ideas.
I did this for the heart sutra (gelukpa not zen version) and praise to the twenty one taras. It was very slow. Hours a day for a month for each, individually.
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