Countries and Their Capitals (part 1)

You can create mnemonic devices to help you remember anything.

They are particularly effective if you utilise all of your senses, simply repeating the mnemonic is often not enough. You really have to see, feel, hear, smell and (yes, even) taste it!

Here's an example taken from geography. Imagine you need to recall 20 Countries and their capital cities. A good strategy would be to create a memorable image that connects the name of the capital city to the Country. For example:

The capital of Australia is Canberra. Australia has a unique and memorable image already associated with it; the Sydney Opera House. So, link the image of the Opera house to an image that will remind you of Canberra. How about imagining the Sydney Opera house covered in cranberry (Canberra) juice. It's a red sticky mess, people leaving the building find the juice dripping in their hair and covering their clothes. See it, hear it, smell it, feel it.

Now stop! Forget the image...

...you can't. Think of the Sydney Opera House - see cranberry juice. If it is a strong link (image) whenever someone says "Australia", you see the opera house, that links to cranberry, and that reminds you of Canberra.

There are many Countries which have distinct images associated with them (France, USA, UK, China, for example). However, for many countries you will need to create an image. This is best done by 'playing around' with the country's name.

Afghanistan, for me, for example, doesn't automatically conjure up an image. However, I can be creative. If I imagine an Afghan hound, I can use that to remind me of Afghanistan. The capital city is Kabul, which (to me) sounds like "car pull"... so I link the country to the capital city by imagining an Afghan hound pulling a car behind it (car pull) Kabul.

Here are 18 other countries with similar mnemonic images. If you want to use these, please play around with the mnemonic suggestions - they work for me, but you will come up with better ones for yourself.

Afghanistan - Kabul
Visualise an Afghan hound pulling a car behind it (car pull) Kabul

Albania - Tirane
See a woman with auburn hair (Au-l-ban) is shocked when a large letter 'T' runs (T-ran) past her

Algeria - Algiers
See a crowd of very happy people (all cheery), everyone waves and shouts 'cheers' (all-cheers)

Andorra - Andorra la Vella
Imagine a hand shaped door (hand-door), through the door you can see a young man (the 'fella')

Angola - Luanda
See a giant hand scores a goal (hand-goal-a), and then dives down a toilet (loo-hand-a)

Antigua & Barbuda - St John's
Imagine 'Tigger' (an-tigg-ua) wrapped in barbed wire (Barb-uda), his cuts are attended to by the St John's Ambulance.

Argentina - Buenos Aires
Imagine Eva Peron (Argentina) crying as she throws bones at a ram (bones-aries)

Armenia - Yerevan
See and hear a priest praying (Armen-ia), he looks up, sees you and shouts 'You're a van' (Yerevan)

Australia - Canberra
See the Sydney Opera house covered in cranberry (Canberra) juice

Austria - Vienna
Visualise an ostrich (Austria) making the 'V' sign to a hen (V-hen-a)

Azerbaijan - Baku
Imagine a razor trying to buy jam ('a razor buy jam', Azerbaijan) in the supermarket, the razor is told to go back outside: 'Back up' (Baku)

Bahamas - Nassau
See a giant bee trying to hurt your family (bee, harm us); the bee is clearly very 'nasty' (Nassau)

Bahrain - Manama
Imagine it is raining sheep (baa-rain), the sheep are falling onto a pregnant man (man, a ma)

Bangladesh - Daka
See a set of bangles dashing down the road (bangle-dash), they smash into the back of a car ('the car' - Daka)

Barbados - Bridgetown
Visualise a beach in Barbados, imagine the view is now ruined by a new town built on top of a bridge

Belarus - Minsk
A bright red bell (bell-a-rouge) is wearing a mink coat

Belgium - Brussels
See a giant bell chewing gum (bell-gum); it spits it out when it notices that the gum is really a sprout (Brussels)

Belize - Belmopan
Visualise a giant bell is having a rest on a couch (bell-ease), nearby another bell is mopping the floor with a pan (bell-mop-pan)

Benin - Porto Novo
Imagine you are pushing a boy called Ben in (Ben-in) to a port hole, the boy shouts 'No go, no go' (Port-a-no-go)

Bhutan - Thimphu
Imagine a huge tin with a button (Bhutan) on the top, you press the button to open the tin and a terrible smell comes out ('tin, pooh!')

Read through them; see, hear and feel the 'images'. Then test yourself by covering up the cities as you read the list again - I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

To help you practice this technique we have created a set of iflipr cards for these 20 Countries and their capitals. You can try it for yourself here: 20 Countries and Capitals #1