gyuujuice
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2008-09-24
Posts: 828
The primitive (king, scepter, ball) or the kanji king appears a lot but I always get the stroke order wrong. Sometimes there is a line and sometimes there isn't.
This is what I though would help:
splitting the primitive into two primitives
1) when the primitive looks like this 玉, it will be king
2) when the primitive looks like this 王, it will be ball
Is this a good idea? Or will this just confuse me even more?
Thank you in advance~
liosama
Member
From: sydney
Registered: 2008-03-02
Posts: 896
It doesn't really matter, i use king when i want to, and i use 'ball' when i see fit.
eg, jewellry ball for 珠 helps more than king would.
Likewise for
for 球, again, ball.
'king' examples
現 i use king here,
理 i used king
環 king here
Heisigs choice is etymologically correct though, because for all those characters that radical seems to be taken as stone/jem like meaning/primitive (don't ask me why). But use whatever you are most comfortable with as you can see i alternate wherever i feel n
annabel398
Member
From: Austin TX
Registered: 2008-08-04
Posts: 80
I think I've read that the round jewel/ball (as opposed to the square jewel) represents not a ball (toy) but a ball of JADE, which is associated with kings. Or, if you want a more Euro-friendly memory hook, think of the ball as the orb that is one of the insignia of office of a king/queen.
Flesh and moon used to confuse me too (not mixing up the writing, just wondering WTF those two concepts had in common), until I found that the flesh radical that looks like moon is actually a simplification of the kanji for meat 肉 --> 月. That really cleared things up.
Last edited by annabel398 (2009 January 07, 10:30 pm)
Katsuo
M.O.D.
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2007-02-06
Posts: 887
Website
gyuujuice wrote:
The primitive (king, scepter, ball) or the kanji king appears a lot but I always get the stroke order wrong. Sometimes there is a line and sometimes there isn't.
It's confusing because RTK refers to:
玉 as "jewel"
王 as either "king", "jewel" or "ball".
Therefore, if you remember that a particular kanji contains the primitive "jewel", which is it, 王 or 玉?
玉 is the less common form, only in 256玉, 257宝, 581国, 2075璽, 2249掴, (also in 璧 which is not in RTK, but is in the common word 完璧).
Anyway, I got it straight in my mind by calling 玉 "earring" (i.e. a specific kind of jewel).
Last edited by Katsuo (2009 January 08, 2:43 am)
Raichu
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2005-10-27
Posts: 249
Website
With RTK you need to separate the etymology of the kanji from it's modern appearance.
王 is the kanji for king, no problem there.
玉 is the kanji for jewel/ball, but it does appear to change it's form to 王 when it's a left component.
The question each of us needs to answer individually is, do we make up mnemonics based on primitives 王=king, 玉=jewel, which is the simplest approach (I try to follow this as much as possible)? Or can we--without getting confused--make up mnemonics with 王=king or jewel, 玉=jewel?
It's pretty much the same with flesh and moon/month. 肉=flesh and 月=moon/month. However, 肉 more commonly appears as 月 or as 月 with a straight left side. In this case our options are made much more difficult because for so many kanji it's pretty obvious that 月=flesh (胆, 肺, ...).
Confusing indeed!
