Sword was a breeze for me I just Imagined Link from Zelda Majora's mask using his new forged sword after bringing the gold dust to the blacksmiths. XD he he.

Look at this sword.

Rotate it anti-clockwise 90 degrees, and the handle does look a bit like 刀.

For "blade" 刃 you could imagine a drop of blood dripping from the blade and landing on the handle (Memory: That drop of blood on the handle dripped from the blade).

刀 and the right side of 則 are related, so to distinguish between them it is useful to give them two related but distinct images. Hence Heisig's idea of "dagger" and "sabre".

Note that when you first learn a simple shape it can be useful to make it completely pictographic, like "handle" above. But once it is firmly in your memory it can become more conceptual, i.e. in this case any shape of "dagger" will do, it no longer has to look just like the "primitive".

Last edited by Katsuo (2008 May 17, 11:03 pm)

Oh, and there's a kanji later on for saber itself, so be careful not to get it confused. I just used sword no matter what, and didn't have many problems after a while. You sort of get the idea of which one you need based on which radicals you're dealing with.