Question about the "graveyard" primitive.

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Reply #1 - 2012 February 09, 11:27 pm
ChieShorts New member
From: England Registered: 2012-01-24 Posts: 2

Why is everyone using graveyard to remember 莫 as a primitive (it actually means must not), starting with 模 (229 - Imitation), when in fact 墓 is the kanji used in compounds pertaining to graveyard? Isn't that going to backfire down the line when the word you were using as graveyard is then taught to you as something else, and when nothing that actually means graveyard seems to have 莫 in?

Reply #2 - 2012 February 09, 11:32 pm
yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

墓 just means "grave", not "graveyard", so there isn't necessarily a conflict.  莫 meaning "must not" is extremely rare, mostly appearing only in classical Chinese, so knowing the "real" meaning of that kanji is not very helpful.  I'm not experienced with actually using Heisig, but maybe "must not" isn't concrete enough to use in stories?

Reply #3 - 2012 February 10, 12:45 am
aphasiac Member
From: 台湾 Registered: 2009-03-16 Posts: 1036

ChieShorts wrote:

Isn't that going to backfire down the line when the word you were using as graveyard is then taught to you as something else, and when nothing that actually means graveyard seems to have 莫 in?

The keywords are just mental hooks to tie characters and later Japanese words to. It fades away once you learn real Japanese vocab; for this reason, the meaning of the keyword is in most cases totally irrelevant.

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Reply #4 - 2012 February 10, 12:48 am
Clasu Member
From: Finland Registered: 2011-07-14 Posts: 51

yudantaiteki wrote:

but maybe "must not" isn't concrete enough to use in stories?

This.

I wouldn't worry too much about primitives not corresponding exactly to the real meaning. The most important thing about primitives (imo) is to be able to use them to create vivid mental images which you NEED in order to be succesful with heisig method. That's why people use stuff like "mister T" or "chuck norris" for "human" primitive, and "spiderman" for 糸

Reply #5 - 2012 February 10, 1:50 am
yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

Although you could say that using "spiderman" for 糸 is fine because you'll never have any confusion over whether that's the real meaning of the kanji or not, whereas when you're trying to write 墓場, you might have trouble shedding the connection of 莫, especially since it's very similar to 墓.

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