Is it a bad idea to use other kanji/Japanese for mnemonics?

I like adding my own mnemonics for new stuff that seems hard to remember (it’s worked WONDERS for me to sing - to the tune of Judy Garland’s The Trolly Song - “say, say, SEI it’s a staaar” for 星 and “my, my, MAI it’s my younger sisteeerr” for 妹, but I digress)

But sometimes it’s hard to make an English mnemonic for something (the folks at Wanikani certainly earned our money!) So for stuff like 目次, もくじ, I’m thinking, “the table of contents was written with wooden characters - 木MOKU 字JI”

Has anyone else used other Japanese stuff to remember new kanji/vocab? Is that a good idea or does it make everything more confusing later on and I should just stick to English mnemonics??

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I don’t really think it would be detrimental. Many people use their own mnemonics. You should however, for consistency, write down whatever mnemonic you use in the “notes” section for that particular item, so you can reference it at a later date.

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Even WK itself sometimes does that later on, so I think it’s perfectly OK - whatever works for you :slight_smile:

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Sweet, thanks! Time to start recycling my kanji knowledge to my brain’s content!

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