Entry 2:
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
zou
kane
osusume
ijou
iseki
isshu
issai
ichiryuu
inadzuma
uchuu
eiyou
eiyuu
onshitsu
kanousei
toku
kaisetsu
kaihou
kaifuku
tashikameru
kassouro
kansei
saibai
mayoigo
sakeru
sadame
toozakaru
kigai
sakadzuki
hanamuke
nagare
haruka
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...
Originally Posted by
ImmortalPig
I'm interested in this, please continue to post updates!
How much maintenance do you have to do? Do you have to visit your palace periodically to keep it maintained? Do you have to review each item?
"Often my memory palaces have things like gore or tied up lolis in order to be more memorable."
Nice.
Glad you're interested :)!
Each time I add a word, I walk through from the beginning. Not really the beginning beginning, I ended up not walking through yesterday's words most of the time. But the other words added today needed the repetition. A single repetition of yesterday's words today probably would have kept it maintained enough to be OK. Tomorrow I'll try to only go through today's words once, and tell you how it goes.
It's taking me a lot of focus right now to go through each loci. Some words it takes me ~20 seconds to recall the mnemonic and meaning. Some words I breeze through.
In any case, 20 words in a day is more than I've ever done in a day, so I'm quite happy. It's not working knowledge, and I haven't seen example sentences to know the exact usage, but that's 20 words and short definitions that are in my head in a minimal amount of time. If I see a word in my palace irl, I'm certain I'll remember it's a word in my head I can go look up the definition to.
Please continue to post comments/questions or to start a discussion in here, or whatever. It's fun!
edit: Just a fun somewhat unrelated thing to share; I used memory palaces sometimes in school. I used it most for psychology. There was a lot of times we had tests and I didn't study the terms. In the few minutes we had before the test, I'd be able to go through and put them all in my memory palace. A few times I had no more room to put them and was rushing, so I did a makeshift memory palace in the room, but without the walking through, just attaching things to random spots trying to hurry. It worked ok. At the very least I was much better off than the other hopeless souls who didn't study. Actually I started looking forward to tests as a test of my use of memory palaces.
Entry 3:
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...
toku
kaisetsu
kaihou
kaifuku
tashikameru
kassouro
kansei
saibai
mayoigo
sakeru
sadame
toozakaru
kigai
sakadzuki
hanamuke
nagare
haruka -- 3:54 complete first review 1/23/14
ochiru 1/23
kondo now this time
butai stage scene setting
kyouryuu dinosaur
naniyara for some reason
ayashii suspicious
shima island
matamoya again (and again); once again
sugatawokesu to disappear
kitto surely
shiwaza deed; doing
tsukamaru to be caught
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!
Entry 4: 1/24/14
Just a quick upate, first review today was 2:30 for words up til hanamuke(30 words) and adding onto that it was at total of 5:05 for the entire list. 2:30 is faster than yesterday's 3:54 for the same words. So it did get significantly faster. and then the newest 10 words took as long as the previous 30. I'll entry more later.
Also I ran into osusume in the wild yesterday. Very motivating to run into words you're learning.
So I ended up only learning 7 words. Giving a total of 50 Still averaging over 10 words a day with this, so I"m not too disappointed.
Entry 5: 1/25/14
Didn't learn any words today. Still have a 10 word per day average though due to extra words other days. Taking longer and longer to review the entire palace. I *should* skip the first sections now because I go through in seconds, but it feels like I'd miss out on something if I did, so I have an urge not to. Memory palace review would probably work well on an anki like timer. I'd guess I fit at least 100 locis in my memory palace by time I use up all of the house. A high guess would be 150-200. Having a memory palace that long will be useful for when this is done with and I'm remembering other things. The way my memory palace got to 40 to begin with was playing simon and putting the colors in there. I got up to close to 40.
Entry 6: 1/26/14
Going to try to learn at least 10 words today preferably a little bit more so I can slack off other days lol. update: only got 5 done :(
Last edited by isaac; Jan 27, 2014 at 11:27 PM.