Dabbling vs Doing: ADVANCED Memory Palaces For Language Learning with Phil Of Mandarin Blueprint

We understand proper grammar by hearing the right patterns. Our brains assimilate, process and store these patterns in the process of hearing and using the language.

Suuuper-long comment warning!! 😬

Since I’ve already worked my way through the Magnetic Memory Method and am now at the early stages of the Mandarin Blueprint, maybe this’ll give people an idea of what it feels like for a MMM user.

Mandarin Blueprint uses memory palaces in a way that encodes all the possible pronunciations of Chinese into a nicely airtight system. Then you use an SRS system they’ve partnered with to review. They cover each character individually, with detailed movies for the early ones, gradually letting you take the reins as you gain experience. The other users share their mnemonics too, which is a big help.

Here’s how they use memory palaces: 

Each character in Chinese can be thought of as having an initial sound and a final sound. The initials are represented by people, while the finals each get a dedicated 5-station memory palace. Combining the two gets you a lock onto the pronunciation. The value is that the entirety of possible Chinese pronunciations can be encoded into this system without any leaks whatsoever—pretty neat!

- Initials are each assigned a person to do the action (55 total in the way they’ve set it up)
- Each final has its own memory palace (13 total, but I’m using the “Bopomofo” method that splits Pinyin’s “e” into two independent pronunciations, so 14 for me)
- The 5 tones a character can have are encoded as the 5 stations (rooms) of each memory palace.
- Each of the written elements that compose the characters get a movie prop assigned to them.

• So the person-location combination gives you a lock onto the pronunciation;
• The room you’re in gives you the tone;
• The props in your image give you the elements you need to reconstruct the written character;
• And the action gives you the character’s meaning.

With only 5 stations needed per memory palace, for Magnetic Memory Method users, it’s pretty simple to set up.

The characters are further divided into 4 groups, of 19, 11, 19, and 6. They suggest men, women, fictional characters, and a wildcard category like gods or world leaders respectively. But you can customize those as you like—one of my categories is robots.

One point of concern from a memory palace perspective is that you wind up with a lot of unrelated images existing together at a single station (the characters that share the same final and tone). This makes normal, systematic Recall Rehearsal essentially impossible because once you get to a given station (room) it’s all overlapping chaos. Maybe you put a given image closer to this wall or facing that other wall, but there’s no way to e.g. walk through all of your images for review and be sure you’ve gotten them all—many images will inevitably be sharing each station. 

In practice though, you get more familiar with the older ones through the SRS software, so it’s not that big of a problem (so far—I’m still only ramping up at level 9 of, er, 88). It’s just that you can’t review them they way we’re used to doing in MMM.

Other than Recall Rehearsal, all the Magnetic Memory Method skills I’ve learned are serving me well as I encode Chinese characters in the Mandarin Blueprint method. I’ve dabbled in Chinese before, but it’s really nice to finally have rock-solid confidence with tones in particular—if Mechagodzilla is walking up this staircase in this restaurant, then it must be 2nd tone, and I can’t mistake it for anything else.

I recommend Mandarin Blueprint very highly!

Super fun!
If you ever want help from a doctor of Chinese medicine as you learn your points, please let me know what I can do. 🙏👍🏻

Actually, I do complain about having to brush my teeth every day. That doesn’t mean I don’t do it, but it sure is a drag...

This channel deserves way more views. Keep up the great videos.🙏

Hey Anthony, just curious are places where you never been but seen images or in videos effective for a memory palace? Btw i created a memory palace for my exams, you helped a lot. Thanks 👍

I’m not learning Mandarin. But this conversation was brilliant and useful.

Thanks a lot for that wonderful stream. Languages are what connects us each other. Learning new languages are great for self improvement, self-respect, brain and also make it possible to communicate with more people and get access to informations in learned languages. I for one wouldn't be able to communicate with you all, if i didn't know English and learn lots of amazing stuff.

I may not be there for the premiere, but I'll be sure to watch it. I am not learning any new languages right now but the technique sure does interest me. Besides, in the story I'm mindmapping right now, the characters have to learn a language that is alien to them (and "alien" here is literal) in an interstellar future where advanced tech and AI is ubiquitous.

Mind palace crashing brain games

Hello can't wait to begin