Silicon Valley, security of the internet, aerospace, holter, capital inflation, ambitious...
Oh, how am I going to remember all this vocabulary?
Excuse me, guys, I have to get a book.
A long time ago-hey, E, we're going to get to you in a second-I had a trouble remembering
vocabulary for something I was studying, and it was so difficult, and I thought: "I know,
my favourite hero is, like, Sherlock Holmes, and he has what's called a memory palace,
and I think that's why E did this.
Today we're going to work on a memory palace.
For you it might be more, like, a memory house or a memory room, but as your memory gets
better and better, we can make it from a room to a house to a palace.
A palace is a house where a king lives or a queen lives, and is huge with many, many
rooms and you can do many, many things.
And after I show you this method, you will figure out that you might want to start with
just a room, but from there you can go from a room to a house to a workspace, like your
business place or workplace, to a palace because as long as you can remember the room, you
And today we're going to have some fun because I'm going to do...
Well, we're going to go step by step and do this together.
I'm going to ask you to do a couple of things, you'll do them and you're going to find that
your memory has increased incredibly.
And we can do it for many, many things.
Okay, you just need to right now sit down.
I'm going to ask you to focus in a second or two, and then you just need to laugh.
So if something's funny, laugh, have fun with it, and then we're going to see how much vocabulary
So the first thing I'm going to do is give you eight words.
All right, Mr. E. Number seven: "rat".
Cool.
Now, what I want you to do is tell me all eight of those words.
Go.
If so, good for you, you have a remarkable memory.
You don't need me, turn off the video, go somewhere else.
No, you better stay, because still can help you with more words than this.
I'm just showing you eight because we have a limited time.
Now, some people if they've done that exercise before, they'll go: "Oh, I recognize this",
So, if you didn't do well, maybe you got four words or five words, but they weren't in order,
Let me give you the words again, but this time I'm going to ask you to join me and do
something, and I bet you can know all the words and you can even tell me the words out
Okay?
And here's the trick: You have to really put the idea in your head when I give it to you.
Okay?
You can't just go: "Okay, okay."
Okay?
And when I say laugh, I mean if it's funny make it crazy as heck, make it crazy, crazy,
I want you to imagine you're coming to a door.
Okay?
You come to a door, you open the door, and just before you open the door you see a piece
of bacon, and the bacon's running from the bottom of the door, going: "Oh my god!
It's running out the door as fast as it can.
It goes in fast motion, it runs out the door, and you're like: "Whoa!
Look at that bacon run out the door.
Did you see the bacon run out the door?
Just running, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
Two little bacon legs running.
Shake your head, you open the door.
As soon as you open the door, in front of you, you see some stairs, and on the stairs
you see this ball and it bounces three times, boom, and it's getting bigger and bigger.
You turn around because you've got stuff all over you, so you look to your left and you
You want to look at yourself in the mirror, but then what do you see?
You see a banana and the banana's singing.
"It's not unusual to be loved by everyone.
It's a banana singing in the mirror, and you're like: "What the hell is that?
Why is a banana singing in the mirror?
So you think: "I have to sit down now."
You go to sit down and you see this big fish, and this fish has a remote control in its
hand.
And you look, and the fish is watching Fishing TV: How to Catch a Fish, Latest Fishing Methods.
You're like: "There's a fish watching TV, and it's watching a fishing program.
You put your hand down on the table, unbelievable, and you look and there's a monkey, and it's
got a big gun and it picks the big gun and it points it at the fish's head and he starts
to giggle, and you're like: "Oh, crap.
There's a monkey with a gun, going to shoot the fish.
Oh.
So, you look up, you see a bright light, and then you see Mr. E. You remember Mr. E?
But this time he's taking pee-pee.
He's going pee: "Doo-doo", and he's like: "Hey, how ya doin'?
Mr. E is peeing on top of the lamp.
He's a bad, bad, bad worm, I tell you.
Anyway, after that, you shake your head, you look out the window and there's a big rat
"Hey.
