I seem to have suddenly got stuck in a 軌 with RTK1

I just can't come up with any decent stories for this set of kanjis, mainly because of the primitives. "Stop" and "correct" I can easily remember, but the rest of them barely make any sense to me as they a) look very similar b) have no connection to the meaning of the kanji or even a way to remember them separately (mending--->zoo? SERIOUSLY? T_T#)... none of the shared stories seem to be working for me this time, either.

Due to how the book is structured, I need to get this lesson nailed down before I can proceed as we all know... so what to do in these cases? I'm not very far in the book and I assume this won't be the last time having troubles with a particular lesson - therefore I would really appreciate some extra input from the vets

[Katsuo]

I presume you mean lesson 17 (unless the book has changed; I have the 3rd edition).

"Zoo" is used because as a separate kanji it is related to animals (see 疋 no. 2098 "critters"). To get from "mending" to "zoo", think of a simple story. Perhaps the sign at the zoo entrance has got slightly bent at one end and you are asked to mend it.

To get from "correct" to "mending" is not as simple. "To correct", and "to mend" overlap in meaning, and the two primitives are also very similar. Note that the first three strokes are identical, but the fourth angles to the left and the fifth is adjusted accordingly.

I usually put them on the whiteboard and glance at them whenever I pass. After a while they simply stick.

Nothing wrong with rote memorization. "An animal/zoo is just a mended creature due to evolution with a hook for a claw or sth" It's a primitive/radical. No point in giving a 'story' for that, you got like 1700 stories to worry about, why worry about 1 more.


Despite the advice I'm giving you, I kept trying to make stories for this character, 求 'request' as I kept on failing it and any kanji that had it inside till I decided to just memorize the darn thing - made life easier.

I also just memorised 'mend', 'zoo' and 'correct'. They come back a few more times later on, especially 'zoo', so you're not likely to forget them.

Koos83 Wrote:I also just memorised 'mend', 'zoo' and 'correct'. They come back a few more times later on, especially 'zoo', so you're not likely to forget them.

Pretty much this. You've got to learn them, but a) you're going to be reviewing them whether you want to or not when they occur as primitives and b), you only have 300 or so stories to keep track of so one or ten characters memorized by rote isn't exactly going to trip you up.

Also, just throwing it out there. The kanji, 誕, for which Heisig assigns the keyword 'nativity', is one of the few kanji that still trips me up when I review. It's probably just me, but you might want to take special care with that one.

Yay, thanks for the quick replies. By the way I just realized it's lesson 17 I'm having troubles with, not 18 - my bad :/

Whew, I was afraid I'd actually get flamed for asking if it's okay to use "brute force" every once in a while with problematic kanji. I kind of panicked when I failed almost half of that set during last review thanks to crappy stories!
One more question while I'm at it... the friggen JUST SO kanji (是). Exactly how do they use it in Japanese? I'm asking because it's...a little abstract on its own, and jisho.org lists "Justice" and "Right" among its meanings which seem much better options.

Ciermel Wrote:Yay, thanks for the quick replies. By the way I just realized it's lesson 17 I'm having troubles with, not 18 - my bad hmm

Whew, I was afraid I'd actually get flamed for asking if it's okay to use "brute force" every once in a while with problematic kanji. I kind of panicked when I failed almost half of that set during last review thanks to crappy stories!
One more question while I'm at it... the friggen JUST SO kanji (是). Exactly how do they use it in Japanese? I'm asking because it's...a little abstract on its own, and jisho.org lists "Justice" and "Right" among its meanings which seem much better options. smile

Don't worry, we all have bad days. I think my worst ratio ever was about 44%. After I restudied that particular lesson, I never failed another kanji from it.

As for 是, it's (one) of the old writings of これ, but as you probably know, today, we use kana for it. It also means "just, justice", but we have other characters with similar meanings so I wouldn't recommend using this particular keyword.
If you find that "just so" is too difficult for you, you can always choose another keyword that is totally unrelated to it's meaning for a primitive form (even Heising does it!). When you do so, check the tables at the end of the book to see if you aren't using a keyword that is assigned on a primitive or a character later on.

Finally, you can look up kanji for alternative meanings and sample words/sentences on WWWJDIC (google it).

One of the stories for the word "topic" (題) describes that the kanji 是 means "yes" in Chinese.

Cause 題's story stuck to me I can reverse engineer the meaning of 是.

Personally I find "turn into" (成) to be a much harder one to remember.

Edit: silly as it may seem, if you set the kanji you are constantly having trouble with to your avatar on the forum you'll see it more often and probably it'll stick faster.

是 means "to be" in Chinese. It is, you could say, the Chinese equivalent of です. It means "yes" because in Chinese you answer a question positively by using the verb again.

Do you have a menu?
Have.
Do you eat ramen?
Eat.

Therefor, many questions are answered "yes" by saying 是.

The best advice I can give, is just to keep going. No matter how hard I try to think rationally, for EVERY new group of primitives I think 'oh man, these are impossible, there's no way I will remember these as easily as the previous ones'. But as soon as you've reviewed them three or four times, they become just as familiar as the first 100, and I wonder how I ever had a problem with them. Just keep chugging!

Oh, and 是 is one of the few primitives that I had to rename, I just couldn't make a story for anything as vague as 'just so' or whatever it was. Also I was constantly getting it mixed up with determined. So I renamed it postman pat, and I remade all the stories to incorporate postman pat into them. It worked brilliantly for me. But you have to be careful about renaming primitives. Search the forums for posts discussing it.

eh, don't get hung up on learning stuff. that's not your job, that's the srs's job. write a stupid story fail it, try harder tomorrow.

as an example, zoo will stick, you'll use it later on for doubt and mimic by which point it will've caught you out so many times in the srs that you can't help but remember it for it's uniqueness - it only appears like 5 times in volume 1...

Tobberoth Wrote:是 means "to be" in Chinese. It is, you could say, the Chinese equivalent of です. It means "yes" because in Chinese you answer a question positively by using the verb again.

Do you have a menu?
Have.
Do you eat ramen?
Eat.

Therefor, many questions are answered "yes" by saying 是.

Thanks for the clarification.

The same can be said of Japanese, but it of course isn't mandatory.

メニューありますか？
ありますよ。／はい

林檎を食べる？
食べる！／はい

Ciermel Wrote:Exactly how do they use it in Japanese?

By far the most common use of that kanji in modern Japanese is in the word 是非（ぜひ), which means "of course", and some words related to that. There it's being used with the meaning of "yes", since 非 is "no".

(I have only seen 是 used for これ in old Japanese; even in modern Japanese when これ is written in kanji, it tends to be 此れ instead.)

Thanks everyone for the incredibly helpful posts I needed the extra motivation to get back on track asap after my first "bad" review session.

Quote:Finally, you can look up kanji for alternative meanings and sample words/sentences on WWWJDIC (google it).

Right now I'm using jisho.org as my kanji/words lookup tool just because its radical table is much easier on the eye