This is the discussion thread for the one hanzi, one picture project:

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=64433

Obviously a big thank-you goes to stoked, who came up with the original idea and put so much hard work into the one kanji, one picture project:

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=2553

For some time now I have been using stoked's picture thread as inspiration and a basis for my own studies of the hanzi. Along the way I have made some changes beyond the different ordering of RTH, listed below:

* I have expanded they keywords to be more inclusive of the full meaning of the character. Often this means multiple keywords. Where two keywords are clarifications of a single meaning, the English keywords are separated by commas. Semicolons separate distinctly different meanings.

* Where there are significant differences in meaning between Chinese and Japanese use of the character, those differences are noted. In general, the keyword field of a character may have a shared common meaning (if any), followed by any Chinese meaning (if any) which does not exist in Japanese on a new line prefixed with "普通話:", followed by any Japanese meaning (if any) which does not exist in Chinese on a new line prefixed with "日本語:".

* Component graphemes (primitives for you Heisig folks) and grapheme meanings for each hanzi are given. These are not from Heisig, but rather my own system with inspiration from numerous sources, so there shouldn't be an issue of copyright here (but if it's a problem Fabrice, please let me know).

* A tags field is included, for users of Anki or other tagging-enabled applications.

* I created full entries for each non-hanzi grapheme, down to even the simplist strokes. If at any time in history the grapheme had meaning as an independent hanzi, or if it had been assigned meaning in traditional etymology, I try to stick to those meanings for the English keyword.

* A short story (but often longer than stoked's) is given for each hanzi. Rarely are these mine... they are just stories I've accumulated that work for me, often from the study section of this site. I wish I could give credit to the original authors, but unfortunately I did not track that information in my Anki database... My sincerest apologies.

Each post will have five hanzi/graphemes, in order to make the pagination reasonable. And I will try to make one post a day, on average. Slow and steady, but always making progress is the goal. Please hold me to that.

I expect to continue this through at least 6000 hanzi (the full Taiwan character list plus any graphemes not formally listed as hanzi). If you do the math, you'll see that's a five year project at this pace. Obviously any help would be appreciated Contact me or post in this thread if you'd like to help out.

mafried Wrote:I expect to continue this through at least 6000 hanzi (the full Taiwan character list plus any graphemes not formally listed as kanji). If you do the math, you'll see that's a five year project at this pace. Obviously any help would be appreciated Contact me or post in this thread if you'd like to help out.

Amazing project. 6000 hanzi, crazy. Long term goals is what it's all about though.

So, I say go for it and keep it fun...yay!

mafried Wrote:Obviously a big thank-you goes to stoked, who started (and hopefully, one day, will complete) the one kanji, one picture project:

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=2553

Yep, I will complete it. I've slowed down substantially but that's because I've started with grammar (Japanese the Manga Way) and listening/jpod101. So it's all good. I should be done by the end of September the latest. Actually, probably much sooner. We'll see...

Why not also include a reading with the picture? (or maybe you have and I just didn't notice)

Thanks stoked. I never had any doubt that you would finish one kanji, one picture. I am a bit envious of the small(er) size of your project though! We'll see if I have the stamina to keep this up for 6000 hanzi (it helps that I'm already 1250 in, just not in Heisig order).

I have to say that I found your thread incredibly helpful during the entire project. Adding a picture to the card changes everything. It also makes the studying and story creation process much more interesting. When I got sick of learning kanji/hanzi off a list, I would sometimes browse the "one kanji, one picture" thread and just pick out entries that had a particularly interesting picture, and learn those.

There are a few kanji for which I changed the picture from the one you suggested. Sometimes because the grapheme meaning was different, but also sometimes I found one that just "clicked" better. Those may be interesting to you (I wish I had a list, but they'll be posted in time).

kazelee Wrote:Why not also include a reading with the picture? (or maybe you have and I just didn't notice)

Hmm. Good point. I'll add that in.

4 and a half days in and I'm only finishing lesson 1.. ah don't despair now! kazelee, don't worry I'll get that pinyin in there. it's on my list, just haven't done it yet.

i think it's fitting that today's update included 月, on the 40th anniversary of the apollo 11 moon landings! woohoo! well, one day off, but still...

mafried Wrote:Each post will have five hanzi/graphemes, in order to make the pagination reasonable. And I will try to make one post a day. Slow and steady, but always making progress is the goal. Please hold me to that.

Holding you to that.

BTW, I noticed you have 乙 listed as non-Heisig. It is frame 91.

Thanks. Work got busy... but no excuses! I take it you're finding the thread useful? That motivates me to stay on track. I'll find a way to make up for lost time....

bflatnine Wrote:BTW, I noticed you have 乙 listed as non-Heisig. It is frame 91.

Thanks; should be fixed now.

mafried Wrote:Thanks. Work got busy... but no excuses! I take it you're finding the thread useful?

Well I'm quite a bit further along than the thread is so far. But I really like the idea, and I know I've used some of the pics from the kanji thread in my own deck and it's been really helpful. I can't help but think other people would find it useful too.

I'm back! French and German may be taking up most of my time these days, but I still want to lay a foundation for Chinese. I'm going to try to keep up the original pace of 5 a day... and see if I can find a more manageable way to host image files and track updates. Maybe some sort of version control system? We'll see. It'll be nice if I could integrate it with Anki.

Pinyin has been added! I also went back and corrected some errors, added a non-Heisig frame that was missing (冂), and changed some pictures. I'm now at the start of Lesson 7, the first lesson not included in the free sample.

Looks good! Love to SRS it, is there an Anki deck of it somewhere?

I'm curious: how do you find the pictures? I mean you can probably just google for some specific stuff, like "tomahawk" but how do you find pictures for more complex/abstract concepts?

flickr! usually it's just a matter of finding the right search term (in english) and sorting by relevance or by flickr's "interesting" metric. i can't stress how important it is to find the right search term. if you're creative (or lucky) the search will result in pages of quality, artistic photos to select from. sometimes i have an idea of what i'm searching for, other times i look through photos searching for inspiration. i only choose one per kanji, and the choice is often arbitrary with plenty of other pictures that are just as good. the really good rejects i bookmark and return to later if it fits another kanji.

edit: that's how i chose my pictures, at least. the vast majority come from stoked's one kanji, one picture thread and he deserves all the credit for those selections!