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Most students find it a challenging task, to remember the single herbs. Normally between 170 and 350 herbs have to be remembered. Not only their names, but also their properties and actions. This articles describes a method that enables you to remember single herbs faster and better. De steps are as follows:
This is a top down approach. In every step more information will be added to the structure. The figure below demonstrates what a herb 'contains'.
Although there are still institutes that prefer the pharmaceutical name, the B.Sc. and M.Sc. level studies require that you can write and have a good pronounciation of the pinyin name.
Write and pronouce the pinyin name of the single herb and write its category next to it. It would be very good if you have a picture of the raw herb as used in China. The real thing is even better. Touch it and smell it (if possible, taste it). This all increase the chance that you will remember it. The more senses are involved in the process the better. Only text is very boring for our brains. Hint: try to arrange them in a good sounding sequence. It becomes a kind of song. For example: Bo He, Sang Ye, Ju Hua, Ge Gen, Niu Bang Zi First say and write the name of the herbs you want to remember. If you are not used to pinyin it is best to start with three at a time. You will hear it, see it, and write it ('do it'). 2. Add the properties You can add the properties by using codes, mnemonics, or full text. Rén Shen [sw bi-] [w-] [F P X] meaning: Again do this in small groups. E.g. three per time. Repeat them until you can recall the properties of the herbs. Then do another group of three. Repeat the two groups. Do another group of three. Repeat the tree groups, etc. 3. Add the actions At this time it is already a lot to remember. So what to do next? Write all actions behind the herb for each herb in the list. Then search for commonalities and differences. For example: which herbs tonify Qì and generate fluids. 4. Search for commonalities and differences As said before, our brain can best deal with chunks of information.
So be creative and don't worry. By the way, this is yust an example. There are other ways as well. See the full example in this document (pdf). |