You may have noticed that many of Heisig´s keywords are stupid, arbitrary, or confusing, especially for synonyms.

I certainly don´t want to waste effort remembering which kanji Heisig chose to call "feeling" and which he chose to call "emotion," for example, so often I clarify using a Japanese keyword written in kana.


I also do this when I already happen to know the Japanese word that the keyword for the kanji refers to, or when I get a stupid plant name that I am unfamiliar with in English that is primarily used as a proper name in Japanese (梓).

Well, today this system failed me.


Don´t click convert when you do a Japanese keyword, mmmmkay?
It doesn´t work too well for recall.

Although, I thought I was pretty clever when I came across this card:



I think I covered the bases pretty well for that kanji. I think Heisig´s keyword was "strip," or something. It was confusing. I never heard the word "strip" used in that context before, and even if I had I would have a hard time remembering exactly what this character referred to without the images.

Oh, and I thought I would mention one thing before the rabid Heisigists start a barrage of "yaaar"s.

I leave Heisig's keywords alone 90-95% of the time, I just don't want to waste time on the keywords that are both arbitrary and confusing.

Like I mentioned in my first post, 感じ or 情, which one is "feeling," according to Heisig?

I honestly don´t remember. One of them is the good ole' familiar "かんじ," one of the first words I learned(back before I was even studying Japanese, in fact), and the other has some kind of weird pronounciation written next to heisig´s keyword in Anki, so that I don´t confuse it with the one that I know a word for.

Well, that was the plan, anyway. I seem to have remembered the reading for it by accedent, since I was able to type it... bonus!

Many people modify the keywords to help clarify things.

(By the way, the word you were thinking of is "strand" 1263. Strand is another word for beach. Unfortunately, "beach" is already taken by 1653 岸 even though beach is not really what this character means. But "shore" isn't taken. Shore would be a fine keyword for the "strand" kanji I think.)

Anyway, many people modify the keywords to their liking in anki or use a greasemonkey script to modify the keywords on this site. I haven't bothered with that and sometimes I trip on the reviews by mixing things up. There are plenty of other threads on the board about the shortcomings of some of the keywords. I don't think there's anyone who thinks that Heisig is "not to be criticized" although I'm sure some people get tired of seeing it mentioned all the time, mostly because it doesn't matter that much.

Keep in mind. The keyword is just a tool. The keyword only gives one meaning, even though a kanji can have many meanings in different compound words. Sometimes they are just sounds. The only purpose of the keyword, really, is to bring up a story that tells you how to write the kanji based on its component "primitives."

Now that I've started studying vocab, the best you get out of knowing the keyword is sometimes "oh, I guess I can see why he picked that keyword" and other times it doesn't even matter. 白い　（しろい）　means "white" and that makes sense. 面白い means "interesting." (mask white? huh?) yet both have ”白　＝　しろ” in them so it makes sense as far as the sound is concerned.

I concur. There's more here that would agree that some of Heisig's choices for words are more than lacking. While other forums use this as an excuse to dismiss Heisig and RTK, we just adapt and overcome.

Like you did, many of us use photos (see 1 kanji, 1 photo thread), custom Keywords, Japanese keywords, context (sentences or words), even more detailed meanings of the kanji. There's even exclusion for similar keywords where you put what Kanji that's not to be written.

Do what works for you, and make sure to advertise it. People here love to try what works for other people.

PS: I like your photo choices. Too much effort for me, but maybe if I were starting out again it'd been worth it.

Yeah, sometimes it won't help you at all.

In response to the 面白い case, this is where both kanji have meanings different from the keyword. 面 is commonly used to mean face of an object (like the word 正面 [front]) and in this case, it means what's in front of your eyes. 白 can mean to make clear (like in the word 告白 [confess]). It's used together to sort of mean like what you see becoming clear and showing its beauty and stuff. (No idea if the 面白い case is truly true. It's just what I was told long long ago.)

lol I found a funny video that's rtk-related unintentionaly??　

it starts around 7:11... his silly story on how to remember 絨毯

(probably will get removed soon but anyways while it's up~)

b.c. of his story (to make it easy to remember) the stroke order is messed up but anyways... and then he does 食事。lol.

screenshot