How to Memorize Anything (23 page)

Now try memorizing the phrase, ‘
Comfortable appointment with friend camera’
. I think you can easily do it. Although this phrase consists of 40 characters and the above number contains only 20, why does it seems easy to memorize the phrase?

The reason is simple. In the second case, letters are used to form words, which are then joined to create some meaningful phrase whereas numbers are abstract and intangible. So, if we can convert these numbers also into words, they can be memorized easily. This is what phonetic system does.

PHONETIC CODES

Phonetic means speech sounds of letters of alphabet. In this method, we give specific codes to the numerals 0 to 9 on the basis of their phonic sound:

Remember:

• The five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and the soft constant sounds wa, ha, ya are not assigned to any number.
  
• With some of the numbers, there is more than one letter given, but the phonetic sound of these letters is the same in each case. The lips, tongue, and teeth are used in the same identical way to sound ‘p’ and ‘b’ or ‘f’ and ‘v’ or ‘s’ and ‘z’ or ‘j’, ‘sh’ and ‘ch’.
  

Following hints can help you to memorize the above codes:

1
Small ‘t’or ‘d’ has one down stroke.

2
Small ‘n’ requires two down strokes.

3
‘m’ requires three down strokes or the shape of m is similar to 3.

4
Four in the majority of languages ends with ‘r’. In Hindi, it’s
Char
, in Latin its
Quarter
, in Russian its
Shutter
, etc.

5
In Roman ‘L’ means 50, here small ‘l’ means 5.

6
The mirror image of 6 is like ‘j’. It can also be represented by the sounds ‘ch’ or ‘sh’ or ‘dg’.

7
Two inverted sevens can form a ‘k’.

8
The shape of the small ‘f’ (in running handwriting) is like 8.

9
‘p’ is the mirror image of 9, while ‘b’ can be turned around to look like 9.

0
Sun is round as a zero and the first alphabet of ‘Sun’ is ‘s’. Similarly, the first letter in ‘Zero’ is ‘z’.

You need to practice it well to emboss this in your brain. Remember, it took you days to master alphabets in your childhood, so spend a little time getting this number phonic system down your memory. With little practice and clues given to remember them, you can master them easily.

Exercise your brain by filling the blanks in the table given below. If you are unable to recall the corresponding number or sound, go back and review the hints given after the phonetic table above to associate the phonic sound with the numbers:

CREATING WORDS FROM NUMBERS

Now, using the above codes, we can translate any number into letters and can form a word which can be converted into an image for visualization.

Example 1:

32

3 = m    2 = n

32 = m + n

Just think of some word that has the sound of ‘m’ and ‘n’ in it.

32
= m + n =
moon

‘MooN’
is one of the possible words, you may think of some other words also like ‘MaN’, ‘MeaN’, MeNu, etc.

TIP:
While converting numbers into words, we may
add any vowel
(a, e, i, o, u) or any other letters in between the fixed codes that does not represent any number in the above phonetic codes table.

When two or more words come to your mind for a particular number, choose the word you can see clearly in your mind.

Example 2:

94

9 = p or b    4 = r

As 9 has two letters according to the phonetic system, we just use any one of them and convert it into some word accordingly.

94 = b + r

94
=
BeaR

Some other possible words: BaR, BoRe, BeeR, BooR

94 = p + r

Some possible words: PeaR, PuRe, PuRi, PooR

Example 3:

994

994 = p + p + r

994 =
PaPeR
or it can be
PiPeR, PePpeR
also.

Using 9 as b, other possible words can be BieBeR.

Using the above method, you can convert any number into words or images.

HOW DOES PHONETIC SYSTEM HELP TO AVOID CONFUSION?
Downloaded from GAPPAA.ORG - No.1 Desi Ebook Site, It's FREE.

MEMORIZING AN ADDRESS

Suppose your friend invites you to his new residence. His house number is 124.

You might get confused whether it is 124 or 142. Now register this in your mind with the help of phonetic method.

1 2 4=d n r

You can form a word ‘
d
o
n
o
r
’ from the letters ‘d n r’

Visualization:

Imagine that your friend is a great donor and when you reach his house, he is donating all his belongings to his neighbours.

You can forget 124, but cannot forget your friend as a donor. Whenever word ‘donor’ will be converted into numbers, it will always be converted to 124; it can never give 142 or any other number.

MEMORIZING A LOCK CODE

Let’s say you want to set a code to lock your suitcase and the code you set is 847.

It may be confusing for you to remember later whether it is 847 or 874 or 487. You can’t afford to forget this; otherwise you won’t be able to unlock your suitcase.

To remember this, convert 847 into an image by phonetic method.

8 4 7 = f r k

On seeing the letters frk, the word ‘frock’ comes immediately into mind.

Now you can visualize that there is a beautiful frock in your suitcase.

Had the lock code been 874, then corresponding ‘fkr’ can be thought as the word ‘fakir’

You can get confused between numbers 847 and 874, but cannot confused between frock or fakir.

Thus phonetic peg system is very effective in memorizing numerical information correctly.

Here is a chart of some possible codes from 00 to 99 numbers, using phonetic pegs:

These are the codes given for your reference; you can also make your own codes according to your choice following the rules given above for making the words from numbers.

S
OUND IS
M
ORE
I
MPORTANT
T
HAN THE
S
PELLING

In the phonetic peg system, pay attention only to the sound or pronunciation of word and not to the spelling.

1. In case of Cone, Coal etc., the sound of
   C
   is like
   K
   , so we shall consider it like K, i.e.
   coal
   will be converted to
   75
   (koal).
   
2. ‘Doll’
   will not be converted into 155 but into
   ‘15’
   as we hear only one ‘L’, so we shall consider only one ‘L’ instead of two.
   
3. In
   ‘Knife’
   , we shall not consider ‘k’ since it is silent. Similarly, in
   ‘Fork’
   we shall not consider ‘r’ as it is silent. So, ‘fork’ will be ‘
   87’
   , and not 847.
   
4. The word ‘
   accent’
   willbe pronounced as
   ‘aksent’
   . So, the letters
   k, s, n, t
   would correspond to number
   7021
   and not to 7721.
   
5. ‘Sage’
   will be converted to
   06
   not to 07 as in pronunciation of sage, g has a sound of ‘j’, which represents 6. But in words like kangaroo, g has a soft sound of ‘ga’ which represents ‘7’ in phonetic language.
   

You might be thinking that it is very difficult to convert the numbers into such codes, but from our experience of teaching thousands of students in our workshops, we can assure you that once you are comfortable with the sounds of the numbers, the rest can be learnt in a matter of 2 days. To set in the sounds of the numbers in your memory, you have to start practicing from this very moment onwards.

Initially, you will find easier to transpose a word to a number as compared to transposing a number to a word since a word will be converted into a particular number only. But when a number is converted into a word, there are possibilities of forming more than one word, which can be a bit confusing in the beginning. The best way to overcome this is to master the words-to-numbers conversion first. Once you are comfortable with that, the number to word transposition will also become easy.

You will be able to use this system in your daily life more efficiently only if all these codes are on your figure tips.

MAKE IT A ROUTINE

Many people carry their daily newspaper along with them to office and as soon as they get time, they try to solve the crossword puzzle. You too can make it a habit of playing this mental game of transposing the words to numbers and numbers into words.