I have problem realizing the story behind kanji 333 from Heising book, or to be more precise I don't really know what happenstance means, I tried looking online for definition of the word and I found out that it basically means event but then a story made even less sense. So can someone help me with this one? In case you are not sure about a kanji I am talking about it is written with kanji for old on left and primitive taskmaster on the right.

Happenstance is a random, unpredictable thing. Something that just happens, for no rhyme or reason.

You should google it, maybe it shows up in the context of some actual text. It's really hard to explain how it's used otherwise.

You can change the keyword, by the way, if you don't want to bother trying to learn the word happenstance. You could just go with the word "random" instead. It wouldn't take anything away from the method. That Kanji doesn't really mean happenstance.

Stansfield123
Thanks for a fast replay, I will do as you suggested. And I can easily connect a story with a words random or/and unpredictable.

Quote:That Kanji doesn't really mean happenstance.

Nor anything close to it. For a keyword that matches the meaning of 故, consider "reason".

Vempele
I don't really understand what are you saying, I mean in a way reason is a complete opposite of random. Are you saying that this is a mistake in a book? Or are you saying that reason is more often used meaning for that kanji?
If the first how often does that happen?

Many of the RTK keywords could probably be improved upon. It's probably better to think of the keywords as names for the kanji rather than their meanings because some kanji don't have meanings, or rather multiple meanings. In my opinion changing too many keywords is probably a bad idea if you plan on using other people's stories as you'll have trouble down the line when your keywords don't match the keywords used in the stories.

"Reason" and "old" are the two most common meanings of 故. My kanji dictionary does not list a meaning resembling "happenstance" for the kanji; perhaps Heisig used this because of the word 事故 (accident), which is probably the most common word in modern Japanese that uses the kanji.

[Katsuo]

Sometimes there is an English keyword that summarises a kanji’s usage quite well, but other times there isn’t. 故 is one of the latter cases.

I made a spreadsheet to compare the keywords allotted to each kanji by various sources, and from it one can see if there is a broad consensus on a particular kanji.

If one of Heisig’s keywords is not working for you, then consider selecting one from the other sources (but check first that your new keyword doesn’t appear elsewhere in RTK).

One good source of keywords and examples is Halpern’s Kanji Learner’s Dictionary which (by happenstance!) is on sale at one third the usual price at the App Store right now.

I don’t like “happenstance” as a keyword for 故, but there isn’t an ideal alternative. Here are a few ideas:

Suggestion (1): Let keyword = “older”. (“old” would be better but has already been used for 古. )
Mnemonic: 古 (old) + the last two letters of taskmaster = older (OLDtaskmastER)

Suggestion (2) keyword = “circumstance/ situation/ event”. The trouble with these is the meaning is a bit vague.

Suggestion (3) keyword = “therefore”. Because 故に (yue ni) means “therefore”.
Story: The taskmaster is reading Descartes tombstone (古) which says “I think, therefore I am”.
By the way: “I think therefore I am.” in Japanese is 我思う、故に我在り (ware omou, yue ni ware ari).
The problem with “therefore” is that it is a minor meaning, and not useful for understanding compounds.

Oh well, the good news is that most kanji are easier to learn than this one.

Car Accident, but old so before cars, so old.

It's used in the word for car/train accident in Japanese, and used in place names in Japan and China, where the old part of the meaning comes to the fore.

Also secoding Katsuo's suggestion:

One good source of keywords and examples is Halpern’s Kanji Learner’s Dictionary which (by happenstance!) is on sale at one third the usual price at the App Store right now.

This is a great dictionary. It's older (and out of print) brother is even more amazing, but is both out of print and not available electronically.