The Major System is based on English phonetics. The words you learn are always English, no matter what language you use this site in. If you are studying in Swedish, Chinese, Russian or any other language, you still use the English word list. You do not need to be fluent — you only need to recognise roughly 100 simple, vivid English words. Most people learn them within one session.
The Major System converts numbers into words by mapping each digit 0–9 to one or more consonant sounds. Vowels cost nothing — use them freely to complete real words. Each word becomes a vivid image. Images chain into scenes. Scenes are impossible to forget.
Tap a digit to see its memory hook
Each digit covers a family of sounds. The word uses whichever letter from the family sounds most natural. Both are equally correct.
The system is over 300 years old and refined by memory champions ever since. Modern competitive memorisers use it to encode thousands of digits of pi, entire decks of cards, and long sequences of random numbers. The principle never changes: a vivid, concrete image is far easier to recall than an abstract digit.
A mitt slides down a road, lands on a giant lip, leaves a notch in it, then gets squeezed like a lime.
Five images, one absurd scene, one ten-digit block of pi permanently encoded. That is the system.
The Major System is a mnemonic technique dating to the 17th century. The 100-word list, diagrams, and this guide are by Christoffer De Geer. The Major Pincode System (pairing this word list with numpad muscle memory) was devised by Christoffer in 2024.