I have been trying to put all the characters from the Spoon Fed Chinese Anki deck into a Memrise course. So I can learn each word with a mem.
Would anyone be interested in collaborating?
Also I’ve come up with a memory palace plus peg system to turn pinyin into funny memorable stories. For instance, the word for “you” I imagine I’m at my third memory palace and I bump Nicole kidman’s (my person for the letter N) KNEE. She bursts into tears crying YOU hurt my KNEE.
It takes a few minutes to think up how to associate the sound with the person and the English word. If I had more help we could cover more ground faster.
I have people thought up for each letter. Like Tina fay for the letter T. Beyoncé for B. eLvis for L. Jay leno for J. R-kelly for R. Salma Hayek for words starting with the SH. and so on and so forth.
I try to find famous people that are easy to Google for images and videos of. Also I find them easier to remember if the person’s name is phonetically similar rather than simply starting with the same letter. These are the people I have associated with letters so far:
L - eLvis
H - Halle berry
Z - catherine Zeta-jones
F - Fabio
Y - wYclef jean
SH - Salma Hayek
X - malcom X
S - Samuel jackson
ZH - Zane Holtz
CH - CHristina Hendrix
J - Jay leno
Q - Q (from impractical jokers)
C - Cee lo green
R - R kelly
B - Beyonce
P - Pink
D - Dita von teese
T - Tina fay
G - Gene simmons
K - Katy perry
N - Nicole kidman
W - george W bush
A - Adriana lima
U - yUl brynner
E - Eva mendes
O - Olivia wilde
I - will I am
I am attempting to create a default mem for each item so hopefully the system catches on and everyone uses the same system if the course becomes more popular. Using this system with memrise has helped me to break down the sentences from Spoon Fed Chinese into smaller more easily digestible pieces.
As an example this is the default mem for zuo4
at your 4th memory palace Zeta Jones dressed as a zookeeper says you have a lot TO DO when you’re a ZOOlogist!
I start with the memory palace (also called a loci) so I can start to visualize the backdrop of the story. My fourth memory palace is the Stuttgart City Library as it is very distinct and it’s easy to associate with 4th tones as it is a giant cube.
Then I just tell a story that somehow ties the definition to the sound of the Chinese character using at least the first letter’s associated person.