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Trigger Words - Johnnyltn - 2006-10-02
This topic has been touched on briefly on this site. (See: On "imaginative memory" and mnemonics) but I thought I'd share some of my tips that have helped me. First, a short intro: I found this site about a month ago. I had already finished 1500+ kanji. I had a review system but it wasn't very systematic. Anyway, I loaded my 1500+ kanji into the review section here and got started. Well, to say the least I was failing a few kanji hitting about 50%-80% self-test scores. I wasn't satisfied with these results. I set a goal that if the kanji didn't "pop" into my mind upon seeing the keyword then I judged that I didn't have that kanji down very well. In other words, if I had to spend more than a few seconds searching through my memory for the story and then put the kanji together I felt that I needed to sharpen my story. When going back to my original story for a kanji I often found that the story was still good but for some reason over time I was losing my ability to recall it. This got me to thinking about using ?trigger words? that I could tie directly with the English keyword. Finding a word that rhymed with the English keyword and would project/propel me right into my kanji story was my goal.
Let me illustrate. Take the kanji for ?Contend? (1154). Now this is a pretty easy one. I created the trigger combo of ?Contend/Contender?. The direct association of the keyword ?Contend? with my trigger word ?Contender? works well into the story which has the two primitives ?bound up? and ?rake?. I?ve created my story clearly first in my mind. In this case a prize fighter ?contends? to keep his crown and has ?bound up? his ?contender? in the corner and is ?raking? him over the ropes. I then go back and place my trigger words at the start of my story, in this case ?Contend/Contender?. Now, whenever I see the keyword ?Contend? my first memory association is with the rhyming trigger word ?Contender? which then projects me right into my story.
Fortunately, the next kanji in the book just so happens to be ?Clean? (1155). This is again an easy one. Taking the keyword ?Clean? we have the primitives ?water? and ?contend?. The story is that ?water? is being splashed on our ?contender? to ?clean? off all the blood from his battered face. The trigger combo is ?Clean/Contender?. So, when I see ?clean? flash on my review screen I immediately conjure the trigger word ?contender? and the whole story falls into place.
Now, let?s take something a bit more abstract like ?Jurisdiction? (1405) which has the primitives ?order? and ?head?. I have chosen the trigger combo ?Jurisdiction/Jury?. So, the story goes that the jury?s ?jurisdiction? allows them to ?order? the ?head? of the prisoner to be cut off. When I see ?Jurisdiction? on my review screen up pops my trigger word ?Jury? and I?m quickly on my way.
This is getting a bit long but let me conclude with two more examples. Let?s take the keyword ?Gain? (876). Here we have the primitives ?going? ?night break? and ?glue?. Now, I?ve always been challenged by this kanji. I had constructed my story for it a long time ago but for months on review I just couldn?t get all the primitives right. But, now using my trigger combo method I seem to have gotten it down well. In this case I use the trigger ?Gain/Go?. So upon seeing the keyword ?Gain? I instantly get the trigger ?go? and I?m on my way.
I struggled with ?Divide? (478) which includes the primitives ?muzzle? and ?saber?. My original story was similar to those posted on the sight and the natural association with the phrase ?divide and conquer? had long been part of my story. But, I found on review that I struggled with kanji of similar meanings. Also, the primitives ?muzzle? and ?saber? don?t lend themselves to rhyming with the keyword ?divide?. I wanted to find a word that would rhyme with the keyword and safely launch me into my story. I finally came up with the trigger combination of ?Divide/Drill?. I modified my original story to reflect this trigger. Now I have the ?muzzle? being ?drilled? to the conquered foe and his spoils being ?divided? (the saber lends itself easily to the keyword of divide).
Sorry this is a bit long winded but I hope these few illustrations will help others to gain a handle on their review work and speed the learning of kanji for them. Not all kanji lend themselves to such easy methods as illustrated here but with some thought and thinking out of the box this might be a key to successful review. I look forward to hearing what others have done along this line.
Trigger Words - synewave - 2006-10-02
Thanks for sharing one of your techniques. It's always interesting hearing how other people do it.
Johnnyltn Wrote:Let me illustrate. Take the kanji for ?Contend? (1154). Now this is a pretty easy one. I created the trigger combo of ?Contend/Contender?. The direct association of the keyword ?Contend? with my trigger word ?Contender? works well into the story which has the two primitives ?bound up? and ?rake?.Although my story is different, I use the same association here. contend->contender->story
A few others I do something similar with are:
holy->Holyfield (as in the boxer)
encroach->on crotch
beforehand->be for hand to hand combat
compare->compere
So I agree, mnemonics like this can really help associate the Heisig keywords to your story and in turn the kanji.
Other keywords themselves suggest a story or image directly so that there is no need to refine the keyword.
Certainly for me the hardest words to remember though are ones where I cannot associate the keyword well enough to the story I use. And to paraphrase Johnnyltn - not all kanji lend themselves to such easy an technique.
Trigger Words - cbogart - 2006-10-02
I like to give myself as long as necessary to remember a kanji; sometimes I'll sit there for 30s to 1m racking my brains. My thinking is that I'm exercising my memory, and that a difficult-but-successful recall is actually the best possible exercise, just like lifting a weight as heavy as you can lift is good for the muscles. The next time through it seems to come much more readily. (I'm also just doing 10 new kanji a day, so that probably helps too.)