Partial Substitution
Phonetic substitution works well for words that are unfamiliar, but for words and names that are more familiar there is an easier technique. A student in a music history class, for example, would be very familiar with the names of classical composers, but would still have to memorize information about them. In this situation, only a part of the name is needed to recall the name of a composer.
| Name | Partially sounds like |
| Beethoven | oven |
| Mozart | art |
| Rachmaninoff | rock |
| Handel | (door) handle |
| Tchaikovsky | ski or key |
| Bach | book |
| Schubert | Bert (and Ernie) |
| Schumann | man |
| Debussy | sea |
| Haydn | hide (of an animal) |
This technique works well because all of these names are in a well defined category. “Man” cannot stand for the last name Mansfield because that isn’t the name of an important composer.
When memorizing familiar words or names in a certain category, partial substitution is faster and easier than complete phonetic substitution. There is another option, however…