I'll strat with an example. If you have e.g. 五 kanji. It's the easiest one, I know, but it's about to show the idea. The keyword is simply "5". And now. How do you manage to remember this keyword? This keyword is rather alike a primitive...

Well, I think you should to have an idea about this keyword, how you could imagine, how you could see it clearly in your mind. So in my opinion you should find something what you could associate with this keyword. E.g. starfish. That's because it's difficult to see just the number five. It's easier to see something conected to. Now if you have this starfish, or maybe the pentacle, you can easily connect it with other primitives (e.g. ceiling and floor in this case). Of course maybe there is no need to use this all the time...

The problem comes with more abstract keywords. How do you manage with them (let's say it's a primitive and you don't have any other primitives to connect into one piece)?

To sum up. It seems like the keyword has its second keyword (or could have had)... Do you think it is possible to find such "keywords" to each keyword. I mean things you could really see in your imagination.

That's an interesting idea. Fortunately there are very few situations where the keyword is so abstract and usually it happens with primitives that you use over and over so many times that you simply learn it through standard brute force repetition.

I'd be afraid myself of losing the association from the second keyword to the first or worse yet there's a high chance that the second keyword could itself turn out to be the keyword of a future kanji and memory chaos ensues so to speak. If someone was having a really hard time with remembering a primitive though this might be a good technique if used carefully.

Seems like this might be more of a problem with the native language vs. English keywords? I never had a problem, because I knew most of the words. I think people deal with 'abstract' words by working them into the story. To avoid an 'infinite regress' of keywords for keywords for keywords for keywords, especially when your target isn't to memorize the keyword, it's to memorize the kanji, I'd recommend working the 'sense' of the keyword into the story, or just switching to another RTK keyword language (I have no idea what other non-English-native users have done with that, though). Or just use Japanese keywords (re: wrightak's project), start picking up vocabulary while working kanji/story/keyword together...

Another thing that helped me is placing the keyword at the very beginning of the story, like the first word.

This idea comes straight from mnemotechnincs. I've once used it to connect numbers with things they are easy to associate with.
E.g.: 1 - needle, 2 - swan, 3 - clover, 4 - chair, 5 - starfish, 6 - padlock, 7 - scythe, 8 - snowman, 9 - solar system (it could be a sort of key ring - its easier to imagine things we could do something with) or pregnant women, 10 - baseball (long item) and the ball or maybe a sword and a shield.

The association shoud be very strong. You have to spent time to find one you like the most. Then you won't confuse it. It's not easy to find such ones, but when you happily do, the imagine is all yours...

What for all of this? Well, if you have for egzample 五 kanji (or any other). You are supposed to connect it with the meaning. And you do. But it happens you fail then. And it's beacause your brain doesn't see that connection... It's not familiar... If you have the meaning and if you can see anything what is already familiar with it, you've done it... Now it's a piece of cake to connect it with the keyword.

nest0r Wrote:Seems like this might be more of a problem with the native language vs. English keywords? (...) I'd recommend working the 'sense' of the keyword into the story, or just switching to another RTK keyword language.

The problem is there are only a few translations... But it would definitely solve the problem. That's why I'm working on Polish keywords. It's a lot easier to make a native story...

nest0r Wrote:Another thing that helped me is placing the keyword at the very beginning of the story, like the first word.

I do the same. It helps very much indeed.

[ファブリス]

Technically "five" is not a good example, because it's a very common character. And it actually has some stories like "three and a sideways two make 5". Just as "three" is "two plus one in the middle".

I think Piotoro means "how do you remember the abstract primitives", which themselves are not based on more parts.

Many indivisible primitives and weirdly shaped ones are difficult to remember after a long time of not seeing them (I can tell ). The book does rely on a little bit of plain old visual memory.

This requires some practice.. but it's always possible to go from an abstract word to a vivid image. The image itself may not represent the word directly but will make for the vital memory association.

For example for 五 you could imagine the Jackson Five, two of them standing, one lying on the floor, and the other two being held up horizontally by their brothers. This one would be an association to the shape of the character, which is usually a NO NO for RtK, however for remembering the primitives themselves I think it's ok.

