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+--- Thread: Primitives question. (/thread-6525.html)
Primitives question. - Spoke Lee - 2010-10-13
I'm starting RTK and am noticing that some keywords change when used to build another, ten > needle, early > sunflower, ect.
Does anyone use those these? It seems like a pain in the ass, I'd rather use one for each character. Am I gonna run into problems?
Primitives question. - Katsuo - 2010-10-14
This is done to help memorization. It's generally easier to remember kanji built from concrete objects like "sunflower" rather than concepts like "early".
Many members here have gone a stage further and replaced some of Heisig's primitives with their own characters and objects e.g. using "Spiderman" instead of "thread" for 糸.
Primitives question. - Asriel - 2010-10-14
Katsuo is right -- you think it's weird and stupid now, but later on you'll probably remember the 2nd meaning more than the 1st. Especially if it's a super memorable one -- like spiderman, mr t, etc...
Usually there's the keyword for the actual kanji itself, and then it changes if it's being used as a primitive. Such as 王 being used as "ball" as opposed to 玉, although even sometimes they go back and forth (if i recall correctly...).
Primitives question. - kapalama - 2010-10-14
More to the point, in order to make effective stories, it really helps to have a couple names for the common ones. About the 100th time you try and make 貝 into lobster clam etc, when "Money" would work better, you learn this.
(BTW, why has no one come up with a good second name for 隹? Turkey stories get old fast.)
Just jamming into the first 500 or 600 will help you realize that the couple hundred can be brute force memorized as quickly as they can be memorized with RTK, but after those first few hundred RTK really shines, and brute force simply breaks down for non-natives unless they are immersed in Japanese.
You have to see how effectively RTK breaks down especially similar and difficult ones to really appreciate it.