The various list-learning mnemonics – the method of loci, the pegword method, the link method, the story method – can all be adapted to help you learn lists of words.
In general, learning lists is not a particularly useful technique for learning a language, however, there are some circumstances in which it can be helpful.
If you do need to remember a list, a good recommendation here is the story mnemonic, unless you are already expert at one of the other techniques. The advantage of the story mnemonic is that it is very simple to master.
Below is an example of its use.
If you’d like to run through the various conjugations and declensions of Latin in your head before going to sleep (it’s wonderfully soothing!) and to ensure you cover them all, the following mnemonics might help:
I love to advise those who rule that sums are fooey. [1st conjugation: amo, I love; 2nd conjugation: moneo, I advise; 3rd conjugation: rego, I rule; irregular verb to be: sum, I am; fui, I have been]
At the table the daughter awaits the master; the son awaits the god in the field where the boys go to war. The king tells the legion his name is a burden. The citizen lies on his couch in the city. [1st to 3rd declensions, with variants]
As for the peg-word system – it’s a memory aid that involves linking words with numbers.
It’s utilized by creating mental associations between items to be remembered and items that are already associated with numbers (the latter is a relatively simple task, as the item-number pairs often rhyme).
For example, to remember the seven deadly sins – lust, pride, greed, anger, sloth, envy, and gluttony – the number one could be associated with a bun, two with a shoe, three with a tree, four with a door, five with a hive, six with sticks, and seven with heaven.
Then lust would be remembered by imagining a man drooling over a cinnamon bun, pride would be remembered by picturing a man polishing his expensive shoes, greed would be remembered by envisioning the word hanging from a tree in place of fruit, and so on.
