Last night is when I decided to try this. I'm not looking at it as a way to put the words into my known words list; I don't believe memory palaces can do that. It's more like a fancy anki deck or word list in your head.

I don't normally like to learn from word lists as it doesn't give you context for the words. I see it as really bad. This is different though if I can quickly learn a bunch of vocabulary. I decided to download a deck on anki that had words from pokemon black/white in it. I'm ignoring the kanji and just putting the word. Anki defaulted to 20 new words. I thought it'd be too much at first, but after doing 5, I thought it wasn't so hard to do the entire 20. By my 10th entry, my brain was tired though and I was having moments of losing complete focus and almost forgetting what I was doing. It was at night though, so it could have just been that. It felt like a lot of time passed, but looking at the clock I guessed it had only been 10-20 minutes. I didn't pay much notice to the clock before I started so I wasn't sure. But looking at anki stats, it said I was reviewing for just under 10 minutes. So 10 words, 10 minutes. That seems fast to me. It's faster than I would have learned the words otherwise.

I also should note, I'm using my main memory palace right now that I've already had and used multiple times. I'd guess it holds ~40 items in its current form. I have a lot more space in it to put more loki though, so that could easily become 60 or more. I have 2 other half developed palaces that hold about 20 each. I'm not sure if to do this I'll just expand my memory palaces and make more, or if I'll fill up what I can, and then clear and put new words there. I'm leaning towards the first one right now, but if I'm able to deeply learn the words just from having them in my palace for a few days, I might do the latter.

I probably won't always put the words and mnemonic since it's a lot to type out, and I don't think it's that useful to anyone, but here's this entry's

• zou - statue -- this one was simple for me. Zou kind of reminds me of a stone statue for some reason, so I just imagined a stone statue sitting in the chair of the living room, and a deep voice coming from it "ZOU"
• kane - bell -- a big golden bell sitting on the coffee table. Hitting it starts with a KAH- and then the bell rings out a nice neeeee~ It works.
• osusume - recommendation -- "Oh, dr seuss(cat in the hat visual), meh" The meaning sticks because I think of the meaning every time I walk through and review.
• ijou - strangeness -- this one is more personal, my sister is referred to in short hand as jo. Sister is strange. It works for me.
• iseki - historic ruins -- i sound is emphasized each pass through, se KEY, I see stone ruins in the shape of a key, on the farthest couch cushion. (This is all going through my house in order, I haven't been mentioning location in most of the previous ones but the last 2 were on the 2 other couch cushions)
• isshu - species -- I see a big stack of tissue boxes of different brands. t-ISSHU geddit? Brands = species.
• issai - everything -- It's in my fireplace, a mini universe/blackhole making a sucking "issssssaii" sound
• ichiryuu - first class; top notch -- in the corner, is a wodden thing with a bucket on a string and a crank. I think it was "ryuu" = "reel" or something like that.
• inadzuma - lightning -- this one was hard. At one point I made sure to emphasize the ina part every pass through which helped. Then I see a girl nodding and getting electrocuted
• uchuu - space as in the universe -- chuunibyou anime in a galaxy universe worm hole thing in the tv center in the living room.
• eiyou - nutrition -- So this one is easy because it's eccentric. A black male swinging around a chicken leg "AYYYyyyyyy OHHHHHHHHH" Often my memory palaces have things like gore or tied up lolis in order to be more memorable. This is the same case here, if you're thinking I'm racist or something like that.
  

Yay, I managed to get 20 words in before it turned to midnight! I could have done a lot more, but I was lazy... I'm typing this at 11:59, just a few minutes ago I finished the 20th new word today. I had done 10 new ones earlier and put off learning any more. Also there's actually 11 that I did in the first session. I'm at a total of 31 words now. The original quote of a minute per word is probably wrong. I'm not sure if anki stops timing when the screen goes off or what. I'll time it with an actual timer tomorrow and give exact time data!

I don't know if this is faster than rote memorization. Rote memorization seems difficult. This is easy because you have a clear goal. Make a mnemonic and put it in your memory palace and then remember it. How do I memorize something rote? Repeat it over and over? I don't think I'd remember it later if I did that. With this at least, after walking through ~3 times, it's there later. It's there tomorrow, and if you've had it for a few days and walked through at least once a day, it'll probably be there next week.

Oh yeah. This time I used 10 words from that pokemon deck, and 10 words from a 2ho song. http://youtu.be/xIP6F4MzOco



The first 11 are from entry 1 obviously. The other 20 I learned today. Not really going to post every mnemonic unless someone requests, but here's some memorable ones...

eiyuu - hero -- I remembered because yuusha is the japanese word for hero. It's pretty similar. It helps to use mnemonics generated from the language you're learning, see.

kaisetsu, kaihou, and kaifuku all have cows for the primary mnemonic, and then are adjusted for their meaning. (explanation -- cow strapped to a rocket SET to blast off, EXPLAINING why I'm seeing this absurd image; unleashing/releashing (it's a suru verb, meaning kaihousuru is 'to release') -- a cow hoe in bondage; recovery -- "fu-ku- fu-ku-" a sick cow coughing/sneezing)

saibai - cultivation -- Another suru verb. I like this one because it rhymes. The location happens to be in the kitchen sink and the mnemonic is a plant sighing and waving bye. It's cute!


Ok that's enough to just randomly share. Ask if you want to know what a particular mnemonic is.


I don't know the exact amount of time I spent. Yesterday's words were pretty solid, I only walked through there like once, and had no problem remembering them all. It seems to be easier if I just add one randomly rather than sit down and do a list of 10. I would guess I spent either 1 or 2 hours of total time split up throughout the day. I'll be sure to time it tomorrow. Then at some point I'll try rote memorization of the same amount of words with the same amount of time, to test how this compares to that. I think I'd be rambling if I wrote any more...

Well no one posted so I'm going to have to end up editing this post to update.

I learned 10 words today. Was busy doing my online job, and then busy with bitcoin and dogecoin. I made a small profit on doge last night. I'm still kicking myself on missing out on a $240 profit from before though...

Anyway, reviewing the 31 words for the first time yesterday, I timed it to 3:54 with no forgotten words. That came out to like 7-8 seconds per word on average. The beginning ones were faster than the later ones though, and didn't need much of a review but I did it anyway. I could probably skip reviewing it today. This is good because if I had to review a 1000 or more list every day, it'd take me over an hour if the average was 7-8 seconds...



As you can see for the new words this time I had the definitions typed out. I used a super mario snes wiki learn japanese page. It had the script for the game there, so I used rikaichan to put the words in a list before I remembered them. I figured it'd be easier to have the list already there than to have to find my spot on the page after adding each one. The time it took to add them after I made that list, was 13:55. I was in a skype call at the time though, and paused anytime I was interrupted and was listening rather than expanding the memory palace. I'm inclined to think that made it take longer than it could have. I did 10 words. The other new word today I added before this. Comes out to like a minute 24 seconds per word. The first 5 though went by a lot faster than the last 5 did. I think I might decrease my word list size to 5 and do it 2 times a day at least so I can at least keep an average of 10 words a day. If I weren't lazy I'd ideally get 20 or more a day. Also, my memory palace ran out right at 40, exactly what I thought it was. I had more room to expand inside the kitchen for the last words though. My next words will be in new memory palace territory now though. It'll be in the same palace, but it'll be in locations I haven't used as a memory palace yet.

That's all for today!