Is there a way to share stories for how to remember primitive?

kapalama · 2010-01-02, 10:10 pm

http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/31455 竟　the Mirror Primitive, 482.9
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/1333　糸　(いとへん, Thread, SPiderMan)
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/27701　氵(すいへん,water)
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/20155　亻 (にんべん, Person, Mr.T)
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/24516 忄 (りっしんべん,state of mind)
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/24435　彳 (ぎょうにんべん, Column, Train, Going)
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/25164　扌　(てへん,fingers)
This is for {31455} the Mirror Primitive, 482.9. It is only used in two characters, and Heisig's story does nothing for me. Any ideas on a story for this one? Also, but more importantly, where do we put the stories for the one's like Kazoo Primitive, 481.9?

Many Primitives are not actually Kanji so we cannot enter them into the kanji list. The Mirror primitive happens to be a Kanji, and I linked it above.

unauthorized · 2010-01-03, 5:21 am

I've seen quite a few people put stories about the primitives on the first kanji that uses it. It seems like a good practice.

Personally, I've never bothered studying most primitives separately. They repeat so often that I remember most of them automatically.

Nukemarine · 2010-01-03, 5:42 am

For mirror, it's not too hard to picture a lady "standing" with her backside to the mirror so her "ass and legs" (well, sun and legs) reflect in the mirror, maybe asking her husband "does my ass look fat?". Fairly sure it's easy to find a picture showing that.

Hmm, wild haired idea here this thread is giving me:

Seeing that the amount of primitives are limited, I'm wondering if there's not some way to have primitives related groups of photos sort of like the "1 Picture, 1 Kanji" thread. With that, it's not much more of a stretch to have an interactive flash program that takes images and arranges them according to Kanji that have them. When a primitive comes up, you pick the photo that best helps you remember the primitive. The program arranges that photo and other pictures from the primitives you picked to show the kanji.

Now, for most adults, this is overkill. But I'm wondering if a younger child that can't think as abstractly can benefit from seeing the pictures that represent primitives laid out in front of them which then show the kanji.

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aphasiac · 2010-01-03, 5:58 am

unauthorized Wrote:Personally, I've never bothered studying most primitives separately. They repeat so often that I remember most of them automatically.

I find the same, however:
1) when you first learn a primitive, it is really useful to have a story, especially for complex ones with strange stroke orders.
2) Some primitives aren't that common; in fact some are used only once or twice.

The stories for primitives on this site have proved absolutely invaluable!

kapalama · 2010-01-03, 7:11 am

aphasiac Wrote:
unauthorized Wrote:Personally, I've never bothered studying most primitives separately. They repeat so often that I remember most of them automatically.
I find the same, however:
1) when you first learn a primitive, it is really useful to have a story, especially for complex ones with strange stroke orders.
2) Some primitives aren't that common; in fact some are used only once or twice.

The stories for primitives on this site have proved absolutely invaluable!

I agree, but do you find the stories just at the first Kanji where they are used?

I have taken to using decimals to organize the Kanji. If it is first used in 445, then the primitive is 444.9 on my spreadsheet. It also lets me slot in kanji that are 'out of order' by my way of thinking, and add the ones that I see in the wild that are not in RTK1 or 3. I wonder if there is a way to put decimals in the Kanji list here?

liosama · 2010-01-03, 9:19 am

Standing piece of sun that can run on tiny human legs ==> Reflected photon.
Reflected photon + dirt shows as far a boundary that photons reach.

+ Metal. Well all mirrors are really is just highly polished metal, reflecting roughly 95% of light back to the observer with minimal scattering and absorption. A nerdy way of saying "Metal reflects shit - You see yourself" The oldest forms of mirrors were pure polished silver. Now they just use thin sheets of highly polished aluminium. We can get into an intricate discussion on mirrors if you will but you can add my msn on that if you're interested Tongue

Everyone posts their primitive stories in the first character that it appears in. I'm fine with that setup as it is

**ファブリス** · 2010-01-03, 11:57 am

Dixit liosama:

Quote:Everyone posts their primitive stories in the first character that it appears in.

The official reason is to maintain a middle ground between the books and the website. Having a separate entry for primitives would be close to have the books online. It's a subtle but important difference. The way it is now is approved by James Heisig and his publisher, and I'm happy with it.

I understand that in "intuitive" terms we don't need those copyrights and so on. We are in a transition period I guess. It's refreshing to see many books now on APress for example published with a Creative Commons license. Perhaps if Heisig had written the books today he would have done so, but to suggest this bold change today is a little bit late I think, especially that you have to convince also the publishers.

That said my long term plan for the site is to support kanji review, outside of the RTK context. Outside of RTK context, adding separate study area entries for character components (chinese radicals or combinations of these) is something I'd like to do.

kapalama · 2010-01-03, 2:05 pm

What do people do who want to add a story about a Kanji that repeats only starting with RTK3 or above? Is that where clever people go back and post new entries listing all the kanji it is included in?

kapalama · 2010-01-04, 11:42 pm

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