how Americans memorize Canada's geography

[Darren Dirt]

those who care about ever finding their way around their harmless "neighbor to the north" anyway

http://cockeyed.com/lessons/canada/canada.html


I had to laugh at the comment about NWT not being the most north-west of the 3 territories. Because any Canuck knows that pre-Nunavit, there was only Yukon and "everything else" aka "icy chunks of land north and west of Ontario (since ON, and esp. TO, = centre of the universe)".


It's so much easier to understand/memorize if those Yankees just "think like a Canadian"




his followup was a bit more challenging.

AFRICA.

http://cockeyed.com/lessons/africa/africa.html

plenty of mnemonic tricks, including "Every Sailor Eventually Starts Eating Damp Sandwiches" for Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia.

or, "Most Normal Children Can Darken Underwear" (for Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda.)


or, "Botswana is the landlocked country in this set, which is good, because robots want to try swimming, but the water will fry their circuitry. 'Botswana try swimming."

pretty creative!


I can imagine that, thanks to this simplifying process of what is likely a sore spot for even Jeopardy contestants, there is right now someone on Youtube who is studying that page and memorizing the names and basic shapes, and is planning on doing some kind of a modern twist on the classic Animaniacs bit, perhaps starting with a large blank whiteboard in front of their webcam with a little timer in the corner of the screen    Challenge Level: GEEKIAN!

[Tom]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDtdQ8bTvRc

[Thorin]

Or, you know, take out the atlas, stare at the page until it's etched in your brain, and then simply recall the picture later and read the picture in your mind.

Really, having to learn a whole bunch of name-shorteners to remember a bunch of other names is just twice the work.

[Tom]

Or, you know, take out the atlas, stare at the page until it's etched in your brain, and then simply recall the picture later and read the picture in your mind.

Really, having to learn a whole bunch of name-shorteners to remember a bunch of other names is just twice the work.

Eh, not really. I remember by association, and pulling something shorter out of my brain tends to be easier. Then that short thing pulls out the rest.

[Darren Dirt]

Or, you know, take out the atlas, stare at the page until it's etched in your brain, and then simply recall the picture later and read the picture in your mind.

Really, having to learn a whole bunch of name-shorteners to remember a bunch of other names is just twice the work.

Eh, not really. I remember by association, and pulling something shorter out of my brain tends to be easier. Then that short thing pulls out the rest.

^ this!

Indeed, I watched the animaniacs classic (one of the sloooooowed dooooown versions) right after skim-reading the Africa webpage, and towards then end when he goes thru Africa I actually knew the general location as soon as he said the name... No staring-until-burned-into-brain, nor photographic memory, required.