Interesting article on wikipedia.

I knew I'd heard the word at some point. As my current fad in trying to refine my stories includes trying to associate keywords with sounds or sensations it seems apt.

I'm definitely not a synesthate but to a certain extent see what I am attempting as trying to induce psudo-synesthesia. For the limited number of keywords that give me a "feeling" it seems it might work.

Does anyone reckon they have real synesthesia? Do you reckon it makes you better at Heisig?

I've associated letters and numbers with particular colours all my life and just assumed that was normal until I saw a programme on synesthesia a few months ago. I certainly don't have any kind of problematic extreme that some people have of it where they can't deal with hearing particular words because they have really unpleasant tastes or something. It had never occurred to me before that to try and use it as a mnemonic device, beyond occasionally having a vague feeling that someone whose surname I couldn't bring to mind was greenish for example.

Not sure how I would apply it to Heisig, but am interested to know if anyone else is doing. I don't really see kanji or primitives in colour the same way as I do letters but the idea of associating kanji with particular experiences or feelings (which I think most people who use this site will be doing!) is a kind of pseudo synesthesia - it just hadn't occurred to me to look at it this way! Looking forward to other people's comments...

Are hiragana and katakana colored?

fiminor Wrote:I don't really see kanji or primitives in colour the same way as I do letters

That's interesting. Maybe it has something to do with early childhood development then? This guy does have it for kanji though, and it looks like it affects kanji components separately: http://ij-art-music.sblo.jp/article/4460860.html http://www.ij-art-music.com/synaesthesia...hesia.html

The only time I ever encountered "synesthesia" (the term, not the actual, uh, condition) was in Rez, but I thought it was just a theory, not an actual, uh, condition.

Really interesting that.

there was a documentary on it by the BBC a while back I remember watching. I think there was a guy that could taste words. He had a list of words read to him and asked for the taste that he had for each of them. Something stupid like the place "Leeds" tasting like gravy... hehe

I can associate weekdays months numbers etc. sometimes..

johnzep Wrote:Are hiragana and katakana colored?

That's turned out to be a really interesting concept to think about! For me, anyway... Considering your question has made me realise that the colour thing doesn't apply as strongly to words I see written down - it's much more apparent with words I visualise in my head (words I've heard or I'm trying to figure out how to spell or something) and as I don't tend to think in hiragana frequently I hadn't noticed whether or not they also had colours! I think they probably do, although it might just be that there's such a strong association with their romaji transcriptions (from initially learning them) that all I'm seeing is some kind of combination of the colours of the 2 or 3 letters that make up the sound. Hmm. Going to think about this more and try to visualise hiragana more when studying Japanese, rather than hearing words in romaji.

Cangy - that article looks really interesting, although may take me some time (possibly another couple of years of study!) to figure out. I'm intrigued with the idea that it might be to do with childhood development but I think it's also relevant that I'm not at the point where I could naturally think in written Japanese. If I ever get to that point, I'll let you guys know whether it's in colour!

cangy Wrote:

fiminor Wrote:I don't really see kanji or primitives in colour the same way as I do letters

That's interesting. Maybe it has something to do with early childhood development then? This guy does have it for kanji though, and it looks like it affects kanji components separately: http://ij-art-music.sblo.jp/article/4460860.html http://www.ij-art-music.com/synaesthesia...hesia.html

I have synesthesia^^ For me, the kana have colours. They tend to correspond with the colors for the romaji. For example, き　has the same colours as ki(cream) and と has the same as to(orange and black). Kinda strange but logical, since I learned kana by comparing the Japanese characters to the romaji. I bet if Japanese was my first language, the colors would be different...

Kanji don't really have colors. Not sure why. Bizarre thought here, but I wonder if I could read in colors o.o Hah, if so, I wouldn't be able to read anyone's colors but my own.

fiminor Wrote:I'm intrigued with the idea that it might be to do with childhood development but I think it's also relevant that I'm not at the point where I could naturally think in written Japanese.

yeah, I was thinking afterwards, either you need to do the learning at some critical developmental phase, or maybe the kanji for you just haven't yet been learnt deeply enough to hit whatever level is needed for the effect -- maybe as you keep studying they'll slowly start to take on colours? how about higher math symbols, greek alphabet, specialised typographic symbols etc that you only learnt later on?

My daughter is synesthetic. She sees colours when she plays the piano. Different tones seem to generate a different colour. I asked her if this ever happened when she listened to English or Japanese, (she's bilingual) but she said that she never hears words as colours in the way she hears the piano.

I think it is a very specific condition that is probably not something which can be generally applied to language learning.

mukade Wrote:She sees colours when she plays the piano. But she said that she never hears words as colours in the way she hears the piano.

As a musician, that would be pretty damn handy. What about tonal languages? Do those trigger colours?