For all the good mnemonics on WaniKani there’s a few shockers that I’ve really struggled with and have resorted to my own. My most recent one is for 考える where the reading mnemonic is to think about yourself doing the conga. I’ve got this wrong so many times the last couple of days so I’ve taken to adjusting it.
I can’t think of much else other than conga that seems to fit so I’ve adapted it to King Kong doing the conga and he’s become so famous he’s now known as King Kanga. The famous giant Gorilla that stomps around starting conga lines wherever he goes.
I make my own for the grammar points I learn on Bunpro often, as they don’t provide them. I remember that 「まだ」means “still” by imagining, like, a family holiday dinner or something taking place, and so the aunts and whoever see the daughter of the family for the first time in awhile and ask “No man, yet? You still aren’t a madda? (mother)”. Silly, but it works!
That’s a really good idea. I’m not sure why but I never thought to use them for grammar points and they’re arguably harder to remember than some kanji. I’ll have to try that.
This is one that I came up with when I was just studying vocabulary before I started wanikani (aka I knew very few kanji), but it always makes me chuckle. 面白い (おもしろい) = funny/interesting. So my mnemonic is “Oh (お) my (も) white (白/しろ) people are interesting.” I always imagine myself as a foreigner in Japan doing something that is amusing to the locals as I don’t know all the social norms, etc.
Too many people in this 付近 neighbourhood. I rarely make mnemonics but when I do I remember them far better than with the WK ones, for the trickier kanji anyway. I should make more
Edit: Should we make some kind of master wiki post for these?
Great minds think alike? And er… let’s leave it at that I posted it before in the mnemonics competition that was held for WK Wednesday a few months ago. Speaking of, is WK Wednesday still a thing?
It is/was a weekly Wednesday event where the WK staff members took it in turns to challenge the community with various competitions and select winners, often with a prize.
I usually forget all the mnemonics within a day or two, but the two I remember recently are ones I made up, although the second one uses part of the original mnemonic.
怪しい「あや」しい - Whose the most suspicious person? Definitely Aya (from Touhou)
給 「きゅう」 - Your boss is Nitori (also from Touhou!). How does she pay your salary? With cucumbers of course! Cuz, ya’know, Kappas like cucumbers.
I guess these wouldn’t really work unless you were familiar with the series, but I may be a little bit of a fan.
wanikani’s mnemonic for 歯 (teeth) haunts me… i will never forget this kanji because i see rice boxes full of teeth in my nightmares…
ill remember it forever, but at what cost?!
I don’t make my own mnemonics much but I actually made one for that back in level 9, definitely less SFW: “Oh my god. She’s 付近 everyone in the neighborhood. What a hoe.”
I don’t know why but if I’m struggling with a mnemonic I just come up with a character for it and write them a short personality and description. 車 is the rich guy who loves to show off his car, 右 and 左 are siblings but complete opposites of each other, 曲 loves music and carries a boombox all the time (I think the kanji looks like a boombox) and so on.
“Oh 欠かす I missed.”