Memory Tricks

December 28, 2009

On the start we need to ask ourselves are there any memory tricks? And even if we want to say no the truth is opposite ;) Of course is better to train your mind and it’s the only way to have perfect memory but in this post I’ll give you some ideas of quick memory improvement or a way to remember something easily.

Memory Tips

  • the chain method
  • how to remember anything forever
  • easy way to remember new words in foreign language

Chain method
This you can use at any time, we’ll do basic training on example of shopping list because very often people go to shop, take 7 things and forget 2 which where most important – although eggs, onion, tomatoes and yellow cheese are pretty nice summary for scrambled eggs it’s nothing if your wife loves also basil (he?!) and you forgot about it. Later on I’ll write few words on implementing this technique in more advanced tasks like learning history. Generally the idea is that you need to remember just the first keyword, the rest comes from the story.

Here’s the list of products you need to but: basil :D , onion, eggs, butter, gas mask, a small hamster, a big hammer, rubbish bags, 2 litres of water, orange, mango and kiwi juice, pack of salt, speakers, baking powder, chicken for dog, three pens and plastic tape. So what’s the memory trick on this one? Use the chain method and do this shopping without any list!

Imagine a giant, smiling leaf on basil throwing with onion at eggs, the scared eggs start to run but on this (also enormous) frying pan there’s a butter! They slide on it and in effect fall off and land on gas mask. Imagine eggs exactly on places for eyes. You see it? Great – now let’s put this gas mask on hamster! :D Animal gets so happy that it takes a big hammer and attack rubbish bags, after making a big hole a bottle of water rolls out hitting orange that hits mango that fall into a big bowl of kiwi juice. There’s not enough space inside so the kiwi juice starts to flow out and fall on salt which we use to colorize the speakers, after that we through them into baking powder. The speakers are angry, they take the gummy dog’s chicken and threw it long-long way, the chicken pass over three pens but not highly enough so it gets colorized and at finish ends sticked to double-sided yellow tape which was used to plaster the wall.

Stupid? Yes! Funny? For me! Like “action” movie? Yeap! And that’s important. The more funny, live and plastic images/scenes you gonna create in your mind the easier you’ll remember it… and later it’s enough to start with the first word and the rest comes! For a short description on how to use this memory trick in learning history check out step 3 from Subconscious Learning article!

How to remember anything forever
Have ever wondered how to remember something for a long-long time? It’s quite easy! According to research done by many scientists and passionates (confirmed by me personally :D ) it’s enough that you repeat something 7 times and you’ll be able to store and easily access this information through all your life. How does this trick work?

  • 1. Learn something new in the morning.
  • 2. Read it again in the evening or before you go to sleep.
  • 3. Take a look at it and review the next day.
  • 4. Repeat again after three days.
  • 5. Repeat again after one week.
  • 6. Come back to it in two weeks.
  • 7. And again in one month.
  • 8. Just one more time after two-three months.

By repeating you strengthen neurological tracks which you’re using to access the information in your brain. It’s like driving on a new road and one that you use everyday to arrive at work.

Learn new foreign words easily
This is first tip about language learning and if you’re interested in this subject I’m please to let you know that there will be much more tips, articles and techniques that will help you to learn a new language faster than you ever imagined! If i make any mistake please correct my as English isn’t my native language, in the same time let’s do this language mind trick on example of English-Italian.

Here are the Italian words which we gonna learn in a new way…

panino – imagine japanese girl, with INO written on her forehead using Pan as hat and eating sandwich roll
> the spelling of panino in Italian is quite similar to panier in English, or at least the first part of it :)

pane – imagine Mr. E using Pan as a hat holding INO’s hand with his left and bread with his right hand,
> spelling of pane is exactly as panel in english, just loose ‘l’,

amici – imagine a girl called Amy (maybe you know one or two?) meditating to grow her Chi and as she does more and more friends> show up around her,
> in spelling the i in ami is the same as you would say one in Chi.

pericoloso – imagine a guy called Perry working on colloquium and mantring Zoooo… over and over again, notice how dangerous it is when see his prof’s face ;)
> how to spell it? Peri = like our guy’s name but with hard ‘i’, color like in a colloquium and so like zo

bici – imagine two girls riding one bike, it definitely looks like there would be something more going in there!
> hard ‘i’ and ‘ci’ as in ‘Chi’.

As you can see this method is very funny and thanks to that it makes remembering new words very easy. It is said that around 5000 words are enough to speak a language in a quite good manner! Using this mind trick you can easily learn 30 words in half an hour. That would sum up to 120 words in two hours so practicing each day you could learn a strong base for new language in under two months – isn’t that amazing?! To remember it even better you can join it with chain method!