If you’re not up for spending a month in Mexico, learning simple Spanish stories by heart may be the next best thing.

Should you try to learn the verses perfectly? Yes. Because perfection is easier than “almost”.

You can memorize an entire epic poem or book of the Bible – one verse at a time.

To review chapters from a long text, I skipped Anki this time around and tried … a paper chart. I can see a whole month’s worth of scheduled reviews at a glance.

The other morning, I tried reciting a few chapters of Mark while I jogged. The synergy surprised me. Both reciting and jogging felt much easier.

UPDATE (2016 July): The Gospel of Mark has nearly 700 verses, and nearly 15,000 words. A few years back, I memorized the entire thing, by verse.