The next level

You just carried twelve digits with one story. Now make any number carry a picture.

The Major System: turn any number into a picture

On its own, 34 doesn't stick to anything. The Major System gives every digit a permanent sound, so any number can become a word, and a word is a picture you already know how to keep. New here? Try the twelve-digit story first - this page is the full system behind it.

Step one · Single digits

Ten digits, ten sounds, learned once.

Each digit keeps one family of consonant sounds, and vowels are never assigned, so you drop them in wherever they make a real word. Most of the pairings have a reason baked in (the hook under each card), so it isn't ten arbitrary facts.

0

S · Z

a circle is smooth

1

T · D

straight up, like a 1

2

N

count the two legs

3

M

count the three legs

4

R

four is a roar

5

L

L is Roman for fifty

6

J · SH · CH

C + lowercase h makes 6

7

K · G

two sevens make a K

8

F · V

8 looks fancy

9

P · B

nine innings: baseball

Step one · Check

Three quick checks.

3

Which sound does 3 keep?

Tap the sound that belongs to it.

Step two · Double digits

Two sounds become one word.

A lone "k" isn't a picture. Pair two digits and their two sounds make a consonant skeleton a real word can hang on, and that word is the picture. The story's pairs work the same way: LION is L·N, BEACH is B·CH.

How the Major System works: 52 becomes the sounds L and N, the word LION and a picture of a lion; 96 becomes B and CH, BEACH, a beach; 34 becomes M and R, MOWER, a mower. — LION and BEACH, 52 and 96, are two of the story's six pairs. MOWER is 34 - more on that below.

Any number, not just this one

Two digits walk on stage.

The code doesn't care whether you've met the number before: 34 is M and R, and MOWER is sitting right there. Any pair works this way, so 52 could just as easily be LINE instead of LION and 58 LOAF instead of LAVA - use whichever real word actually sticks.

Try it yourself

Type any two digits.

You get the two sounds plus the starter word the Memory Mill app uses for that pair. Don't love it? Any real word with those two sounds works. Want all hundred at once? The full 00 to 99 chart is one page.

Next guide

You've got pictures. Now give them a home.

LION, BEACH and MOWER are memorable on their own, but a long number needs order, so the memory palace parks each picture on a route you walk back later.

Learn the Memory Palace