I don't like shocking mnemnonics. Should I continue?

I am also not a fan of horror movies and so on, and I would see these mnemonics more like funny, cartoony stories. The more menomincs you will read, the more you will see the ironic undertone in all of them. They are never made to shock or disgust you, but always meant o make you smile at how u weird the characters, or how surreal the stories are. And as people have said before, there are really not so many shocking ones as far as I have seen. I don’t know if this helps you, but still I think most of the mnemonics really help you remember the Kanji. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for your good luck wish. I like the idea of Wanikani because due to an illness, I don’t have enough energy to actively study from books and gamified methods work better to not burn myself out. So I’m pretty sure I will continue, and in general, I also realise it’s better to come up with my own mnemonics in the process. I also played through the ‘‘Kanji Combat’’ game a while back and I definitely know what you mean with ‘‘shockingly bad’’ mnemonics, even though I don’t mind them that much and just try to think of something better myself

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Thanks. I haven’t seen a lot of them yet obviously, but that one with the Power Rangers fighting against Rick the Rock or something like that really does stick.

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This thread is probably done by now, but you should look at the mnemonics in Andrew Conning’s Kanji Learner’s Course. There are all premade, unlike Heisig, and unlike WK they avoid sex and gore.

More to the point Conning’s introduction (esp. pp. x-xv) is really precise about what makes a good mnemonic and what make something memorable. It’s not when it’s shocking, it’s when it uses “simple-minded, sensory” thinking. Sights and sounds and smells and feels work better than higher order abstractions, like wordplay and Concepts.

They’re most memorable when tied to your own sensations, but who has time to write 2300 personal mnemonics? At least in KLC it’s not just an onslaught of predictably boring online boy humor.

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I’m a bit surprised with how people are reacting to this thread. I usually try to avoid anything remotely resembling internet discourse like the plague, but I just have to point something out.

People cannot control what makes them uncomfortable (without some outside intervention like therapy, but even that may not work), so who are we to tell them to simply “get over it” or “be more tough?” I don’t think anyone here who said something along those lines meant it with ill intentions, but we must understand that not everyone is the same. “Toughening up” may be solid advice, but for some people, that could be like telling someone in a wheelchair to “just get up”.
What I’m trying to say is, let’s all be respectful of someone who may not experience life as we do, and uphold the level of tolerance and respect that the Wanikani community is known for when replying.

At the end of the day, boiled down, the question was simply “Shocking mnemonics make me uncomfortable, are there many of those on this site?”
If this question makes you upset or roll your eyes, perhaps it’s time to take a break from the internet for a day, or do some serious thinking about why what makes someone else uncomfortable (a completely random stranger you’ll likely never meet again, no less) is making you uncomfortable.

@lantonito
I hope you were able to answer your question with the help of people who were actually trying to give out genuinely helpful advice on here. Good luck moving forward! :grin:

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I skimmed thru this super active topic. It seems that you hit a nerve, and the feedback you got was more on a heated side of things. I’m afraid you may get a bad first impression of this forum.

As a common norm, the regulars here are super patient answering the same newbies questions over and over again (yours was not one of those), providing support and explanations on how system works and doing all of this without judging or dismissing concerns. So please stick around little bit.

For me personally, the level of gore does not bother me (it is not worse than one of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, and definitely lighter than Walking Dead). I think the best ones are those that make me literally laugh, unfortunately cannot come up with an example right now.

The bigger problem I see is that some mnemonics do not “click” for me, resulting in multiple failed reviews later on the road.

In such cases, community helps a lot, there are multiple threads that help you remember
“cow” 牛 vs “noon” 午, or
grain 禾 vs sickle 釆, or
my latest favorite glory 光栄 vs honor 栄光

So when WK mnemonics is not 100% great, and the item becoming your leech, there is a chance that community has a solution. So please consider this forum as a vital and free part of your WK experience, and don’t get discouraged by a bit of a the rough start.

All the best!

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For me usually its about 1 mnemonic per level that bothers me, or less. On my current level (7) there were two, the kanji for 鳥 and the vocal word 通る. Both involved things exploding. To replace 鳥 I imagined Ms. Chou in a chicken suit, and for 通る I imagined my toe turning bright red and how painful it was.

For those of us with sensitive imaginations, a description is almost the same as seeing it in real life right? Just do your best to turn it into a PG (or PG-13) version and carry on, because the efficiency of the program definitely makes it worth it. Happy studying! :slight_smile:

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As far as blood and gore as well as sexual stuff I cannot think of too many. Most of them are just kind of super silly so you remember them. The only one I really really dont like is the poop radical. Because…well…poop.

