Memorizing Numbers in Spanish

1.6 • Numbers in Spanish

I received an Email from someone who enjoyed my tips on memorizing numbers but was wondering how he could do it in Spanish, his native language, instead of English. Here is a quotation from the original Email and my response.

“I was reading part of the techniques use to memorize the >words and numbers and it sound very interesting. My question >is How is it can be applied to a different language as Spanish? >and if it is possible which words should I use as a Key words?”

I assume you’re referring to memorizing numbers and using peg words.

First, you know that letters are assigned to the digits 0 through 9. But note also that these are by sound, not by spelling. Just survey the sounds, and make sure there is a corresponding sound in Spanish. If there isn’t, you may have to change one or more of the entries so the table has all Spanish word sounds. It doesn’t matter if you customize the table for your own personal use.

After that, it works the same way. Let me think of a Spanish word: Senior. That’s pronounced SEEN-YOUR, I think. So in the English version of the table, the numerical value is 024.

To make your own peg words: Just think of words that have numerical values of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, etc. There’s always more than one possible word. But you choose one and stick with it. As an example, the Spanish word “Aqua” (pronounced AHG-WA, I think), has the numerical value of 7. So that would be a good peg word for 7. “Fuego”, I think, would be a good peg word for 87.