Share your own mnemonics thread, third iteration!

WaniKani Tips & Tricks
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Hello, everyone!

I’m very new to wanikani, and as many people here, sometimes I make my own mnemonics. I was wondering if other people do too, and if they would like to share. I already found more than three threads in which to share those weird mnemonics we come up with when home alone, but all of them were closed already, so I thought it might be a good moment to open a new one.

OK, let’s begin with this beauty: 山. I met the mountain in Duolingo, and for me it looks more like a simplified fire. In Spanish, “llama” is the word for “flame” and it is pronounce exactly やま, so this one is easy, but of course, if you don’t know Spanish, you might link the mountains with the llamas (who were used in the high peruvian plateaus…)

This is going to sound stupid, but for water 水, I had known it beforehand as みず and was having trouble with すい . Then I remembered that game that became famous recently, Suika game, which was about putting fruits together… I remembered that the final fruit was a watermelon, and that Suika means that. I guess that the “sui” in the “suika” is also the same kanji, but in any case, remembering the fruits and watermelons in the game helped me a lot to remember that second reading. This is recursive, but it works.

大した ; In order to remember the reading for this considerable, important, significant, bit deal, I remember that it’s “THE s***”… and you have to wear a tie because it’s The s***… Which I guess is quite ridiculous, but…

As for the difference between 大 and 木… Well, in Spain we have an euphemism for taking a dump, which is “plantar un pino” or “to plant a pine tree”. I can’t avoid thinking that the second pic is the big guy in the first one, “planting a pine tree” (plantando un pino), which makes it much easier for me to remember both AND not mix those two.

I will continue reading the previous threads on alternative mnemonics, but I would also love to read more comments here.

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say! i just thought of this idea. it’s a shame not many people have responded to this post. i also love suika, i had no idea it meant watermelon until a couple days go. no wonder the last fruit is a watermelon!

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I’ve had to make my own mnemonics for some stuff lately, when wanikani gets too lazy. I like to include both the meaning and the reading in one sentence; I do think that WK splitting it up into two different mnemonics sometimes makes it harder to remember.

Here’s a recent one:

L22- Region 域

WK's mnemonic:

Meaning:

Under the dirt in the ground is a drunkard with something in his mouth from a region in North America. He died from whatever it is that’s in his mouth. That’s how this drunkard ended up under the ground in the first place. His whole face region is disfigured from whatever he ate. I wonder what region of North America the strange object came from?

Reading:
In an attempt to identify what region of North America the thing in the drunkard’s mouth came from, you touch it and try to remove it with your bare hands. Upon touching whatever it is, you find it to be all icky (いき) and gooey. Like, super icky. So icky that you barf in the region immediately adjacent to you.

I felt that theirs was way too long and kind of confusing.

My mnemonic:

The drunkard uses his mouth to draw a line in the dirt between regions. Ew, it’s kind of icky いき that he uses his mouth for that. At least we know which region is which though.

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験 ( horse + squid ) made me think of GLaDOS + Wheatley. ‘Test’ came pretty easily from that

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