Tuesday, August 18, 2009

My Mnemonic Device




Everyone has a mnemonic device to remember the spelling of words or the way that unrelated letters stack up. For example, I'll never forget how to spell Adidas sneakers because of the grade-school acronym: All Day I Dream About Sports (or Sex for those who were a bit more advanced). Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge has been used by amateur musicians to remember the ascending line of the G clef for years.

I have recently come up with my own mnemonic device that will launch me into anonymous fame. Check it out and see if you can figure out what I'm trying to remember!

All
Boys
Can
Do
Everything
Fairly
Good.
However
It's
Just
Knowing
Like-
Minded
Naval
Officers
Por (Spanish for 'for')
Quality
Restaurants.
Same
Thing,
Using
Visuals
Without
X-raying
Your
Zebra

See how those three sentences simply roll off the tongue? And how about the sneaking of a foreign word in there? That's advanced mnemonics, my friends—you learn two languages at once!

Spread this one around and don't forget to forget who told you about it.

1 comment:

Fran said...

You may be interested to know of the following related resource:

http://www.memorista.com is a free website devoted to making it easier to learn basic foreign language vocabulary using mnemonics.

About a hundred items are available for each of five major languages, each one with a mnemonic already provided (most actually have more than one so you can choose what suits you best), or you can create your own mnemonics.

A learning/self-testing algorithm uses spaced repetition to prioritize your learning effort.

All the best

Francis - http://www.memorista.com