<p>Okay, so i have to memorize a 60 line poem that doesnt even rhyme…in french.</p>
<p>i have 2 weeks until i have to present the poem. how do i go about memorizing this, because ive tried and cant even remember the first 5 lines.</p>
<p>HELPP.</p>
<p>Hmmm, well, whenever I’ve had to do things like this, I always managed to just read it through a few times and I’d know it by then…</p>
<p>I’d suggest repetition as your tactic of choice – divide it up into chunks, and once you’ve memorized one chunk move onto the next until you have it all down. Repeat the poem to yourself when your bored (like in traffic! That’s what I’m doing nowadays – memorizing various songs :D) and it shouldn’t be too hard to commit it to memory.</p>
<p>Alternatively, record yourself reading the poem (or find an online recording of it) and load it up onto your audio medium of choice (CD, mp3, etc.). I’ve heard of a few people having great results by listening to these things on their ipods…</p>
<p>read it out loud over and over for about an hour.</p>
<p>you’ll have it memorized.</p>
<p>I usually memorize things backwards. That way, I freak out about the first part but I get more confident as a I go along because I’ve been working on the end more.</p>
<p>What memorization tips or tricks have worked for you in the past? Presumably this is not the first thing you’ve ever had to memorize. Different people remember things differently, and some people have more of a gift for memorization than others. What works for me is to break the piece into chunks and just read it over and over and over again, and then repeat it aloud over and over and over again. No fancy tricks work for me - I just have to put in the time.</p>
<p>I used to memorize super duper long speeches in just a few days so here are my amazing tricks.
-Make up notecards, one per line, make them online if you dont want to waste paper
-download audacity onto your computer or get a tape recorder or something, record the poem and play it on loop while you sleep
-if your short on time and need to cram i start with the first line, say it about 10 times then say the second line about 10 times then run through the first and second line then add the third line saying it about 10 times and so on and so on. This was is the most efficient though most annoying and arduous)</p>
<p>What a coincidence! I’m just memorized a 90 line speech (fills up 1 page, 12 font single spacing) made by Beowulf. </p>
<p>First I divided it into relevant chunks of text, then memorized those chunks separately, going through from start to that point in my head every once in awhile (e.g. memorize the first 3 lines, memorize the next 7 lines, go through the first 10 (memorized) lines in my head, continue). </p>
<p>I also recorded my speech and played it on a loop wherever I went (including while I slept). Like raiderade, I used audacity and a mic. </p>
<p>One memorization trick that worked to help solidify the information was to read it backwards. That way, I’d memorize individual words instead of just the gist of the sentence.</p>
<p>Hmm, all I would do is read it over a couple of times, etc etc, and just remember it.
You could try reading it in a funny accent [edit, yeah nevermind it’s in French already ;D] and remember. Oh, also if you focus on the meaning of each line instead of just trying to blindly memorize the words that should make it a bit easier.</p>
<p>I’m a fan of the bit by bit method. I had to memorize Macbeth’s “Tomorrow” soliloquy for English class and did it line by line building on top of it (e.g. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow; Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day; etc).</p>