Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0452: Difficulties memorizing Major System sounds

Episode Date: December 1, 2015

Gretchen is having some trouble with certain sounds from the Major System, particularly the sounds for 7 and 8. I talk about ways to work on remember Major System sounds quickly. 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 452. 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. Gretchen asked a question by email about difficulty reading numbers with the major system. As many listeners know, the major system converts numerical digits, like 0 or 7, into sounds so that numbers can be read as words, which are much more easy to memorize. Gretchen knows all ten sounds of the major system, but she finds that some numbers are consistently more difficult for her to associate with their sounds on the fly, particularly the digits 7 and 8, because she says, although 7 represents the hard k sound, the word 7 sounds soft. And although 8 represents the soft

f sound, the word 8 sounds hard when you say it. To address this issue, I'm going to step back for a second and talk about the importance of consistent method for remembering things. For example, if you're remembering people's names at a conference and you use stressed syllables and facial features like I recommend for a few people, but then you use the location that you found them and some other technique for other people, when you run into somebody, how do you know, how can you remember who they are? How do you know how you can remember their name if you don't know which of the techniques you used? That's why it's important to choose just one technique as your trigger for remembering something that you're trying to memorize. In the case of numbers, when

learning the major system, I think that when learning the major system it's really handy to start with the number 3. And I always recommend starting with the number 3 when you're learning the major system because you can easily see that the number 3, when it's turned sideways, looks like the letter M. So the number 3 represents the letter M because it just looks like the number M when it's turned sideways. And then if you learn the number 2 next, it looks like a sideways N. So what you can see here is that we're using the way that these digits visually appear to remember what they are. We're not thinking about the way that they sound when we say 2 or 3 because it has nothing to do with M or N. For consistency,

I would apply that to the numbers 7 and 8 as well. So think about how they visually look, not how the numbers sound when they're spoken, when the digits are named. So you'll find that this is easy to associate with the hard and soft sounds that they represent. You'll see that the number k has a very hard angle and the number 8 is very round. In fact, it's the most round number because it has two circles. So if you imagine each of these things maybe hitting up against a door, the 7 hitting the door would make a sharp knocking K sound, but the 8 hitting the door would make a soft pillowy sound for F.

So thinking about the way that they visually look and being consistent in your method for remembering what the sounds of the number digits are, that'll help you not get confused and not slow down and get tripped up when you're reading numbers when you're using the major system. Thanks for the question, Gretchen. For everyone listening, please check out masterofmemory.com slash mandarin to see what we have going on over there. And meanwhile, 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.