For the last 14 months we’ve been steadily working to create mnemonic images for every radical, kanji, and vocabulary on WaniKani. So far we’ve created 855 of them, covering 9.3% of all items, and we’re going to keep going! With the release of DALL-E 3 we’re now able to create more complex and better mnemonic images, more easily than ever! Original post:
Install the userscript to see our mnemonic images: (userscript)
Join our Discord to help us create mnemonic images: (Discord invite)
Here is a sample of some of our latest creations made with DALL-E 3:
乳 (milk): “Giving cleats to a child carrying an umbrella is the best way to gather milk. You don’t have any containers, so the child has to hold milk in the upside-down umbrella. The cleats are so the child can run back and forth to transport the milk around.”
撮 (photograph): “You put your fingers and an ear on a stool in the sun so you can get your photograph taken. This is a glamour photo, so you have to be in one of these weird, cheesy poses for it to come out jusssst right.”
Guess the kanji? I tried to get Dall-e 3 to put the kanji in the picture, with the main meaning, and the onyomi kunyomi, but really couldnt get it to. Anyways, fun stuff, good luck with the project.
That’s a great one! That’s definitely 検 (examine) and you covered both meaning and reading quite well. We don’t have an image for that one yet, could I add yours? Also if you want to contribute more images directly to the project, please feel free to join our Discord server.
I’ve updated the images for meaning and reading for 構 with new ones that I generated with DALL-E 3. See https://www.wanikani.com/kanji/構 - you may have to hit CTRL+F5 or SHIFT+F5.
If anyone else spots an image they don’t like, feel free to ask me to update it here, or on the Discord server (Discord server invite link: WaniKani Image Mnemonics).
I am absolutely loving the idea behind this as I am very much a visual learner so this is very welcome. Certainly looking forward to whatever nightmare fuel my eyes may gaze upon!!
I’m glad you’re enjoying it! There’s still a lot that isn’t covered but we’re working on it every day! Also I’ve never seen that one for 園 and it is both perfect and also horrifying, I love it
I love this script. As a visual learner it has totally helped me with WK. But… it’s really suffering from being ahead of it’s time. A lot of the images have that heavy early-AI scrapbook look. Also tbh the ones with AI people in them are kinda unpleasant to look at. Maybe it’s because I do WK first thing in the morning but it really puts me off.
As I said, I really love this script and I hate to give negative feedback. But my suggestion would be rather than pushing to get every item in WK finished, take a beat and replace some of the people images with modern AI imagery.
You are absolutely right, these were all generated with older AI systems and I think they should have avoided photographic style in light of its limitations with anatomy. I think revisiting these with DALL-E 3 and (where necessary) going for more cartoony styles will help avoid a lot of the unpleasantness. I’ll plan to comb through them and identify candidates for replacement and get them fixed. Apologies for the unpleasantness and thank you for highlighting these examples!
Imo I find “drawing” style generated images involving fantasy imagery to be a whole lot more intuitive over the more realistic images oh i just love the squid one sticking to the tree it really makes an impression on me
