I think the best way to explain a new concept is by analogy. Take something solid that everyone knows about and then explain it that way. It's not 100% effective, but it is probably 80% effective that people will understand the broad underlying concept, then be able to fill in the dots on the remaining explanation. That's because they have a framework on which to hang the sheetrock, the electrical sockets, put on the roof, etc. (see how I did that?)<p>That's pretty much what happens when we are 4 or 5 years old and learning. You don't teach a child 1+1=2, oh no. You take one rock, then a second rock, and ask them how many. The rock is one. "1" is not 1, and "1" + "1" is not "2", because the young children don't understand it that way. Then you put the number 1 next to each rock and add them, and eventually they understand. But it is very concrete. As adults, we don't need the actual rocks, but we do need a known structure to compare things and assign the "rock" we know to the number "1".<p>This applies to rote memory as well as understanding concepts. As an example how concreteness helps rote memory, let's take the following list of 11 words: dog, cantaloupe, priest, hill, tornado, ocean, yellow, urn, fox, moon, mushroom.<p>Most people (not all) will not be able to memorize these abstract words/ideas, even if familiar with them all. But if you match them with something more concrete, they will.<p>So instead of looking at the abstract words, just match each word with something more concrete in your imagination. So see in your mind's eye this story, and the words you hve to memorize are in italics: A huge 20 foot German Shepard (<i>dog</i>), has a <i>cantaloupe</i> in his mouth and spits it out super hard and fast and it goes through the air like a cannonball and hits a <i>priest</i> who is standing on a big <i>hill</i>, and the priest rolls down to the bottom of a hill where a big <i>tornado</i> comes by at that instant and scoops him up and travels a little while to a big <i>ocean</i> that is bright <i>yellow</i>. Floating on the water is a huge 10 foot tall black and white striped <i>urn</i> and all of a sudden, a very sexy cartoon <i>fox</i> (<a href="https://cdn4.vectorstock.com/i/1000x1000/03/28/fox-sexy-posing-vector-220328.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://cdn4.vectorstock.com/i/1000x1000/03/28/fox-sexy-posi...</a>) comes out of the top and then shoots straight up out of the atmosphere at supersonic speed and goes up and lands on the <i>moon</i>, where the fox creates a big <i>mushroom</i> cloud when she lands.<p>If you imagine this story in great detail, you will have little problems memorizing those words and be able to say them all in order with ease. Even backwards order is easy. And this is almost always with 100% accuracy.<p>So it is the same thing when trying to teach someone an abstract idea for the first time, the exact same. Use concrete examples. Like the stairs in this guy's example, that was great that he finally understands about using analogies.