AI's feeble attempts at mnemonics

Japanese Language Kanji
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I decided to try using Google’s chat bot (Gemini) to see what it could come up with for various kanji mnemonics. The results weren’t what I expected… here are the funniest examples.

家: “ie” House
A roof (宀) over a gate (門), symbolizing a house.

蛮: “ban” Barbarian
The kanji is composed of two parts: 亠 (tóu) and 虫 (chóng). [Uh, is Gemini getting confused with Chinese?]
The Bug King: Once upon a time, there was a tiny bug who thought he was a king. He wore a crown and acted very rudely, just like a barbarian.

劾: “gai” Censure
Once upon a time, a minister was corrupt and accepted bribes. The people were very unhappy with him. A righteous official discovered his crimes and reported him to the emperor, demanding that he be impeached. The emperor ordered an investigation, and the minister was eventually brought to justice. [Nice story, but I’m not sure that’ll help me remember anything…]

某: “bou” Certain
某 is composed of two parts: 人 and 木. Imagine a person standing by a certain tree. The sound “bō” can be associated with the image of a sturdy, imposing tree.

Also, Gemini decided to make some word mnemonics for some reason. These were even worse:

こんにちは: “konnichiwa” Hello
“Konichiwa” sounds like “Good day, how are ya?”

ありがとう: “arigatou” Thank you
A grateful person bowing deeply (あ) while holding gifts (りがとう)

さようなら: “sayounara” Good bye
“Say, you’re a Nara” (A playful way to say goodbye)

すみません: “sumimasen” Excuse me
“Summers are nice, but sometimes they’re not” (A playful way to remember “excuse me”) [Remembering that sentence is harder than just remembering “sumimasen”… ]

Last but not least: I wrote “Make a mnemonic for the 廉 kanji” and Gemini responded with a whole 8 paragraph answer in Chinese… I’m losing faith in AI at this point

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Well, it’s not too far off. It’s just that it’s a roof over a pig.

You previously had faith in AI? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Tried Gemini as well and it might just start throwing full on Chinese at you if you too many kanji in your text. It giving you Chinese for just one kanji is something else.
And if you have too much Japanese it might just answer in Japanese which might not be useful to someone who’s still learning.

It really shouldn’t switch the language without asking. No idea why it’s released in this state. Probably to just end in https://killedbygoogle.com/

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Man the first time I used chat bot (it was Gemini back in its beta state btw) I was so impressed, I had it generate a full blown video game storyline with characters, locations, game mechanics. After a few bad experiences with it, I realized it’s actually wayyyy dumber than I thought— once it ended all of its paragraphs with a feminine sign, and I asked why it did that, so it said something like “I’m trying to give a more feminine feel and show that I’m empathizing with you” or something like that