Reading Mnemonic for 由 vs 理

Both of these kanji have a mnemonic which goes from the word reason to the sound.

Can’t have reason without り。
And
“Why me?” you ask. “Because only you (ゆう) can do this,” they reply.

Problem is I can’t remember which reading goes with which kanji. I can only remember that there are two readings from the word reason.

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The 理 has a small /i/ in its left side, so the reading is り (ri).

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Oh. That seems super useful.

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Let me know if it doesn’t work :slight_smile:

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You seem to have an own mnemoric for every word :thinking:

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No, not at all xD I only use mnemonics for kanji and after 2/3 days they’re gone from my memory. I just make one up when someone asks for help.

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理・り shares its phonetic mark with 里・り, which you know already but whose on’yomi you sadly have to wait a while to learn (郷里)

由・ゆう shares its phonetic mark with 油・ゆ (oil), which you sadly have to wait a while to learn but probably already know a word it shows up in: 醤油・しょうゆ, soy sauce.

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You are really good at creating mnemonics then. The best I’ve done is whenever I have trouble figuring whether a vocab word using 人 is にん or じん I make up a quick story about whether the word involves a ginger or a ninja.

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Appreciate it :slight_smile: At the beginning, I used to have some problems with the じん and にん thing, but not really anymore. With time, you kind of learn how to unconsciously see what sounds better, or at least your brain starts accepting the correct answers better.

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The reason is because Ryu (理由 riyu) from Streetfighter put them that way and if you change the order, you’re gonna get a hadouken to the face :slight_smile: street_fighter_ryu_hadoken

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