I’m Sam. I wanted to memorize parts of the Bible and was looking for an efficient way to do so. And from this forum I found Doug @thinkaboutthebible 's book that I bought yesterday. I really enjoy it and it seems to be what I was looking for (Doug, in case you’re reading, thumbs up). His system already contains all the structure for learning, with memory palaces, stories, mnemonics and a system to map books, chapters, verses.
My concern is that my main language is french, and my goal is to learn the Bible in french. Now I’m quite fluent in english too, so I’m confident I can learn from that book and all the structure it contains. Doug’s system contains some phonetic associations (“Matthew” ↔ “Math U”), which sound great in english but not in other languages.
I was thinking about two options:
Either I “rewrite” parts of Doug’s system with words that match in french, but this would be most likely a big effort
Or I use some kind of coding, like polka dots, which could have one color for the mnemonics that I will remember in english, and another color for english
What would you recommend? There are probably better options than what I mentioned here.
Hey,
So I would take the first option and rewrite the system. It will make it your own and match your memory not his. Also image will stick and it will create tools you can use for other projects.
French is also my mother tongue and I realize that all the systems tips and trick made by english native speaker dont match very well for me. It seems that english and french fought a lot in history and it show in the language itself
@sammy_key, I appreciate the compliments on the Bible memorization book. What’s good about the 7711 system is that it doesn’t provide verse mnemonics so you are free to add French keywords for the verse numbers and then more keywords for the verse itself.
I wonder if you know the English Major system and could follow along with my chosen peg words that tell the story of each book? It’s what you would build on in French. No polka dots needed since chapters are English pegs and the verses are French pegs. But there is that option of rewriting my system. I don’t recommend that since it took a year or more to just select the peg words and get the story written. @Alzair has a point though. The more you struggle the more you make it your own. But then why not stand on the shoulders of giants as Bernard of Chartres said?
Thank you everyone for your time, I appreciate your answers.
@thinkaboutthebible exactly, I would like as much as possible to rewrite it as I had the impression it took a lot of time to do it. Now I also understand @Alzair 's point and will consider it for the future.
Doug, yes I know the english major system and could indeed follow with the story of each book. I still need to read a bit more to understand in details how it works and how to start. But for the time being I will follow your advice and see where it brings me.
I don’t mean to contribute to thread drift, but I’ve occasionally wondered how non-English speakers deal with the Major system (or even the number-rhyming system).
I feel like there should be an equivalent version for one’s native language, no matter what that may be. But I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone describe their version of Major for languages other than English or their rhymes for, say, 1-10, in languages other than English. (Is the Dominic system, which I don’t use, actually better suited to non-English speakers?)
