Maybe part of the problem is because English is an L2 to me...
But aren't there really too many words about money? I understand money is something that stick into your head, but I'm now failing most of these cards because I confuse which is which.

I'm aroung frame 920, and that's what I've got:
[between square brackets are those that don't give me problems]

earnings (893), savings (194), [treasure(257) , wealth (193)], assets (473) stocks (222)
tax(895), toil (865), [tribute(), levy (378)]
[profit (906)], gain(876)
prize (796 it has shellfish in it, so I think of this as realted to money)
presents (503 "money that increase each time you give it away", says Heisig)

I don't know if there are other 2-3 kanji that could make it on this list. Luckly Profit and Pear begin with the same letter, and since profit appears in the kanji for pear I usually manage to distinguish it from the rest... for "levy" I managed to change the keyword in something that worked for me. "Tribute" and "wealth" I remember just because they were between the first of the book.

Does anyone have some advices?
How do you dinstinguish between these words? Is it simple if English is L1?
I understand that some of these words are really different, and I don't confuse earnings with taxes ;-)

I think that my problem is mainly that even if I create different stories for similar keywords I end up not knowing which keyword goes with which story.

Well I guess first you should change the keyword to your L1, that might help.
Then you should probably change your stories. I think it's the wrong angle to think of all these in term of "money". Try to visualize something more concrete: like treasure is obviously a big pirate chest full of gems under a roof, while tax is that devil come to collect your wheat.

About all you mentionned, the only two I keep confusing is levy and tribute, so I just write them both. And toil is more about work than money I think.

For the common primitives I believe it's recommended (possibly by Heisig himself) that you have multiple images that can be used to represent each one. It really makes things a lot easier and shouldn't be hard to remember because you'll be using them so much.

I changed levy in "Pizzo" (the money that mafia asks from stores to "protect" them) to remember it was a warrior taking it and it worked. But for some of these keywords it's not so easy. Also from the point of view of the stories: I think at least three of this kanji have some prized posession (if it isn't money) kept under a roof/house.

I'm not translating the other words because I'm afraid of messing things up even more: even if I just consider these words I have that "earnings" and "gain" correspond to the same word in italian (the first plural, the second singular, but still not really different words). And I'm just halfway through, I don't know what problematic words could lie ahead!

Thank you for pointing out I was misunderstanding toil -.-
I recognize now that I was confusing it with toll, I feel very stupid for this now. Well, that's another one I'm not going to get wrong anymore.

Well English is not your L1, so not really your fault.
Also the kanji for "gain" is not only used in the financial sense, it's also more generally something "obtained" with a positive effect. Pretty sure you can find two different words in Italian for gain and earnings.

Also again you're thinking "prized possession", it's too abstract. The more you think of something detailed and concrete, the better you'll remember your stories I think. But yeah, there really are a lot of similar keywords, so later on people add the Japanese prononciation to the keyword, but it's confusing to do when you haven't finished RTK imo.

Ephel Wrote:I'm not translating the other words because I'm afraid of messing things up even more

Perhaps it would be worth just spending a few days going through the whole book and translating the words. That way you can work out any conflict before it becomes an issue.

Also it's worth mentioning that it really doesn't matter if the keywords have any relation to the words you end up learning with those kanji in. It's helpful but not a big deal.

贈る actually means "to send (a gift)".
稼ぐ is "to earn money by working".
資 could be renamed to "resources".

Thanks for all your help!
Vempele, thank you expecially for 稼ぐ: it seems something I could really weave into a good story. I'll also try your "resources" (I'm afraid 贈る could get mixed with other things meaning to send something, so I'll keep it for another time).

EratiK, the italian word I was thinking about is "guadagno", which has the same roots as "gain" and it also can be not in a finacial sense. If I used the "financial sense" world it would be "profitto" (profit, which is the keyword for another kanji).
A lot of Italian words translate into two different english words, one of them coming from latin. Still... thank you for pointing out that gain is not strictly financial. I'll try to build some strong between "earning" and "gain" based on that!

Splatted, I've thought about doing that, if the problems persist I'll do it.
Or maybe I can try to learn the nuances of the English keywords better and improve my English while I study Japanese!

You guys are really helping me shortening the list of confusing words :-D
It's nearly starting to make sense again. Thank you!

If your L1 is Italian I'd suggest this list for the translation of Heisig's keywords (there are the stories in Italian too).

http://kanjimania.wordpress.com/archivio-kanji/

I'm Italian and I've used it quite a lot, at least at the beginning.

sunehiro Wrote:If your L1 is Italian I'd suggest this list for the translation of Heisig's keywords (there are the stories in Italian too).

http://kanjimania.wordpress.com/archivio-kanji/

I'm Italian and I've used it quite a lot, at least at the beginning.

The same goes for me, I've done my own stories but those keywords saved me a lot of time and I can guarantee you it's way more simple if you do it in your L1