Josh's Memory Systems
I (Josh) am writing this page so when I describe my memory systems, I can just point people at this page instead of explaining it multiple times.
Most of what is found in my mnemonic systems comes from ideas written about by Dominic O’Brien and Ben Pridmore. I’ve also borrowed a lot of ideas from these books and the memory forum.
Number Memorization Systems
I have three groups of number images: 1-digit numbers, 2-digit numbers, and 3-digit numbers. All 1,110 images have a one-syllable pronunciation as explained in the mnemonic systems as artificial languages post.
- 0-9 — these are simple vowel sounds or dipthongs
- 00-99 — these are consonant-vowel syllables
- 000-999 — these are consonant-vowel-consonant syllables
1-digit Number System
Numbers from 0-9 are number shapes. They are pronounced as vowels.
| Digit | Pronounciation |
|---|---|
| 0 | O as in boat |
| 1 | I as in beet |
| 2 | U as in two |
| 3 | AA as in cat |
| 4 | A as in father |
| 5 | AI as in five |
| 6 | IH as in six |
| 7 | E as in seven |
| 8 | EI as in eight |
| 9 | UH as in puppy |
Note that I write my image pronunciations in all-caps, because they are not the same as English letters. Unlike English letters, they represent exact sounds. The symbol “AI” always represents the sound in the word “five”, never the sound in “rain”, even though “rain” contains the English letters “ai”.
2-digit Number System
My 2-digit system is based on ideas from the Ben System. In the Ben System, every 3-digit number gets converted into a syllabled. The first digit is a consonant, the second digit is a vowel, and the third digit is a consonant.
I do something similar for 2-digit numbers, but use a consonant-vowel assignment and with different sounds for each digit.
Every mnemonic image has a one-syllable pronounciation. Examples:
- 00 = SO
- 01 = SI
- 02 = SU
- 03 = SAA
- Etc.
The images that I create from the sounds are simple to visualize:
- 00 — “SO” — sewing needle & thread
- 27 — “NE” — net
- 32 — “MU” — moose
- 54 — “LA” — lava
Here’s a table that shows which consonants and vowels are assigned to each digit:
| Digit | Consonants | Vowels |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | s/z | O as in boat |
| 1 | t (not d) | I as in bee |
| 2 | n | U as in two |
| 3 | m | AA as in cat |
| 4 | r | A as in father |
| 5 | L | Ai as in five |
| 6 | b | IH as in six |
| 7 | k | E as in seven |
| 8 | f/v | EI as in eight |
| 9 | P (not b) | UH as in lullaby |
There’s a complete list of sample images for my 2-digit system in the 2-digit consonant-vowel number system forum thread.
3-digit Numbers
For 3-digit numbers, it’s a consonant-vowel-consonant Ben System with the sounds rearranged.
There’s a PDF document with the assignments. I don’t use all of the things in that document, but it’s the original design of how it can be applied to multiple memory systems.
Binary Numbers
I was working on a 10-digit Ben System for binary numbers, but ended up converting the binary numbers to decimal numbers:
- 000 = 0
- 001 = 1
- 010 = 2
- 011 = 3
- 100 = 4
- 101 = 5
- 110 = 6
- 111 = 7
Example: 110-101 becomes 65 which is an image of a pot of boiling water.
Card Images
I don’t memorize cards at the moment, because a hand injury prevents me from shuffling and fanning through decks.
I temporarily put aside my attempts to create a 2-card system based on the Ben System, since it’s too many images for something that I won’t use that often. I do have a 1-card, 1-image system that has these pronunciations. The pronunciations match those of my 2-digit decimal numbers. Suits are converted like this:
- ♠ = 0
- ♥ = 4
- ♦ = 1
- ♣ = 7
Examples:
- 5 of clubs = 57
- 9 of diamonds = 91
- 10 of spades = 00
- Ace of hearts = 14
There are 12 additional images for the face cards.
Sounds and Letters
For sounds, I use the one-syllable images from my number systems. I also have images for the English alphabet.
Modified Ben System
I’m working on a modified Ben System. Two of the reasons that I really like the Ben System is that it encodes 10 binary digits per image which makes it ideal for 30-digit competition rows, and also that it uses one syllable for each image.
The consonants are reassigned like this:
- 0 = s/z
- 1 = t (not d)
- 2 = n
- 3 = m
- 4 = r (also can be ‘th’ at the end of a word because ‘r’ often changes the sound of the preceding vowel, making things confusing)
- 5 = L
- 6 = b — they look similar
- 7 = k
- 8 = v/f
- 9 = P — they look similar
The vowels are reassigned like this:
- 0 = O because they look similar
- 1 = I because they look similar
- 2 = U as in “two” because they have the same vowel sound
- 3 = AA as in “cat”. 3 looks like a butterfly and cat chases butterfly.
- 4 = A as in “father” because they look similar
- 5 = AI as in “five” because they have the same vowel sound
- 6 = IH as in “six” because they have the same vowel sound
- 7 = E as in “seven” because they have the same vowel sound
- 8 = EI as in “eight” because they have the same vowel sound
- 9 = UH as in “lullaby” because 9 is balloon on a string and babies like balloons
The vowels and diphthongs have the same basic sounds as in Spanish (A, E, I, O, U, EI, AI). The other vowels are written with two letters to distinguish them (IH, UH, AA).
- Phonetic key: https://artofmemory.com/files/pdf/memory-system-key.pdf
- Worksheet: https://artofmemory.com/3.1415926/memory_system.php (copy/paste into a word processor and add your images)
- Download a spreadsheet
- Thoughts on Phonetic Systems and Memory Techniques as an Artificial Language
