Find out about the pegword mnemonic
To celebrate Māori Language Week here in Aotearoa (New Zealand), I've put together a pegword set in te reo:
- tahi — ahi
- rua — ua
- toru — tūru
- whā — taniwha
- rima — rama
- ono — hono …
Mnemonics
Most mnemonic strategies are based on imagery. There is no doubt that imagery can be an effective tool, but there is nothing particularly special about imagery. The advantage of imagery is that it provides an easy way of connecting information that is not otherwise readily connected. However,…
The story method (sometimes called the sentence mnemonic) is the most easily learned list-mnemonic strategy, although it is not as widely known as the other simple methods we’ve talked about so far.
As its name suggests, the story method involves linking words to be learned in a story.…
Frances Yates described the memory strategy valued by the ancient Greeks and Romans as the "Art of Memory" in her widely quoted and seminal book The Art of Memory. Today we know it as the method of loci. But the Art of Memory, as those of the ancient world and those of the medieval world…
In 2002, a British study scanned the brains of ten "superior memorizers" — eight leading contenders in the World Memory Championships, and two individuals previously studied for their extraordinary memory accomplishments — all people that had demonstrated truly impressive feats of memory, in…
Find out about the pegword mnemonic
Here are pegwords I've thought up in the Italian language.
As with the original example, let's try it out with our cranial nerves.
In italiano, sono i nervi cranici:
- olfattorio
- ottico …
Find out about the pegword mnemonic
Here are pegwords I've thought up in the Spanish language.
As with the original example, let's try it out with our cranial nerves.
En español, los nervios craneales son:
- olfatorio
- óptico
- motor…
If you have a numbered list to memorize, the best mnemonic strategy is the pegword mnemonic. This mnemonic uses numbers which have been transformed into visual images. Here's the standard 1-10 set.
I add two more:
To apply the strategy to a list, you visualize…
Most mnemonic strategies use visual images. But as I say in The myth of imagery, while there is no doubt that imagery can be an effective tool, there is nothing particularly special about it. The advantage of imagery is that it provides an easy way of connecting information that is not otherwise…
Most people find numbers — phone numbers, personal identification numbers, dates, and so on — more difficult to remember than words. That is, of course, why businesses try to get phone numbers that correspond to some relevant word. The system whereby this is possible — the linking of certain…