It often doesn’t feel like the mnemonics are worthwhile/helpful, but when they save you repeatedly while reading, often almost subconsciously (I seem to work through the mnemonic without realising it until afterwards), the benefit shines through.
Sit down with a handwritten Japanese menu sometime and you’ll know what I mean ٩(•̤̀ᵕ•̤́๑)ᵒᵏᵎᵎᵎᵎ
Agreed, the mnemonics are best when they’re building on past patterns/stories. You develop so many more cognitive links with the ongoing narrative.
As regards the OP, I have similar quibbles when readings diverge from the previously set standard. Yet whenever that happens it’s easy to double-check I’m not wrong/misremembering the reading mnemonic. If not, I’ll modify the mnemonic as a custom one, often only with just with the replaced reading IE. しょう is always the shogun.
Though recently @anon20839864 replied to a correction I sent in, saying that they’re aware of some of these and overhauling the mismatched readings/mnemonics (perhaps mainly in the later levels where I noticed it the most).
Yeah, these don’t take much effort to distinguish the differences.
I know what you mean. Brute force all the way! 
合 谷 拾 俗 恰 洽 姶 袷 給 逧 浴 裕 容 溶 榕 熔
Well, since the original thread has been somewhat derailed already, I might as well throw my opinion onto the pile.
I don’t remember if I originally used mnemonics that much. I probably did, come to think of it. Coming from Oregairu, it was easy to remember 「人」. The mnemonic is two people leaning on each other, but in the written form, you can clearly tell that one person is leaning on the other far more than the other - and no matter what, someone always gets the short stick. This is always what comes of cooperation.
It was incredibly difficult to forget that when I first came across it in the anime, and it’s still the character I’m most intimately familiar with at this stage, four years later. The best part was that I didn’t even have to try to remember it. If the mnemonic was just “it’s two people leaning on each other”, I probably wouldn’t have recalled it as easily - but because the protagonist turned it into a major plot point, it’s a very strong mnemonic.
That’s my problem with WaniKani’s mnemonic’s, I suppose. Some of them are crazy and weird, which helps them stand out in your memory more, but they’re still just isolated sentence-long stories that didn’t affect me emotionally or really make me think.
I recently tried coming up for a temporary mnemonic for this word: 編む (to knit). Since there are already a ton of Kanji that use the idea of ‘women’ as a mnemonic (e.g. 姦 (rape) is the three women [guy] raped, 安 (peace/relief) is “women feel at ease under a roof”, 家内 (word for “wife”) is “inside house”, 嫁 (bride) is a woman just about to move into a house, 奥さん (someone else’s wife) is a woman who is deep inside someone else’s interior and 姉 (older sister) is a woman with a dagger), so I thought of a woman knitting under a door. It was so easy to remember because I had taken note (though had not actually used) all the other mnemonics involving women.
So they can be useful - I just don’t like WaniKani’s mnemonics too much, and I never thought using mnemonics helped me to distinguish between lookalike Kanji all that much. They can also get pretty convoluted when a Kanji character isn’t really suited for the mnemonics, and consequently become really hard to remember, if you know what I mean. Using mnemonics feels that way for me often.
編む doesn’t have the woman element in it… so… how does that help you?
Also, 姦, which I looked up just now, is a hyougai kanji (i.e. it’s not common), so is it weird to anyone else that you knew that one >_>
Like I said, it was meant to be ‘temporary’. I was reading a Genki II lesson and came across it, so I just needed some prompt to remember it when I came across it in the dialogue/grammar section (the idea of ‘knitting’ is predominately a female one, which is a stereotype just like most of the other mnemonics I mentioned, making it easier to remember).
It’s an iffy mnemonic because of that, but it’s the only time I can think of where I really used mnemonics recently.
I expect the actual mnemonic to crumble to dust before the week is over and only the shape of the kanji to remain.
