Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0440: Advanced mnemonics: Can I incorporate PAO into language learning?

Episode Date: November 13, 2015

Kelly asks whether language learning mnemonics are related to PAO systems. I provide my thoughts. 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 440. 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. Kelly asked in an email, Do you use a PAO system in accumulating language vocabulary, or in organizing your Loki and Jour journeys for your memory palaces for language learning. So Kelly, I don't really use PAO with my language learning. I restrict it pretty much to things that really involve numbers. But this does bring up an interesting connection between

the types of pegs that PAO systems give you as far as number learning goes and the types of things that you can do when learning language vocabulary. So basically what happens with a PAO system is instead of just using the major system and having to improvise words as you look at a number and trying to turn those digits into words using the major system, you actually instead already have those words pre-created for you. You have a bunch of mnemonics that you can use to turn those numbers into images. Similarly, in a language, you can actually come up with some stock mnemonics that you'll use over and over again for lots of

different words because of certain syllables and sounds that come up over and over again in those words. For example, in Spanish, there are certain syllables that are very frequent as stressed syllables of these words. For example, the stressed syllable dad at the end of words like verdad, realidad, and things like that, that's a very, very common stressed syllable. And so for me, any of those words has a focus on Joel's dad. That's what we use to remember the meanings of words that have a stressed syllable dad from the Spanish course

at Spanishin1month.com. So all of those have the stressed syllable dad, and it's easy. We just know to associate those with Joel's dad in various ways. And then similarly, the stress syllable yon is very common for basically any word that in English ends with ishin. And so the stress syllable is yon. And for all of those, I've just decided that the stress syllable is yon. Joel yawns about something for all of those. So in cases like that, when the stressed syllable is dad or yon, I already have the mnemonic sort of pre-made or partly made. I just have to think of some sort of connection between the meaning of the word and that stressed syllable. Another very common one is yen, like the words bien, también, and various words like that, very common Spanish words.

The stressed syllable yen is a very, very common stressed syllable in Spanish. And it's actually for that reason that I decided at the course at Spanishin1month.com that Joel's currency or the currency on his planet is actually the Japanese yen because it's just extremely handy. Otherwise, we would have to come up with all sorts of different mnemonics for stressed syllables en and yen, but we just use the money in all of those cases, and we imagine something related to money, and it's easy to remember when you remember that money that the word that you're looking for has a stressed syllable yen, and then you quickly

remember, oh yeah, también. To answer the other part of your question, I think that the organization of your memory palace should really have to do with the grammar or the function of the words. So you group your words together according to function, and then within those groups, you further separate them based on function. For example, you have all the pronouns in one general area, then you have all the dative pronouns in one area, the object pronouns in another area, and you don't get them mixed up. So that's how you organize your palaces, just as far as grammar goes and as far as being able to find a word when you need it.

Now, on the subject of language learning, there's some really exciting new development going on at Master of Memory. We're actually moving forward with our Mandarin Chinese project, maybe. So hopefully in the next few months, we can actually completely fund and create our entire Mandarin course just in the next few months. And it's an interesting story what I'm planning to do with this course. I'm actually going to outsource the creation of the course so that other nemonists and native speakers create many of the materials for me. And then I'll give myself a one-month challenge in February to see to what extent I can learn Mandarin, spoken Mandarin, in one month between February 1 and March 1. But the only way that we

can make this work is if we can actually get the project funded ahead of time. And all that you have to do if you would like to see a free Mandarin course like our successful Spanish course is to help get this project more exposure by going to masterofmemory.com slash vote. Why is it masterofmemory.com slash vote? Because basically at this point, I don't really care how much you contribute to the project. I just want you to show that you are backing it in some way that you support it, even if you can't do it with more than one dollar.

So if you just go to master of memory dot com slash vote, you're showing other Kickstarter members that this is a serious project and there are lots of people behind it. So vote for the project with your dollar, get it some more exposure, share it, and we can all learn Mandarin for free with the whole course created in just a few months. So just go to masterofmemory.com slash vote if you're interested in that project. You'll also see that there are options for actually

joining me in February and doing the one-month challenge, or for taking a three-month course, depending on how much you contribute to the project. So anyway, I'm really excited about learning Mandarin Chinese, and I know that many of you are as well. It's been a long time sort of waiting for this to happen because I've been absorbed with the Spanish, but I'm ready to move on to Mandarin, and I'm really excited about it. If you're not sure that you can contribute to the project, you can just go to masterofmemory.com slash Mandarin, and I'll send you updates as the project goes along. Meanwhile, for everyone listening, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at

masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon. © transcript Emily Beynon