Miscellaneous · course 99 of 105

Memorize Numbers With the Major System

Turn every digit into a consonant sound, numbers into picture words and words back into numbers of up to six digits, using the Major System memory technique.

4 modules

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What it teaches

The Major System (the phonetic number system): each digit is a consonant sound (0 = s/z, 1 = t/d/th, 2 = n, 3 = m, 4 = r, 5 = l, 6 = ch/j/sh, 7 = k/hard g, 8 = f/v, 9 = p/b), vowels and w, y, h don’t count, and it’s the sound that counts, not the spelling. You learn the table, read words into numbers (silent letters, x = ks, -tion = sh, double letters), turn numbers into picture words, and read a list of words back into a number (up to 6 digits). The AI asks 3 questions, places you, shows a short card per module, then gives you one word or number at a time.

Not for card memorisation or language vocabulary.

How long

60 items. About 20-30 rounds for a strong student up to about 60-65 for a beginner, plus a 12-item final: 2 sessions (estimate, not timed with a real student). The tutor gives a one-line save code at the end of each session.

The modules

4 modules, drilled one item at a time.

M0
How it works
How the system works
M1
Digits and their sounds
Digits, sounds and letters that change sound
M2
Words to numbers
Read a word as a number
M3
Numbers to words and back
Make a picture word, and decode a word list

Before it teaches, it asks

1
What do you want to remember (phone numbers, PINs, dates, lists, a memory contest), and have you used a memory system before?
2
Which digit stands for the sound r?
3
What number does knife give?

What’s exact, and what isn’t

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Straight from the course’s own notes.

Every word's number comes from a pronouncing dictionary: Each word’s sounds are taken from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (American English) and read through the system’s table on Wikipedia’s “Mnemonic major system” page. A word counts only if all its listed pronunciations give the same number. Before making any key, the script reproduces the page’s whole-word examples (action 762, muddy 31, accept 7091, hindquarters 2174140...) and the digits it gives for x, z and c (fax 870, pizza 910 and call 75 are built from those) and checks the page’s peg tables: 321 of 330 peg words agree with the dictionary, 9 aren’t in it, none disagree. The ten sound-to-digit keys are the page’s table itself.
Sourced: The rules and the “why” from Wikipedia’s page, 12 short quotes matched word for word on 2026-10-11.
"Give a word" items accept any word that fits: The tutor checks your word sound by sound with the card’s rules on a Check line; the listed words are examples. That check is the tutor’s reading of the word, not the dictionary’s.
Honest limits: This course counts every r (the page says a rhotic accent is “usually” assumed), so a speaker who drops the r gets a different number for meteor, butter, measure and one of the decode lists; Keys follow American pronunciations. Words with the ng sound (ring, pink) are left out because versions of the system disagree. No claim about how much it improves anyone’s memory: the course teaches the system and drills it.
Not in it yet: The ng variants, long-number practice (phone numbers, pi to 20 places), the peg list as a memory exercise, other systems (method of loci, PAO).