It’s the 8th kanji here: Kanji Listing | KANJIDAMAGE
I had a look at it the other day to see if it was worth using regularly. I think I’ll stick with my Kodansha 5 pages a day + Anki routine, at least for now.
I guess it’s not so much the mnemonic itself, since whatever works for you is fine, but to list out all the ones that actually do use the woman element… in contrast it just was weird. I thought you made a mistake typing the post.
Ahh, fair enough. The way I’m learning Japanese isn’t exactly systematic. It’s patchy here and there (e.g. I didn’t even realise that the continuative form was used with nouns and how it was used with na-adjectives until yesterday!).
The consistent element in the words/kanji I listed out was both the woman 部首 and also the stereotypes about women constantly being in the house and knitting and whatnot. It’s really two mnemonics associated with that idea, then - the shape and the stereotypes.
Not the best example, I suppose - oh well.
Not sure what you’re referring to here. I mean, I’m guessing whatever it is, I probably have encountered it, but that description is not bringing anything to mind.
Yeah, you definitely have.
I encountered it in this sentence:
今度の週末は次の週末と同じ意味で、日曜日では「今度の週末」は「来週末」のことで「今週末」「今週の週末」とは違う日を指す。
It’s just the て-form for nouns and na-adjectives, right? Actually…I think I might be misunderstanding something here. I’m still iffy on the meaning of the latter half of this sentence.
(ahh…the joys of asking what the difference is between 今度の週末 and 今週末 and not being able to properly understand the answer)
I’m not sure what で is there, as it would be categorized grammatically, but my understanding was it’s basically just the form the copula (だ or です) takes in that clause-ending-but-not-sentence-ending form. I don’t think of it as part of the word it comes behind, but like I said, I don’t know the details grammatically.
“Continuative form” usually refers to 連用形, which is like 食べ for 食べる or 思い for 思う. Which is why I was a little confused, since nouns and na-adjectives obviously can’t have a 連用形, since they aren’t inflected the way verbs are.
Ohh, okay. I understand that more now.
I posted that on the stack exchange (since I spent an hour and a bit trying to figuring it out for naught) and the first comment I got was: “で is here the continuative of だ.” which obviously confused me. I then searched up ‘te-form’ and got a few hits, one explaining that you place it after a noun or na-adjective to achieve the same effect as you would in the same usage of verbs (i.e. 食べて but as a clause ender, as you say, and not as in the mild command form (which is also often seen as 食べてください)).
Your explanation is better.
So, if I’m not mistaken, that would end up breaking up the sentence into:
(今度の週末は次の週末と同じ意味で)、(日曜日では「今度の週末」は「来週末」のことで)(「今週末」「今週の週末」とは違う日を指す。)
Which would result in that last clause meaning “「今週末」and「今週の週末」refer to different days.” Because I originally thought it was broken up more like this:
[(日曜日では「今度の週末」は「来週末」のことで)(「今週末」「今週の週末」]とは違う日を指す。)
(I believe that’s called a ‘subordinate clause’?) Which would mean: “On Sunday, 「今度の週末」means the same thing as 「来週末」, so they mean different days from「今週末」and「今週の週末」”
…Or am I just wrong altogether?
(geez, the derailing…sorry)
It’s pretty late, so I can’t exert much effort beyond saying that even in English people disagree on the meanings of “this Friday” and “next Friday” and that kind of thing… so I don’t even want to think about it in Japanese lol
seriously? You were never taught Soh Cah Toa? Roy G. Biv? Every good boy deserves fudge/fries (remember the scales)? PEMDAS/Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally/Susan?
Yeah, it is late. It’s 1am, and I have school today…
I do get what the sentence means - I’m just having some trouble with the structure! I think I get it now, though.
Mainly…
Ughhhh, Japanese grammar…
Abuse of Language for Mnemonics
For some reason, the forum put this in my ‘you might be interested’ queue. Funny that it was from two years ago.
Back then, I think @EskimoJo was only lv 5 or 6?
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