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if you don’t like it, then maybe looking for another source is not bad. I see that you are at level 1. How about getting to level 3 before making the decision?

There are other absurb mnemonics as you continue, some of them are not quite good (tbh often make me frustrated). Oh and about shocking/strange mnemonics. Maybe It’s a trick to make mnemonics more memorable so it stays in your brain longer (hopefully) in many cases here they wouldn’t xD. or maybe it’s just the weird mind of Koichi :laughing:

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This! Don’t mind some of the ignorance in this thread. The community is a lot more nice, welcoming, and open than what this thread might make it look like.

As for the shocking mnemonics, personally I don’t think I find any to be “shocking” anymore. Back in the day there were 2 common ones that they thankfully removed:

Hard Gay as others have said, and believe it or not for kanji with the reading けい they used to use the KKK… :confounded:

Nowadays most of them I find to be silly or comedically absurd. I know for me that kind of thing, or something appealing to the senses, definitely helps me remember things better.

As others have said, you can always roll your own, though it does take a bit more effort. Good luck, and welcome!

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This thread made me realize how less I rely on the mnemonics, because I do not remember any gore, although I’m sure it’s there. I do remember some sentences making me go ??? when I read them, mainly because of how ridiculous they were.

But I do rely on mnemonics for words which do not seem obvious to me at first glance, or if I have never come across them before, so it’s not like I do not use them at all. So I can tell you the vulgar stuff is not the majority for sure. Coming up with your own mnemonics probably would work better in general anyway.

I’m not a fan of vulgar stuff either, so you have one more person on your team :smiley:

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WK mnemonics are pretty innocent compared to something like KanjiDamage :joy:

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As for me, I don’t want to tie Japanese readings with English mnemonics (and English isn’t even my first language); so I ignore them completely.

For radicals and components I add “user synonyms” that actually are what Japanese people use (eg: for 幺 I use “itogasira” (糸頭, the head (that is, upper part) of “糸” (いと, thread))

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I’ve noticed a handful of mnemonics that concern violent content but like others have said there’s the option to disregard the default mnemonic and come up with your own.

I think that WK is a pretty great resource if you can ignore the aspects you don’t like. I don’t think any resource not built by yourself will ever serve your purposes entirely.

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If someone in a wheelchair asks you if a building is wheel-chair accessible and your reply is simply, “Use a different building.”, you need to check yourself IMO.

This is a good time to remember that not everyone is the same. It’s hard to remember because we are all presented to each other in text form, but if our baseline responses are respectful and cooperative then there should be no problem.

On the original question, from my perspective there are definitely some mnemonics that you will not like. You can’t hide them from view even though you can add your own.

But I may have a solution for you. You might prefer Kanji Learner’s Course by Kodansha - it’s a book, but there are decks for it on Memrise that you can use literally for free. There is at least one other WK member that does this and they recommend it.

So I hope that helps and I wish you luck on your journey! :heart:

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I would like to say, mnemonics should be as shocking as possible and this authors desires would be detrimental to any learning program if they are acceded to.

OP you need to grow a bit thicker of a skin I think, i dont say that to be mean but I think if these mnemonics too offensive to continue, you may not find Japanese culture in general to your liking. The Japanese are very open-minded, which is one reason I am learning.

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I’m wondering if you read any of the comments prior to the one you wrote. Please review:

and

And, whether or not you didn’t say what you said to be mean, telling anyone “to grow a thicker skin” is insensitive and unhelpful. Also, going as far as

… what?? This has absolutely nothing to do with the OP’s question and concerns and is a sweeping, far-fetched conclusion to make. Again, it is insensitive and unhelpful.

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Damn, I totally missed that TrinityBringer had already covered that point! Thanks for highlighting :sweat_smile:

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If you never are exposed to anything you are uncomfortable with you will never grow as a person. Most of the responses are because people do not like ‘offendedness’ culture and they want to keep it from infecting something they value, at least that’s how it is for me. If there is not this level of response, then more and more entities will just roll-over whenever someone comes in and says they are offended. The push-back is very healthy both for this individual, and just conceptually at a societal level. The onus should be on the person saying they are offended, not the concept they are attacking (and saying you are offended is a passive form of attack, as it may cause regulations and such or actions against the concept in question, even if other people like it).

Personally, offendedness culture makes me extremely triggered. So… I am fine ‘dealing with it’ but I will also do something about it.

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No-one here is going to advocate for WaniKani changing their mnemonics, so I think the point is kind of wasted tbh.

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