I use sayings for less than 10% of my kanji. Some of them really stick, but if I use them for a whole set of kanji, my review rates plummet like mad.

I suppose it is good for the stories to fade. The stories could be considered a crutch, but only until you gain the kanji muscle to walk on your own.

Awesome!  It just gets a little scary because you wonder why you know it so well without the story and, of course you wonder if you'll remember it so well next time... without remembering this time, or reviewing the story this time.  754 and chugging along without a hitch, almost through the hell chapter!

The stories themselves aren't really as detailed to be called a story.  However a sequence of events must occur in order for it to be called as a story, I think.

Last edited by kazuki (2008 June 03, 3:31 pm)

It's a little difficult to describe what goes on in my head because I'm not altogether sure myself. However, at least on the surface, I'm all about the sayings. It's not something I necessarily advocate, but I'm a language oriented person in the first place and so far (maybe a month and a half in) it's been working perfectly, my retention rates are between 85-100% on any given day. There are images and other vague associations bouncing around in my head at the same time, but it's not as strict as some other people seem to describe. While I find Spiderman a useful replacement for thread, it's not because I have an easy time picturing Spiderman doing anything; he's just easy to make amusing little 'sayings' with. As for the positioning of the primitives, my sayings never involve them, my visual memory takes care of that rather easily as long as I can remember the primitives in the first place.
But, again, I know there are images and things going through my head as well, I'm just not that actively aware of them and don't plan them.

I do use full-blown stories (plot and images and etc) on very rare occasions, and they do work VERY well, but it's more effort than I'm willing to put into it when I know I don't have to. I'm also not sure that, due to the way my mind works, I could remember that many of them anyway.

So, in answer, no. Those of us using sayings aren't having trouble. If we were, we'd be doing something else, wouldn't we?

Agreed.  I admit to using sayings as well, and alot of times they do work.  I have just noticed that Heisig names his three parts of the book Stories, Plots, and Elements and thought it was crucial to run with that idea of creating actual stories.  What you are all saying about letting the mind come up with it's own "scene" or "saying" (which mentally creates some sort of scene, usually for me) makes very much sense.  Due to failing to go through all the Kanji (got to 500 or so) about a year ago (with Heisig) and starting over, I'm constantly wondering whether or not I'm doing this "The Right Way" and not just going with the flow sometimes.  Thanks for your replies.

playadom wrote:

I find that the funny grammar hooks, while effective, end up putting too much English in my brain.

Ditto.  It is rare for many of my stories to go longer than about 2 short sentences because the primitives I need tend to get lost in the verbage-clutter. 

However, for kanji where I can't easily form a *colorful story/saying* from the first mental images when I see the keyword (an absolute *must* for me!), I have gotten more involved and sometimes include explanatory notes.  This is rare but thankfully I can at times use the sheer size and uniqueness of these few big stories as a memory trigger for what kanji is associated with it.  Not the best scenario I know, but it sometimes helps.

Last edited by BigAmish (2008 June 04, 3:50 am)

some heisig stories are just sayings too.  For example:

"In the age of advertising, most words we read are out to sell
some product or point of view."

I think the amount of visual imagery used will vary from person to person.

Isn't it important to utilize a variety of techniques to remember different kanji?  I don't think it's fair to say that one uses just a singular, strict method.

Who hasn't experienced this:  you meet a kanji, and somehow, via your own creation or a story/mnemonic someone else created - it's there, permanently.  You will never forget it.

Then there's problem kanji.  When the same one fails time and time again, you've got to re-evaluate your approach, not just 'try harder' to remember it.  I find that my bag of tricks involves mental images and mnemonics, but also kanji stories that relate several kanji to each other, word plays, sayings, and whatever else I can use to boost my recollection.

This is delving deeper into 'types of learners.'  I believe there are 7 different 'types' of learners usually classified, and we are all combinations of them.  I say, know thyself and experiment with what works for you - definitely be open to what other people suggest, especially when setting out on RTK, but once you're half way in, don't even bother to change unless you're just not able to remember em!