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.
Not on sale yet. When sales open: $4.99 USD for this course, paid once, or every course for $9.99 USD a month. Prices
$4.99 USD, paid once. Or every course for $9.99 USD a month until you cancel; try it free for 7 days first (email only, no card, ends on its own). Tax added at checkout where it applies.
Runs in Claude (claude.ai, the Claude apps or Claude Code) with your own Claude account. A course opens there as soon as your payment goes through; nothing is shipped.
Preview
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
- 1What do you want to remember (phone numbers, PINs, dates, lists, a memory contest), and have you used a memory system before?
- 2Which digit stands for the sound r?
- 3What number does knife give?
What’s exact, and what isn’t
Show
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).