A student of Jiva Public School recently asked me a good way to remember dates for his exam. Here’s the answer: Use the Peg System. The Peg System is a memory technique that is often used to remember long numbers and lists of items, however it is equally as valuable for remembering dates (such as the many many dates in India’s looooooooong history). The Peg System works like this:
The numbers 1 -9 (and the number 0) each get a sound associated with it.
1 – D or T (similar sounds)
2 – N
3 – M
4 – R
5 – L
6 – Ch or J or Sh (similar sounds)
7 – K or G (g as in gold) (similar sounds)
8 – F
9 – P or B (similar sounds)
0 – S or Z (similar sounds)
Note:
- Vowels, vowel sounds, and the letters W, H, and Y (WHY) are never used to represent a number. However they can be added later to make words.
Replacing Numbers With Words
In order to remember a number, you are going to turn it into a word (or words). Simply replace the sound with the number. For example, the number 357 would be replaced with the letters MLK. You can then create the word “MiLK” by adding the vowel sound “i”. The year 357BC was when Rhodes fell to Persia. So to remember a date, all you need to do is picture Rhodes falling into Persia’s lap and spilling a glass of milk. Easy!
The Maurya Empire lasted from 322BC to 185BC. You can replace the letter 322 with MNN and 185 with DVL. I know a man named Mr. Menon (if you are Indian, you probably do too!), so I turn MNN into MeNoN. The letters DVL can easily be turned into devil (DeViL). In order to remember the Maurya era, all I have to do is think of Mr. Menon entering into the Maurya Sheraton Hotel. When he leaves, he meets the devil!
It hardly takes 15-20 minutes to remember all the numbers and their sounds. I suggest you make 17 flash cards with the numbers on one side and the consonant sounds on the other side. Flip them till you have them all memorized. (Ensure you can do them in either direction–numbers to letters and letters to numbers.) Then take a few numbers that you would like to remember and practice turning numbers into words. E.g., Try your phone number, house number, license plate number, etc. It also works great with birthdays that are hard to remember.
It will take you a few days or weeks until you are fluent in turning words into numbers (and vice versa). This requires practice. Don’t worry–it’s natural that you’ll be slow at it at the beginning. But I promise you that the more you do it, the easier it gets, and the faster you’ll be able to do it. You’ll soon start to see and feel how you have an unlimited ability to remember all these random bits of information.
I found it very easy to remember Confucious’ birth and death dates. I just had to picture him standing with my friend LaLiT, and playing RuGBy. (Can you figure out the dates?).
What was the year Gandhi was born? I just visualize a deaf sheep (DeaF SHeeP)–you know like the monkey with his hands over his ears, but in this case, it’s a sheet. Can you work it out?
How about the founding of the East India Company? Easy just envison, a dish on a see-saw (DiSH SeeSaw). It helps to exaggerate the visual association (e.g., someone is trying to fling the dish from one side of the see-saw to the other and all the dishes are breaking.
