Urgh. As far as my english skills go, I thought these all meant something along the lines of 'to tell someone off'. How can I separate the meanings a bit so that the kanji are easier not to get muddled up? Or does everyone find those three difficult?

Stupid synonyms...

Whenever I ran into kanji with similar keywords, I did the following:

1. Looked up the word to get a better grasp of its exact meaning.

2. Looked up the kanji to see if it was part of a Japanese word I already knew (in which case I changed the keyword to the Japanese one).

3. Played around with the keyword without thinking about its real meaning, checking for possible puns or words with similar spelling.

I've never had any trouble with these particular characters, but I hope these tips can be of some use.

Admonish is permanently cemented in my mind as "the one about words which you have to zoom in 300% to view on a web browser" so I don't forget it any more.

But with similar and/or abstract keywords it's best to associate them with people or places. For example chastise for me is Chastity Dingle, a character in a British TV show who, as luck would have it, is famous for having an annoying voice and talking a lot. So it's easy to imagine her lips being glued shut to stop more words coming out.

These kind of stupid & illogical connections are the foundation of the mnemonic method. Do whatever you have to if it helps you to remember, no matter how disgusting or illogical. I associated scatter with "scat", for instance, which is convenient given that salad is one of the primitives. Do you see where I'm going with this?

I think I tell these apart by their connotations, and then I guess I actually DO picture people and places for it. admonish: my mom telling off a cashier when I was a kid (I am in shock/awe of the words she is using). chastise: words that stick to you like glue. I guess I just picture someone feeling bad after they were chastised and taking it to heart. To be chastised is also something that you internalize. Rebuke, I had to think about it for a second but the vegetarian rebuking butcher's convention has almost biblical connotations. I REBUKE THEEEE! MEAT IS MURDER! DON'T TAZE ME BRO!

I keep finding new words that I make a point of trying to differentiate from the above what it reminds me of, which is: FAILURE (picture the taskmaster telling the shellfish, "you're a failure!"), aggression (taskmaster's craft is aggression)...

Other ones I accidentally mix up. Fat vs obese. Think of fat as the delicious fat in meat (like bacon) instead of a fat person (hmm, not to be confused with ROUND or PLUMP!)

Young vs juvenile primitives...

Download wordweb dictionary. I check the meaning of every word which does not have an physical reference. But only if you have a good knowledge of your language (which is not acquire just by being a native, but by reading) you will be able to determine in which context is better to use one or another word.

For keywords of similar meaning, I use word play and try to keep the stories vastly different.

rebuke: "sharp disapproval". sounds kind of like "puke".
chastise: reminds me of what a parent would do to their child.
Admonish: means "warn" rather than "tell off", so used that in my story.

Focus on the word, not the meaning of the word! It's how I deal with kanji which have similar meanings. The Kanji which always get me are the ones about 1, self, I, etc.



If i'm going to be rebuked, I would prefer the words don't come from some butchers wielding big knives.

Words of chastisement stick like glue.

I was admonished for actually saying words to the person I was in awe in. Don't speak to celebrities!

They're all very different stories.

But in general the ones you always fail end up being the ones you stick, because they get hammered in the old fashioned way by due to the fact that you had to review them so many times. It's not ideal, but as long as you learn them eventually.

I just finished RtK and the first thing I did was go through the words and put them into categories so I can study the similar kanji together and separate them better in my mind. I was confusing 'each' and 'every' when they first came up, so I worked on them side-by-side I never got them confused again.