Numbers Become Pictures
A child's rhyme, a trick with knuckles, and two simple systems that turn the digits 0 to 9 into things you can see.
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Thirty days hath September
It is a wet afternoon and a child is trying to remember how many days there are in each month. Her grandmother does not give her a table. She says a rhyme that her own grandmother said, and that has been said in English for hundreds of years:
Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, except for February alone.
The child says it three times, and by the end of the afternoon she has twelve numbers in her head that she will keep for the rest of her life.
Then the grandmother shows her another trick. She makes a fist and says: 'Count the knuckles and the dips between them.' Every knuckle is a long month with thirty-one days; every dip is a short month. January is the first knuckle, February the first dip, March the next knuckle. When she gets to the last knuckle, July, she jumps back to the first one for August, and the pattern carries on.
The child can now check any month in a few seconds, anywhere, with no rhyme and no paper. The numbers have been put in a place you can see and touch.
A rhyme and a hand can hold twelve numbers. But what about a phone number, a PIN, a year, a passport number, a bank code? Numbers like these are hard for a simple reason: a number is not a picture. The digits 7, 3, 9 do not look like anything and mean nothing. The mind has nothing to hold on to, and it lets go.
The answer is the oldest trick in this course: give them pictures. In this lesson you will meet two simple systems for doing it. One gives each digit a picture by its shape; the other gives each digit a picture by a rhyme. In the next lesson you will learn a stronger system, but these two are quick to learn and are a good start.
Words worth knowing
Say what you think each one means, then open it.
The rhyme 'Thirty days hath September' has been printed in English since at least the sixteenth century.
Two ways to picture a digit
Learn ten pictures once, and every number you meet can be told as a scene. Choose the system that comes easier to you, or learn both.
System 1: the shape system
Each digit gets the picture it looks like.
| Digit | Picture | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | ring | round like a zero |
| 1 | candle | a straight stick |
| 2 | swan | a curved neck |
| 3 | heart | two bumps on their side |
| 4 | sailboat | a sail and a hull |
| 5 | hook | the top and curve of a hook |
| 6 | cherry | round at the bottom with a stalk |
| 7 | cliff | a top and a steep drop |
| 8 | snowman | two balls, one on top of the other |
| 9 | balloon | a round head on a string |
System 2: the rhyme system
Each digit gets the picture whose name rhymes with it.
| Digit | Picture | Rhyme |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | hero | zero → hero |
| 1 | bun | one → bun |
| 2 | shoe | two → shoe |
| 3 | tree | three → tree |
| 4 | door | four → door |
| 5 | hive | five → hive |
| 6 | sticks | six → sticks |
| 7 | heaven | seven → heaven |
| 8 | gate | eight → gate |
| 9 | vine | nine → vine |
- Split the number into pairs. 1066 → 10 and 66. Two pictures per pair is plenty for one scene.
- Look up the picture for each digit. Say them in order.
- Put the pictures in one scene. They must act on each other. Make it vivid (lesson 2).
- Place the scene. On a body peg, in a palace place, or at the end of a chain.
Which one should I use?
| Shape | Rhyme | |
|---|---|---|
| Learning | Very quick: you can see each picture. | Quick: the words are ones you already know. |
| Speed | You must picture it. | The word comes at once. |
| Weakness | A few shapes are weak (3, 5). | Rhymes pile up: a long number gives a long list of words. |
| Best for | Visual people, short numbers. | People who think in words and sounds. |
learned once,
serve every number.
Both systems have the same limit: one picture per digit. A twelve-digit number needs twelve pictures. For long numbers you will want something that packs more in, and that is the Major System, next.
Now you build
Have a go before you open any answer. A rough attempt teaches you more than a perfect model you only read.
Shape or rhyme?
Rhyme
Encode 25 (shape)
Encode 67 and 84 (shape)
Encode 39 and 51 (rhyme)
A four-digit number
Tell the scenes
Drill
Flash cards
Say the answer first, then tap the card.
Quick quiz
The memory challenge
Memory challenge: five famous years
Encode these five years, in this order, using whichever system you prefer: 1066 (Battle of Hastings), 1215 (Magna Carta), 1492 (Columbus sails), 1776 (US independence), 1989 (Berlin Wall falls). Put each year in one scene.
Split each year into pairs and make a scene. One scene per year, in order.
The list has gone. Type what you remember, one item per line.
Look back
These reach back to earlier rooms. Answer in your head or out loud, then check.
What I can do now
A thought to keep
Think of a number you need to remember this week (a code, a date, a phone number). Which system would you use for it, and what scene would you make?