Just doing a little bit of cleaning.
So there's a rat brushing its teeth outside the window.
I'm going into the kitchen, I open my refrigerator door and what do I see?
The dog's washing itself, going: "Hey.
Here."
All right, so let's go through that story again, shall we?
This time, let me ask you a question: When you come to the door, what do you see?
And then when you opened the door, you went to the stairs and what came at you?
And you got stuff all over you, so what did you do?
You turned to your left and you saw what?
You saw a mirror, and what was in the mirror that was so strange?
A singing banana, you're right.
And that just kind of knocked you out, so what did you do after that?
I saw a singing banana", and then you went to sit down, where?
But you couldn't because of the...?
Yeah, you couldn't go to the chair because the fish was watching TV.
Okay, so the fish is watching TV.
And then when you looked at the...
That monkey with the gun was just crazy on the table.
And what was Mr. E doing during all of this?
See?
He was peeing on top of the lamp.
Yeah, he was on a lamp peeing.
And then after you saw him doing that, you looked out the...
The window to see the rat brushing his teeth.
But that was just it, you had enough so you want...
That's right, you went to the refrigerator and got a beer.
You've got "dog", you got "rat", you got "Mr. E", "monkey", "fish", "banana", "ball", and
"bacon".
Actually, no, you also got: "door", "stairs", "mirror", "TV", "lamp", "refrigerator", "mirror",
"window".
You memorized 16 words in less than five minutes.
Told you I'd teach eight, but I lied.
We learned how to put words together, so not only can you learn one set of words, you can
We put these things in your house.
Now, why did I do: "stairs", "mirror", "bath", or "fridge"?
Easy.
These are things in almost everyone's house, and the one place you know best in the entire
world is your house or your room.
Or your office, or wherever you are.
If you look around your room, you could close your eyes...
You know, close your eyes now and you can imagine everything in your room where it sits.
So, what we want to do, and this is how this technique works, is we take a new word we've
learned, we think about something we already know...
In this case: "door".
When you come home, you know what the door looks like.
So, we take the new vocabulary and we put it on the door.
But we didn't just put "door" and new vocabulary, we put action.
And because of that you were able to remember it.
And I'm betting halfway through when I was saying these crazy things, you were smiling
or laughing, going: "That's just crazy.
And you're right, but the key is you remembered it.
So, now I'm going to say let's take a quick little jaunt, and we're going to take a jump
as we usually do, and then I'm going to help you with a bit of bonus material, a quiz to
see how well you learned this...
Yeah, a quiz, believe it or not.
Okay?
[Snaps]
[Laughs] Well, there's nothing to study because everything is in your head.
I'm going to talk for a little bit because I kind of want you to forget the words we
were working on just to show you how good your memory is and how well this technique
works, so you can think about how you can use it to learn vocabulary.
Now, three of the things I did that you might not have noticed, but I will make sure...
This is the bonus part of the lesson and I want you to make sure you understand it so
when you do this on your own you know what you must have to make it work.
Number one: Make it full of emotion.
My...
So, for instance, if a fish is watching the Fishing Channel, that's kind of funny.
Like a fish watching fishing, that doesn't make any sense, you kind of go: "[Laughs]."
Or a monkey with a really big gun pointing at you, that's funny, so it makes you laugh.
You could do something that's scary, you could do something that makes you happy, but it
has to be very happy or very sad.
I could have got... put the dog was shot.
You go: "James, that's awful, that's terrible."
I go: "But you won't forget seeing a dog get shot, would you?"
Notice in every case something was happening; the rat was brushing its teeth, the ball was
Your brain works very, very well when it has emotion, it remembers emotions because you
know when you're in love, or you like or don't like something; it remembers motion or moving.
Those two together will help you remember because when you think of either the motion,
brushing teeth, you'll remember the object; and the humour, the emotion will help bring
it to life to help you keep it because your brain says: "If it has emotion, I want to
Now, finally, this is the important thing.
You notice I picked tables, doors, chairs, refrigerators.
