Mnemonic Image System for Letters and Sounds
I’m getting closer to finishing a mnemonic systems for sounds.
For now, I only need images for sounds that are in languages that I at familiar with or am learning.
I realized that I don’t need images for everything. In Portuguese some words end with -ão which becomes -ões when pluralized. I don’t need a special image for -ões, because I think I will only need to remember that -ão becomes -ões when pluralized.
By expanding my table of letter images, I can create something like a person-action system for sounds. First the expanded table:
(I’m still missing 16 images, but will add them soon.)
| Letter | Word | Image |
|---|---|---|
| A | Alpha | ox |
| B | bravo | Pavarotti |
| C | Charlie | Charlie Brown |
| D | Delta | shark fin |
| E | echo | Canyon wren |
| F | foxtrot | ballroom dancers |
| G | golf | golf club |
| H | Hotel | specific hotel in Greece |
| I | India | Taj Mahal |
| J | Juliet | Juliet |
| K | kilo | kilo of drugs |
| L | Lima | lima beans |
| M | Mike | microphone |
| N | November | cranberries |
| O | Oscar | Oscar the grouch |
| P | Papa | papadum |
| Q | Québec | Canadian flag |
| R | Romeo | Romeo |
| S | Sierra | saw blade |
| T | tango | Bandoneón |
| U | uniform | black and white striped engineers cap |
| V | Victor | Victor Borge |
| W | whiskey | bottle of whiskey |
| X | x-ray | x-ray |
| Y | Yankee | feather in cap |
| Z | Zulu | Zulu |
| aa | 3 | |
| ih | 6 | |
| uh | 9 | |
| ai | 5 | |
| ei | 8 | |
| ya | ||
| yi | ||
| yu | ||
| ye | ||
| yo | ||
| ão | ||
| Δ | δέλτα | |
| Θ | θήτα | wheel |
| Ψ | ψι | trident |
| ח | thread | |
| צ | papyrus plant | |
| yaa | ||
| yih | ||
| yuh | ||
| yai | ||
| yei |
UPDATE: see also this post on Greek letters.
By creating a table using the images for both rows and columns, it’s possible to have an image for every sound needed. It might be ideal to do it like a person-action system. So if the letter/sound a (as in father) is an ox pulling a cart, and the letter/sound b is Pavarotti singing, “ab” would be an ox singing.
Some of the combinations that are created don’t make sense in English, but they might appear in other languages like כמו (“cmo”) in Hebrew or φθάνω (“fthano”) in Greek. For double sounds or double images of any kind, I add a mirror to the image. I have a few images, like the mirror, that I think of as image modifiers that can be added to existing images to change their meaning. If I were learning a tonal language like Chinese or Thai I would experiment with making an image modifier for each tone.
Example: an image of a woman mashing lima beans on a mirror (double “L”) should remind me that someone’s name is Marielle and not Mariel.
The purpose of the system isn’t to memorize every detail, but is intended to jog the memory in difficult sections when memorizing words in any language.
