So there are some very questionable clues in Wanikani, so wondering which ones you have created that are pure gold?
For Sheep, I think “hit tushy”. Like smacking a sheep’s ass. That’s a horrible example, but better than some of the weird ones they give you. ANYWAY, whats the best youve created yourself?
教 means teaching and is pronounce きょう, but きょう, also means today, so to remember I think of an angry teacher from the south saying “oh you go’n learn today”
This is more a visual clue, and while not the one and only meaning of 「退」in 「退社 (たいしゃ)」, the 「良」-like component of 「退」always looks a little like a person trudging away from the office on the road back home after an exhausting day. I believe that interpretation is corroborated by ② on these results from Weblio: 「退社(たいしゃ)」の意味や使い方 わかりやすく解説 Weblio辞書
The かわいい girl bathes in the river (かわ), her skin (かわ) all wet and glistening.
For 形 - The Shaper (boss from Path of Exile) sends these glowing orbs flying towards you, they look like hairy lanterns. Avoiding them is key (けい). He’s pretty tough, so I do a kata to focus my chi before attacking him. (かたち)
The official mnemonic is “hits Jesus”. It’s silly, but it works fine for me, the image of a sheep hitting Jesus is vivid enough that I haven’t felt the need to come up with anything else.
Actually, in my experience silly mnemonics work very well, the ones I have trouble with are the bland ones where you don’t have anything ridiculous or shocking to focus on. Like I recently messed up 央 because the mnemonic for that one is kinda dull and it just didn’t stick.
I wouldn’t call this pure gold but it’s one I remember off the top of my head:
For 組, the kanji reading is そ and the mnemonic is that it’s a group and they’re all making soap in their top hats. The vocab reading is くみ, and I don’t actually even know the WaniKani mnemonic for it because I immediately thought of the same group making soap AND rubber, because ”kumi” is the Finnish word for rubber.
my personal mnemonics are quite anime haha. already mentioned some in the forum, but gonna list them here, too!
for 知 (ち) i always say “chichi knows best”.
for 出 (しゅつ) i think of “shutsu, the soft ninja way. soft ninjas have to exit. world is too cruel for them.”
for 内 (うち) i say “you can’t get inside the uchiha-clan because you’re a loser-ninja.”
for 化 (か) i have some personal thing. i have an own character with a spoon that changes it’s size. that character’s name is bobby, so i just remember this kanji by saying “bobby car”.
for 通る (とおる) i say “the ball passed through! TOOOOOR!!11”
for 先 (さき) i say “sakimichan was one of the artists i followed in my past years on deviantart.”
for 休み (やすみ) i say “yato has to take a rest/break when he’s covered in yasumi.”
etc. haha. usually WK mnemonics work fine for me, sometimes my brain just helps me a little more.
It’s not that great because the pronunciation of the vocab is pretty easy to remember.
For 名人 (master/expert) I realised the pronunciation めいじん sounds like someone with a speech impediment saying ‘amazing!’. So if I ever find myself struggling maybe I’ll think of someone really impressed by the work of the master shouting out ‘a…MEIJIN!’
(hope this doesn’t offend any folk out there with speech impediments, just where my stupid little head ran off to)
A lot of the ones that work best for me are video game related. Based on some of my more recent lessons, Shujin Academy (Persona 5) now trains world-class pitchers 投手(とうしゅ) and is the best place to get alcohol 酒(しゅ)—though you’ll might have to ask some of the more radical 部首(ぶしゅ) delinquents where to find it.
A non-game mnemonic that I’m rather fond of for the reading of 調べる: If you 知(し)らない (don’t know) about something, than you really need 調(しら)べる (to investigate) it.
But my best (worst?) one is probably for the vocab reading for 生, which I had the hardest time remembering until I composed a (terrible) rap: Mr. Obama, going to the Bahamas… Please don’t be eating… the なま llama.