Here's a modified chart derived from the one in the last chapter of RTK2: Heisig's Kunyomi Mnemonic Chart

The idea is use the symbols (rabbit, checkers, well, etc.) to put visual images to the sounds that make up a word, then connect the images to the word's meaning.

For most cases, I never worried about using this method. Usually, the kanji gave the meaning and with that the pronunciation soon followed with little effort. However, I found I used this a lot when it comes to onomatopoeia, sound and physical state words (うろうろ、きらきら、ぴったり、etc). With these there's usually no kanji to help with the meaning. However, using mnemonics it seems a quick way to get the meaning into my head rather well. As such, to help matters I made the spread sheet as it's more organized than Heisig's chart.

Examples:

うろうろ (rabbit, bathtub) - easy to picture a rabbit wondering around a large bath tub.

ぬるぬる (sew, stopover) - I can picture a slimy toad being sewn down to a bed for resting the night

そっくり (dye, [pier], reel, toilet) - Look exactly like a statue. There was a show called (Chaser's) that was painted like a fake statue with a rod and reel on the pier, sitting on the toilet. Then he used a real statue and got more money.

あっさり (below, [pier], stab, toilet) - I just imagine my generic pier there's a lady on a toilet, where Jason stabs her from below (yeah, saw the F13th remake).

きっちり (tree, [pier], 1000, toilet) - The small pier needed EXACTLY 1000 trees to be made, and I picture toilets atop each pier pole.

Now, I'm not doing this all the time, but some words do give me issues especially when the difference is a voiced pronunciation or not. Hope it helps others.

Hi Nukemarine,

I'm going to try using this method for remembering 擬音語 and 擬態語. Before I'd simply tried creating stories in my head based on the sound of the phrase. This is a more systematic method that makes a lot more sense.

I was wondering though, you don't actually need to link the hiragana to a kanji do you? I mean, the stories are simply whatever is most convenient, so if I wanted to use き as "key" (going back several years to when I first learnt hiragana!), rather than 木, this makes no difference for the method does it?

Sorry if this is a stupid question - I'm pretty sure I'm right!

Thanks for your chart anyway.

Well, since 木 is き, it's not like it's an arbitrary pick. Most of the symbol's kunyomi is the actual pronunciation in Japanese.

However, there should be no problem using something else to represent the sound. Hell, if you've done "Remembering the Kana" you'll have lots of items to represent the sounds (Comb for こ; Knee for に; Cape and Dagger for け; etc.） for latter use in kunyomi words.