I did not say: Shoes, combs, hats, books.
Why?
People don't move doors around all the time.
A bathtub is permanent, your refrigerator is permanent, a window is permanent.
You need one object that is permanent because in your house it doesn't move, so in your
That's why you can do this now, and then come back and do the same list I give you now...
In fact, I challenge you: Watch this video, come back in a week, and before I give the
first list, see how many you can remember.
You'll go: "I haven't studied in a week."
Then come back in a month and watch the video again.
Yes, I'm saying come in a month.
Put it on your calendar, watch the video again because I give the list of the six things,
and watch, every time you will say: "I remember all six, and I haven't studied in a week,
I haven't studied in a month."
I promise you in three months if you do the same thing.
But it's because if we do this and this, and those objects...
The permanent objects haven't changed.
You will have a place in your brain because it's already there.
When you go home, you don't go home to the door and go: "Where's the door?
You know where the door is, you know where the stairs are, you know where the mirror
And your brain has a map in its head, so when we put these objects with it, it's also mapped
And if you have a house, you have several rooms.
You can see where I'm going with this.
You can remember many, many things.
And the more rooms you have that you know, the more things you can remember.
And if you want to learn something different, different subject, go to a new house.
When you were a child you lived in your parents' house, right?
Your grandparents had houses, your friends have houses.
Or when you get good enough, make a palace.
These three things you need to do in order to remember the list.
And I think I've talked sufficiently or long enough that if you didn't do what I asked
See?
That was a thing saying you didn't focus: "Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
Okay?
So, if you didn't focus, you're going to forget.
But I know you guys are engVid watchers and you focus, you make the picture and put the
images together, and it's going to be fabulous.
Who was watching the television?
Who do you think was watching the television?
That's right, the fish was watching Fishing TV, how to fish.
See?
You were laughing when I said it, right?
I put all of these questions out of order, so not only can you remember the subject,
you can remember it any way you want to.
Ah.
Number two: Where was the bacon?
It wouldn't have been running for long.
Number three: What exploded and where did it happen?
That's right, it was the ball on the stairs.
Wow, you're smiling now, right?
Because you're like: "Oh my god, I remember."
That's right, there was a monkey with a big gun pointed at the fish.
That would have been a picture to see.
He was on the lamp and he went: "Hi.
He was going to the washroom, number one.
And finally: Where was the dog?
Yes, you had to go for that beer in the refrigerator and the dog was taking a bath, right?
That's six out of six, and there were eight.
So you probably went from maybe one, two, or three to six out of order and you remember
them.
Now I need you to think: What happens if I practice this with 10 or 12 objects?
Well, you could remember 10 or 12.
A lot of vocabulary lists are up to 20.
And instead of studying for hours, you can take 10 minutes and learn for a very long
time, until you want to learn something new.
Cool.
Now, as we said before, learning is good.
Of course you'll go to engVid, right?
But I'm going to give you some homework because with homework, that's regular practice.
A test is to see what you have, homework is the practice you need to do well on a test.
So here's what I want you to do: I want you to go home.
Well, maybe at a friend's, but pick seven words you want to learn, any seven words.
Okay?
And then use the method we studied, so you could do seven things in a kitchen, seven
From grammar, so now you can use grammar vocabulary.
What are seven irregular verbs?
And then learn those, and then learn another seven.
So you could learn the list of irregular verbs and you'd have a picture for where they are.
And if you could, then you get really smart and creative, you could do the picture maybe
Now, when you do your homework, remember: Do your homework and then I'm going to tell
you to go further and go to engVid, because many times many students get together there
and they talk about this lesson or other lessons, and they can help you or you can help them.
We're here for you, and you can be there for them.
Anyway, listen, I hope you had fun.
The button is somewhere around here.
And I think I forgot to say it before, but I won't forget now, make sure you go to www.eng
as in English, vid as in video.com (www.engvid.com).
Okay?
And do the latest quiz and see the latest video.
Don't forget what I said, right?
In the refrigerator with a beer?
Hmm.