The man who learned Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

A young Indian man has entered the record books by memorizing all the words in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Mahaveer Jain spent 10 months studying all 1500 pages of the dictionary. He is able to recall with astonishing accuracy every single word that is defined in the book. His feat is even more remarkable in that he can also recollect the sequence and page number of each dictionary entry.

Jain’s achievement has gained him a place in the Limca Book of Records, India's version of the Guinness Book of World Records.

The young engineering graduate memorized the entire list of dictionary entries by using learning techniques perfected by his teacher, Biswaroop Roy Chowdhury, a national memory record holder.

Memory expert, Roy Chowdhury, claims that most people can improve their memories through learning specific techniques. "Remembering is a process that must be learned just like walking, eating and talking. So one has to train the brain to have retentive and productive abilities."

Roy Chowdhury demonstrated the results of his techniques at the launch of a new memory centre in India recently. He was able to remember instantly a hundred random numbers given by members of the audience.

More controversially Roy Chowdhury argues that human beings use only a relatively small fraction of their brain. However, the claim that people use ten per cent or less of their brain capacity has been hotly disputed by scientists in recent years. They point to a complete lack of scientific evidence to support such statements.

Regardless of arguments about the capacity of the human brain, it seems that memorizing techniques have helped some people to learn large amounts of information and in many countries the teaching of such techniques has now become very popular.

Indeed Roy Chowdhury’s star pupil, Jain, now runs his own Dynamic Memory Centre in the northern Indian city of Lucknow. As well as spending his time learning entire books, he is now a key figure in the dissemination of memorizing techniques.

He told the Hindustan Times: "While not everybody can perfect the art to the extent Biswaroop Roy Chowdhury or I have, they should be able to achieve a lot through proper training."

Meanwhile, staff at Oxford University Press have nothing but praise for Jain’s amazing feat. "It is an incredible achievement," said Moira Runcie, Editorial Director for ELT Dictionaries at OUP. "Our editors are constantly revising and re-editing the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary to keep it up to date. Amazing as it seems, Mr Jain probably knows the dictionary even better than an Oxford editor!"

Mahaveer Jain’s extraordinary achievement may have a long term impact on his life, as the dictionary editor, Sally Wehmeier, points out: "Thanks to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and his amazing memory, Mr Jain will never be at a loss for words!"

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The man who learned Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

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