Piotoro Wrote:I'll strat with an example. If you have e.g. 五 kanji. It's the easiest one, I know, but it's about to show the idea. The keyword is simply "5". And now. How do you manage to remember this keyword? This keyword is rather alike a primitive...

Heisig says his book is the alternative to rote memorization, but there's no other way around these situations. Fortunately rote memorization and visual memory are not useless. They're unreliable for recalling complex kanji, but for simple kanji like 五 where the keyword has no connection, it works just fine. Kanji like this tend to occur frequently, so it shouldn't be too troubling to use the inadvertent review you get from encountering them as primitives as memory reinforcement. I'm not going to knock what works for you, but I don't see how associating 五 with starfish makes the situation any different. 8 may look like a snowman, but 八 does not. 心 doesn't look like any heart I ever saw in biology class, but it's widely pervasive as a primitive element so I never forget it.

To me it seems like it's adding a superfluous second step into the rote memorization process to have a keyword of a keyword. Remember the goal is to go from kanji directly to meaning, not from English to mnemonic to kanji, or kanji to mnemonic to numeral.

jajaaan Wrote:8 may look like a snowman, but 八 does not

And that's why I imagined a snowman on the top of The Fuji mountain (/\ or 八).
I come to conclusion I'm just not proficient in making associations with keywords...
EDIT:

jajaaan Wrote:心 doesn't look like any heart I ever saw in biology class

I would imagine the longest line as the aorta (it goes through the whole abdomen) and thouse three spots as three blood vessels: superior and inferior venas cavas on the left and the pulmonary trunk on the right...

And the other egzample 好. I've translated the keyword into Polish as to like. And it's easy to sea women with her baby, and see her feelings...

But there are keywords difficult to see, to imagine. And what I'm talking about, that it's important to see the keyword itsself before even the story starts up... And I called it the second keyword, because often there could be something what we can find in the world (like the starfish), what could be associated with the keyword...

You might also want to check out the '1 kanji 1 picture' thread... http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2432

Not sure if anyone finished that or incorporated it into a Greasemonkey script or something, though...

More: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...8#pid78288

(I'm referring to using pictures as cues in some way. Not sure if that's what those threads are about.)

A lot of kanji, when used as a primitives, are given a less abstract name. For example, "white" becomes a white dove. Some people on this site go further and redefine certain primitives even more, with pop culture references (that Heisig probably wouldn't even know about... on the other hand he often uses biblical references that some people here can't relate to). For example, for "mysterious" I use Gandalf and for "double mysterious" I use the Gremlins. Lots of stories replace plain old "person" on the left with Mr. T and "thread" with Spiderman and "state of mind" with Data from Star Trek.

I think the idea of turning e.g. "five" into starfish is part of making the story. "Practice" becomes not just practice but the idea of Spiderman practicing in the East (e.g. Hong Kong etc.) because they have lots of tall buildings to swing on.

Piotoro Wrote:

jajaaan Wrote:8 may look like a snowman, but 八 does not

And that's why I imagined a snowman on the top of The Fuji mountain (/\ or 八).
I come to conclusion I'm just not proficient in making associations with keywords...
EDIT:

jajaaan Wrote:心 doesn't look like any heart I ever saw in biology class

I would imagine the longest line as the aorta (it goes through the whole abdomen) and thouse three spots as three blood vessels: superior and inferior venas cavas on the left and the pulmonary trunk on the right...

And the other egzample 好. I've translated the keyword into Polish as to like. And it's easy to sea women with her baby, and see her feelings...

But there are keywords difficult to see, to imagine. And what I'm talking about, that it's important to see the keyword itsself before even the story starts up... And I called it the second keyword, because often there could be something what we can find in the world (like the starfish), what could be associated with the keyword...

That's cool if it works for you. I never would have thought of the image you ascribed to the kanji for heart, but that makes perfect sense.

I'm just saying that for me, I've never had a problem just going with visual memory in these few instances where the "pictogram" doesn't actually look like its keyword. Since they often occur as primitives in other kanji, I get automatic review whenever seeing a kanji it occurs with. Though sometimes I do change the primitive meaning to make for a better mnemonic and more creative stories. Obviously it doesn't make sense to change the keyword for something like 五, but most of the other kanji are fair game.