Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0342: Using mnemonics for complicated definitions

Episode Date: June 30, 2015

Randall asks about memorizing the meanings of long words using stressed syllable mnemonics. I show how he can break the word down and simplify it by focusing on primary and secondary stressed syllables. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 342. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Randall submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Randall says, how can I use the stressed syllable technique to learn vocabulary that's long and complicated? For example, I'm taking anatomy where one definition is as follows.

Bronchus, one of the two branches from the trachea that conducts air into the lungs where it divides and subdivides. The branchings resemble a tree, therefore they're referred to as a bronchial tree. So Randall, if I understand correctly, your concern is not that the words themselves are very long, but that the definitions are really long. And this is a good question because, for example, with language learning, we have a stressed syllable, you know, mnemonic that kind of attaches the other language's vocabulary word to a vocabulary word in English, and that works a lot of the time. But a lot of the time, and particularly for very frequent words like prepositions and

so on, that doesn't really work, because the fact is the definition of the word doesn't just equate to one simple word, It relates to an entire concept that doesn't really have an equivalent as an English word. For example, the word por in Spanish, to an extent, it means by, but it means a lot of other things. And so we have to relate the word por to a sort of story or a sort of concept or framework that relates the word por to all of its meanings in English or just, you know, as a concept of a word. And that's what I would suggest doing with your vocabulary. Don't just try to have bronchus,

and so bronch is the stressed syllable. Don't just have that represent one simple thing. Have it represent everything. As soon as you think bronchus you should think of that whole network of branches and the way that that whole network of branches functions in conducting air into the lungs so what i would suggest is i mean this is what i would do personally with with bronchus i would have a horse, which is a bronco. So you have bronchus, you'll quickly remember the horse and the horse, it's actually maybe a whole bunch of horses and they're really wild with their manes flying and everything. And what they tend to do is they tend to run

into a channel and then they all branch out and they all run through all these corridors that are getting smaller and smaller until eventually there's just one horse per corridor coming out at the other end. So at first there was a whole herd of horses flying into the big track at the beginning but then they kept splitting up into smaller and smaller channels until there's just one horse per branch at the very end and then all those horses fall into the bottom of somebody's lungs and start kicking at the lungs with their hooves. So instead of turning bronchus into some long definition of words or trying to turn it into you know know, fewer words than that, we've encompassed this whole meaning of conducting air into the lungs, of dividing and

subdividing, and you know all of that has been tied into this very memorable image of a bunch of horses that were one herd but are branching off into different directions and falling into somebody's lungs. The moral of the story here is that mnemonics allow us to capture all of those meanings in one place. So going back to the word por in Spanish, we've encompassed all of the meanings of the word por into one simple image of water going down a curved water slide. You can see this at the free images and videos at Spanishin1month.com where we have all the materials for our Spanish course for free. Now, listeners have asked about how they can support Master of Memory and keep this show free for the world, particularly if you don't have a lot of time or any money to spend. So right now, I'm going to tell you that, believe it or not, right now,

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