Memory Palace

Memory palaces are also known as the method of Loci and the Roman room method and are one of the oldest and simplest methods of improving your memory.

What is a Memory Palace ?

Memory palaces originate as a learning method from the time of the ancient Greeks.  The poet Simonides, according to the story, left a banquet early after an argument about money, and the building where he has been celebrating  then burnt to the ground leaving the victims inside unrecognizable. Simonides was able to identify the bodies by remembering where they had been sitting by mentally walking through the banqueting hall. Due to  mentally walking through a familiar location Simonides invented the idea of the memory palace.

A memory palace is a location or series of locations that you know well. You mentally walk through the palace and place the item (or word) you are trying to learn or remember in each location. The location must be a place you know well, for example it could be your house or a city that you know well, depending on what it is you are trying to learn.

When you want to recall the items you retrace your steps mentally picking the items up as you go. For language learning as you are learning a word you need to visualize it in the location that you have chosen. The act of visualization  helps in later recall.

Memory palaces are also useful for language learning because they are a convenient way to learn the gender of words. Many languages have two (masculine and feminine), and if you have trouble remembering the gender of words  and you could divide your  memory palace into two parts. In one part you place all the masculine words and in another you place all the feminine.