I had a hard time with the pinnacle radical. I tried thinking of something to help me make an image but I couldn't think of anything clever and related.

Would it be bad if I were change it to "mountain climbing" or even "Ice-climbers"? (Retro game in the 80's )

It occurred to me that if I were to give even an unrelated meaning to a radical, I would be able to write it easier. So I did another.

With the thread radical I gave it two meanings.
When on top or bottom I gave it band aid--meaning is obvious. But when it appears on the left-hand side I gave it the random meaning, "Raguna". (Another video game character who does make his own clothes via threads.)

Is it OK to change the radicals so drastically? It doesn't change anything does it?
I think I just figured out the system. It took me a while. T__T

Can someone give me any tips as to change radicals to make it easier to remember?
Thank you so much!

Pinnacle was one I changed to my advantage. I turned it into an eccentric rich fella called "mr pinnacle" and pictured him as the guy on the monopoly board. Worked pretty well.

If you examine the situation closely you'll see that it doesn't really matter because there is not one kanji in RTK that actually uses the official radical names anyway. Heisig chose ones related and when that wasn't possible he went to town on making shit up for the sake of mnemonics.

If you need to change something because it's too difficult or abstract to work with then I think that's fine. I did it when I needed to and it helped a lot.

I plan on actually learning the proper names for the roughly 200 radicals just to transition my kanji knowledge from stuff that's made up to stuff that's actually valid. Not bagging Heisig or what he had to do to make it work for him because it did work for him and it's also worked for me

I think the only thing you have to be careful about is changing the name to something else that's already used by Heisig for a different radical.

Thank you both very much!
I don't think I will especially since that there is a reference in the back of the book with all the radical names.

^__^ This helped a lot seriously!

[Katsuo]

gyuujuice Wrote:I had a hard time with the pinnacle radical. I tried thinking of something to help me make an image but I couldn't think of anything clever and related.

In the book, Heisig suggests using an image of the Acropolis.

Quote:It occurred to me that if I were to give even an unrelated meaning to a radical, I would be able to write it easier. So I did another.

With the thread radical I gave it two meanings.
When on top or bottom I gave it band aid--meaning is obvious. But when it appears on the left-hand side I gave it the random meaning, "Raguna". (Another video game character who does make his own clothes via threads.)

I think choosing completely random meanings would make things unnecessarily difficult. But your "Raguna" meaning is fine, though, because you do relate it to "thread".

Quote:Can someone give me any tips as to change radicals to make it easier to remember?

Look through the stories on this site to see what other people chose. Also, you could make up something related to either:
a) Heisig's primitive
b) the radical meaning in Japanese
c) the shape of the radical (e.g. "pinnacle" looks a bit like a capital "B")

There's a long thread on this topic here.

mezbup Wrote:I plan on actually learning the proper names for the roughly 200 radicals just to transition my kanji knowledge from stuff that's made up to stuff that's actually valid.

Maybe you've seen this already, but here is a table of primitive/radical equivalent names.

Though it might not help, I made the pinnacle literally "The Pinnacle", ala "The Hills". This helped me relate a lot of the stories to rich snobby people. But to each his own. I mean, if you can remember multiple primitive meanings, you can think of it in different terms. Like the spiderman and thread series. Spiderman just doesn't work(for me) for some of the stories, so thread works out better.

Anyway, good luck =)

Edit2:
Also (post above me is much more detailed), if you can relate it to the alphabet, that might be even better. The point is to relate the story to you.

When doing this sort of change, this website might also help:

http://www.ravenbrook.com/project/etp24/...=*pinnacle

C.J.

I assign all kinds of strange things to different radicals. I use "lightpost" instead of Pinnacle, and the right side of Location (場） for the sun and the other wierd radical I use "strange creature", and instead of Mr. T, which most people seem to have assigned to the Person radical, I use "windmill".

I really don't think it matters what you call the radicals, as long as you can remember them.

Do it do it do it! I started to do it late in the game (1500 or so? can't remember), and it was the best thing I did. You can make way stronger associations with things that are personal too, and makes them way easier to remember. I used the names of friends, pets etc. I still used some of J.W.'s, but many I created to better suite my own mind.

gyuujuice Wrote:Would it be bad if I were change it to "mountain climbing" or even "Ice-climbers"? (Retro game in the 80's )

No, that would be great! If it helps, by all means do it.

I used the 300 (spartans) instead of pinnacle for no particular reason.

I changed mine as well...hated that name. I tend to change mine to people or archetypes of people.

Pinnacle became "sniper" FYI.. was easy to create a series of stories with this character same character in them. The meaning had no relation to the original keyword, just something that struck me randomly and it was a strong association.

If there is any keyword that's vague to you at all, try to give it a stronger associated (as suggested above, by changing Pinnacle to "The Pinnacle"). But if that doesn't give you
anything, then I'd change the word. Every time I changed one, it became much stronger.

Would also recommend going through and "re-learning" any Kanji on one you've changed though, otherwise you'll have some really confusing reviews down the road.

皆さん、本当にありがとうございました！\（ん＿ん）／

Katsuo, Thank you for your advice! I rarely use "c", the shape of the radical", unless I have no more card sleft to play.

Modoru and Cjon, Thank you.
"The hills" is a funny one as well. The site was helpful.

brandon7s and TaylorSan,
That is a relief that I am not the only one. I didn't think it would be harmful.
Thank you for your encouragement!

Evil_Dragon
Thanks, I couldn't hear anything with "pinnicle", but when I chose "Ice-climbers" I could hear as well as see the radical. ^__^

Ben_Nielson, I like that one too. A sniper is usually on some sort of pinnicle anyhow.

Thank you so much guys!
I hope to finish 500 漢字 before the end of this month and then use Smartfm to reinforce them in words. お互いに頑張りましょうね！

To anyone that speaks German:
"Pinnicle" looks like ß
I haven't gotten anywhere near that primative yet, but I've always thought that it looked like a s-zet. When I get to it I'll probably make it mean that, or the German language somehow.

[Katsuo]

Ciaran12 Wrote:"Pinnicle" looks like ß

Note that there are two versions of "ß".
When it appears on the left (e.g. 陣) RTK calls it "pinnacle".
When it appears on the right (e.g. 部) RTK calls it "city walls".

Suggestion: For two distinct German-related images how about Marx and Hitler (i.e. lefty and righty).

The problem with making up your own primitive names though, is that you can't then use the stories on this site.

Katsuo Wrote:Suggestion: For two distinct German-related images how about Marx and Hitler (i.e. lefty and righty).

That's a really good way to remember their positions, thanks. I'll definately use that.