Why does Heisig make the primitive version of 王 (king) which shows up on the left refer to 玉 (jewel)?

王 - king, scepter, ball??
玉 - jewel, ball??

Why?

EX: 現 - Think of the most enormous pearl you have ever seen, a great vermilion-colored ball sitting on your ring.

Not only does that make me not reinforce the primitive in my brain as well, but it also confuses me as to which one it is when I'm thinking of them on the spot.

It never has the dash when it is a primitive. I thought the whole point of primitives was to aide my memory, not add extra obstacles.

Is there a reason for this? I just can't seem to logically find the answer.

I respect Heisig and his method, but it seems like he put that in just to be his 'own' way (probably some correlation he had when he did it himself) instead of the best, logical way.

Unless later down the road I need to distinguish them, but then why do they both mean "ball"? I'm just confused as to what his thought process was.

zachandhobbes Wrote:Why does Heisig make the primitive version of 王 (king) which shows up on the left refer to 玉 (jewel)?

王 - king, scepter, ball??
玉 - jewel, ball??

Why?

I suspect that it's because he's thinking of 玉 as being the kanji for ball (which it is), and 王 as being the primitive for ball, which is probably etymologically correct. Consider 球, which means ball.

I understand your confusion. They're both the simplest of kanji but because of Heisig's strange choice here I've got each of them mixed up since time immemorial. He should publish a polished version of RtK with more accurate meanings. What we really have at the moment is a version he whipped up for himself years ago when he wasn't even fluent in Japanese.

In regard to your problem specifically, how about you just come up with your own stories for kanji that confuse 'king' and 'ball' and ignore Heisig with this one?

Well, I think it wouldn't even be an issue if he didn't give 玉 the ball meaning at all, just left it as another kanji and wasn't related.

That's what I plan on doing. I just hope it doesn't confused me too much later.

王 - king, scepter, ball
玉 - jewel

[Katsuo]

I got confused by this as well. Investigation showed that it's not really Heisig's fault as the meanings are mixed up in Japanese too and he was just passing that on. However, one of the points of the RTK method is that you can precisely define any individual kanji by its parts, so I think this should have been addressed in the books by assigning a specific, distinct name for 玉 (when used as a primitive).

王 is a very common primitive, but 玉 only appears in four kanji in RTK (plus once as itself):

玉 jewel (RTK1 no. 256)
宝 treasure (RTK1 no. 257)
国 country (RTK1 no. 581)
璽 imperial seal (RTK3 no. 2075)
璧 holed gem (RTK supplement)

So I'd suggest the following primitive names:
王 - king, jewel, ball, i.e. whichever works best for the character in question.
玉 - choose one specific name that you won't confuse with the three above.

I chose "earring" as a primitive name for 玉. It's related to jewel of course, but distinct enough so as not to confuse them.

I'm just wondering as a noobie who has to go back and read the intro now that I've gotten to part 2 (just today).

Why do primitives need seperate meanings if they are written the same?

For instance, 'wild dogs' VS 'dog' makes sense because it's written differently.
"Computers" vs "Ri" makes sense because ri is really vague.

However, if it's jewel, why do you need to make a primitive for earring?

I thought the position of the primitive determined its meaning. Like when it's to the left it's ball, but when it's to the right or below it's king.

球 現 珠

vs

皇 狂 聖

He actually just says this:

On 王: As a primitive this can mean either king or scepter, but it will usually be taken to mean ball, as in the next frame.

On 玉: As a primitive this can mean either jewel or ball. When it appears anywhere other than on the left side, it takes the same shape as here. On the left it lacks the final stroke, making it the same as the character in the last frame.

Basically what he's saying is, when 王 is anywhere but the left, it's king. When 王 is on the left, it's ball (referring to jewel), and when 玉 is not on the left, it's jewel.

I understand there is etymology and stuff behind this, but it makes it extremely difficult to deal with =/.

It also makes some stories quite difficult that could be potentially easy. For instance:

理 - The king of logic is the computer.

Try to think of such a memorable story with ball....computer.

I don't really understand the issue, what is there to be confused about? When the primitive means ball, it lacks the extra stroke, so it's not something you even have to think about.

Didn't his own story for 栓 involve balls, and not a king? That contradicts what a few people are saying?

I think it makes sense to use the squished version of 王 as "ball" (after all, in many cases, that's what it actually is, in an abbreviated form, and are you really going to use "king" in your story for 球?). It becomes ambiguous when one starts using "ball" for the unsquished version, and it might be wise to avoid that.

I stopped trying to make sense of it a long time ago since there is no pattern that I could find. I just remember which one is which and try to make stories that reinforce it.

Because, Tobberoth, when it lacks the stroke, it character effectively becomes 王.

The primitive is 王. No dash included.

So why does he even mention it in the 玉 and as a primitive for 玉?

For instance, he did not do anything like this for water and icicle.

水 - Water, flood
氷 - Icicle

The second one, with the extra dash, doesn't say "As a primitive, remove the dash and revolve the story around frost covered trees (which is technically one etymological meaning when combined with another kanji).

It makes no sense and isn't logical or helpful to memorization at all.

Quote:The second one, with the extra dash, doesn't say "As a primitive, remove the dash and revolve the story around frost covered trees (which is technically one etymological meaning when combined with another kanji).

I have no idea what this analogy is trying to tell us. What's this about frost covered trees?

zachandhobbes Wrote:So why does he even mention it in the 玉 and as a primitive for 玉?

He mentions it because etymologically tamahen (note the name) is almost always an abbreviation of 玉, and in those cases your mnemonic stories will usually fall together more easily if you use that meaning and not the unrelated king or scepter. As I've already said, you will never see 玉 used as a hen radical, so there is no ambiguity there.

Despite the theory that the names are arbitrary and it doesn't matter what they're called, I can't see it as anything but a benefit if the keywords are closer to the meanings of the kanji themselves. Since tama-hen always represents 玉 rather than 王, and since so many of the kanji with tama-hen have to do with balls or jewels, it makes perfect sense.