I’ve been doing quite a lot of memory tips using twitter recently, I’m quite amazed how easy it is to condense a tip down to 140 characters.
With this in mind I thought it would be useful to write a quick blog on remembering countries and capitals using memory techniques – it really is dead simple and like remembering any information in this way it stays with you for a long period of time.
How it works
Remembering a country and it’s capital is pretty straight forward – like most things we need to incorporate our imagination and association. So to memorise:
Botswana – Gaborone
You could imagine a BOAT SWAYIN with GABBY ROWIN
You imagine the images and repeat the short association you’ve created ALOUD (very important) – do this 5 times, then imagine the images and repeat the REAL information ALOUD ie. say Botswana Gaborone, 5 times.
That’s it!
Try these:
- Belarus, Minsk – Imagine a BELL with RUST wearing a MINK
- Ghana, Accra – Imagine a GUN doing ACCRO!
- Cape Verde, Praia – Imagine a CAPE being worn by lasagne VERDE, which is PRAYIng
- Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou: Imagine a BARKIN’ FACE on a WAGGY DOGGY
- Benin – Porto-Novo: Lots of BEANS IN a bottle of PORT driving a NOVA
- Senegal, Dakar: Imagine a SEAGULL flying into a DUCK CAR
- Eritrea, Asmara: Imagine A TREE with ASTHMA
- Madagascar, Antananarivo: Imagine a MAD GAS CAR with lots of ANTENNA having a RAVE
- Uzbekistan, Tashkent: Imagine OZ, and a BEAK, with a STAIN. A TASH worn by Clark KENT grabs the beak
- Morocco, Rabat: Imagine MY ROCK being eaten by a 10 foot RABBIT
Try it yourself, use this page:
If you get stuck just give me a shout.
Mark
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Mark!
)
It’s a very nice blog. I was attracted by Mad-gas-car. I’m very interested on memorising methods but I’m still looking for my own method because it is not so easy when you are born in Madagascar, so with your own language, and have studied in french and are living in Italy
Ciao!
Carole
Cheers Carole!
I think ultimately everyone should find their own method, however the principles are always going to remain the same – you’ll use Imagination and Assocation ie. convert the ‘key’ info into images and associate them in your mind applying certain rules to make them memorable. Obviously with 3 different languages your probably not going to have the same images as anyone else but as long as ‘you’ understand them that’s the main thing
By the way if you’ve got any questions feel free to ask them at Memory School
Mark
Thank You for your advice, Mark!
I agree with you about the principles… I wish I’ll manage to take advantage of my case
See you on your main site!
Carole
I published an article about my project to memorise countries and capitals.
I liked your key images for associations — it is interesting to see different images to what I created for the same information!
http://memoryskills.blogspot.com/2009/10/memorising-countries-and-capitals-of.html
Charles