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

Thanks for asking, but that’s not a problem for me. I specifically don’t like gore/bloody descriptions but I guess I’ll be fine because people assured me it’s relatively uncommon

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@lantonito Thank you for being respectful even though some others are not :pray:t2:

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Welcome to WK.
I’m not easily shocked but some mnemonics don’t work for me so I change them.
However, a lot of them run in series so then you have to change the ones that build up on any you’ve changed before. Not a big issue though.

I can understand why you’d feel uneasy with some. I’ve shocked a couple people in the past in a course I run and it changed the way I approach things because the last thing I want is to make what I teach an unpleasant memory.

I think it’s a given mnemonics won’t change in WK to cater for the few that are shocked by some of them because of the in-built options to help you use your own. Maybe a warning would be nice. You know, like cheese: strength 5 means gorey, strength 1 means fluffy.

You can easily make stories just as memorable with no gore. I personally quite enjoy the variety but I can see why some people would not.

Let’s replace all the blood with kittens!

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My advice would be to stop being so fragile, as it will help you in life in general. Maybe I’m a bit biased, since I grew up surrounded by violence & ended up dissecting cadavers in med school, so I might be a bit more… resistant… but imo it’s a good “life skill” to have. And these are just mnemonics, no one is actually murdering kittens in front of your eyes.

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@blel Please just stop bothering and don’t reply anymore.

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Just stop trolling please and get a life somewhere else.

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I’m… not sure you should be eating fluffy cheese. Or… gory cheese, come to think of it.

If you think he’s trolling, just remember the golden rule: don’t feed the troll. That way, regardless of whether or not he’s deliberately trolling, everyone goes away… perhaps not happier, but at least less frustrated.

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This is a nice reply. I like kittens more than violence and that’s just a personal preference, others are free to prefer gore. I know some people here would be furious, but it’s a nice suggestion to the developers to give a warning when there are gorey mnemonics. It’s very unlikely to happen of course, but why not? It’s always good to have options and choices. I am also a teacher myself and prefer to stay professional, neutral and not say too many weird things, even though in some ways apparently it could benefit the learner. I know being ‘‘neutral’’ is not ‘‘cool’’ like gore is to some people, so in a way I understand why I got a few aggressive replies here, even though over 90% of people are just respectful ‘‘discussers’’ even though they agree or not.

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I have no proof for this, but I once read that in old times monks, who were using some kind of mnemonics to remember parts of the bible were also discussing if they could use crude thoughts to remember these holy sentences. I guess there was no clear outcome, just like this post has none. Just liked the pragmatism. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, honestly I don’t know whether I should call myself ‘‘fragile’’ or not, but due to my autism I am more sensitive than most people and therefore deliberately avoid things that don’t make me happy, such as horror movies or super gorey movies. I still respect your reply but you also have to imagine that not everyone here is as ‘‘tough’’ as you and much of it is due to genes or circumstances growing up. I had a difficult childhood too and I try to find balance in loving myself and mental toughness/physical toughness/ being prepared for the bad and dark sides of life. So yeah I definitely try to be ‘‘resistant’’ but at the same time I am not actively seeking to consume shocking material, because it simply doesn’t make me happy.

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Yes, thanks, I can be a little fiery and sometimes forget to just ignore negative people and then I let myself be carried along in their toxicness.

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That’s a funny anecdote. It’s like with everything in life, theories clash and people disagree with a lot of things, the good thing is when you can have an open and mature discussion about it, even it’s just mnemonics for kanji learning.

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Your post reminded me of the, let’s say, more sexual things I came up with for mnemonics in Japanese vocabulary learning. They were not very common but helped sometimes when I really couldn’t remember a word. As someone living the nofap lifestyle I try to avoid making things too pornographic and misogynstic and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t like the koohii mnemonics for Anki flashcards - and they also kinda ‘‘perversified’’ the original author’s own method and mnemonics (Remember the Kanji). But every heterosexual male loves him a pair of boobies. So no offense to your post.

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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