Japanese Kanji Through Crazy Stories!

hello everyone welcome to the Laing focused Channel and my name is Paul today we're going to look at a wild way of studying kanji if you don't know what kanji are they are IDEO graphic characters that are used to write words or parts of words in Japanese they are originally Chinese but were adopted into Japanese as well you don't read a kanji like an alphabet letter but you look at it as a symbol or a series of symbols that represent a meaning and if you know the word that matches that meaning then you can pronounce the kanji when you read it of course there's a bit more to it than that but that's the gist of it but since they are ideographs and not pictures kanji usually don't contain visually concrete images check out this one meaning apologize how does that mean apologize they can be visually complex containing many different parts and basic adult literacy and Japanese requires knowledge of around 2,000 kanji and literacy and Chinese requires many more how can you remember how to read and write thousands of visually complex characters like this children in Japan drilled them like crazy from kindergarten through high school using simple brute-force rote memorization but what if you're a gaijin who doesn't want to spend 12 years learning how to read kanji there are some strategies we can use to gain a working knowledge of kanji in a much shorter amount of time one method was created by James W heizak and presented in his book remembering the kanji let me start with an example this kanji means elder brother in other words older brother it has two components this piece which means mouth on its own and these two strokes which kind of look like human legs this gives us an image of a mean older brother who never shuts up he's just a big mouth walking around on two legs saying annoying mean things since most kanji consists of various shapes arranged in different ways heizak assigns a keyword to each of those shapes and you can use those keywords to create a mnemonic story a story or image that helps you remember the meaning of that kanji heisig refers to these shapes or kanji components as primitives as we can see in this example some primitives are standalone kanji on their own like this one meaning mouth while others do not appear on their own only as a component of a larger kanji like this one for human legs and there's such primitive that only appears in other country is this one heizak gives this primitive the keyword devil you can see that it contains the character meaning older brother when this character appears as a primitive in another kanji we can modify its meaning slightly to teenager to give us access to a wider range of images and stories so this is an image of a teenager with two horns on his head there are plenty of adults who think that teenagers are the devil they look at them and imagine devil horns on their head I guess that's because of teenagers evil behavior oh my gosh why are these teenagers standing in front of 7-eleven this kanji means undress it contains the primitive meaning devil or evil teenager and another piece which means moon on its own but you know what - moon is also a transitive verb meaning to show your bare butt to someone as a prank so as a primitive I mean as part of another country this component can take on the meaning of flesh or body part those are the keywords chosen by Isaac but I think bare butt works too so we know that this kanji clearly means undressed because it shows an evil teenager possessed by the devil stripping down to his bare butt or her bare butt or insert your pronoun here bear but by the way just like bear but evil teenager is my idea and not the exact keyword given by Isaac when I used his method I changed some of the key words in the book - ones that were more memorable to me he recommends you don't do that but well I did it you just have to make sure you're personally chosen keywords aren't used for other kanji or primitives this kanji means pointed as in sharp it contains the primitive meaning devil or evil teenager same thing really in this one on the left meaning metal which also appears on its own meaning gold the word pointed refers to those sharp metal objects that evil teenagers possessed by the devil carry in their pockets so they can rob all the innocent adults or even worse why are some of these kanji stories so insane or ridiculous look at what I wrote on the inside cover of my copy of remembering the kanji do not read these stories without my permission many are intentionally disturbing to aid memorization and yes I realize that my handwriting here might be just as disturbing the stories for these kanji don't always have to be insane or shocking you just need to imagine a vivid memorable image this kanji means storm the bottom component means wind and the top one means mountain both of these exist as independent kanji as well for this kanji I imagined a storm so powerful that the wind tears a mountain out of the ground that sends it flying into the air that's why the mountain is on top of the wind see as long as you come up with a vivid image it doesn't have to be shocking this right here is a kanji meaning large but when it appears as a primitive and other kanji heizak recommends using the keyword st. Bernard a kind of dog but that's kind of lame how's this for an alternative Godzilla how can you not come up with a memorable image using Godzilla but I suppose you could use another large beast like King Kong or something this kanji means thinking the bottom component is Godzilla and the top component means nose which also appears on its own with its own story imagine Godzilla roaming around your city with his nose in the air sniffing for the smell of humans to eat people with stinking body odor are the ones he'll find first and tear them limb from limb with his sharp teeth this kanji means person but when it appears as a primitive in other kanji you can choose a specific person who's very memorable to you when I did the remembering the kanji course I used a childhood friend of mine who was always getting into trouble because I had lots of stories about him but since you're watching and you don't know my friend let me choose a new memorable person right now how about Arnold Schwarzenegger this kanji means rest when the person primitive appears on the left side of a kanji its shape is slightly modified like it's been squeezed into a narrower space this primitive on the right means tree and also appears on its own as an independent kanji you might be thinking okay Arnold Schwarzenegger is sitting under a tree resting yeah that's fine but that's kind of lame Arnold Schwarzenegger has been pulling trees right out of the ground and chopping them up into wood with his bare hands all day so now he needs to rest after resting for a solid thirty Seconds Arne stands up again and starts uprooting more trees feeling well-rested this kanji means dwell as in to live in a place this component on the right takes on the visual keyword of Candlestick when it's a primitive as a kanji on its own it means Lord and has its own story back when he dwelled in Austria Arnold Schwarzenegger was very poor and dwelled in a little shack with no electricity instead he set a three meter tall candle stick inside the shack that he could dwell on himself in the mirror even after dark note that dwell on has the meaning of focus on so this is different from the meaning of the kanji but it's a play on words that can reinforce my memory of the keyword even more Isaac's keyword for this primitive is sau meaning an adult female pig but I added a second option piglet that is piglet from the Winnie the Pooh series it's fine to use both since they're closely related but piglet might provide a more vivid image for certain kanji this kanji means pursue it contains two primitives sow and rode imagine a swarm of 50 South escaping from their farm and running down the road with a desperate farmer pursuing them trying to get them back this kanji means drama as in theatre performance it contains three primitives tiger piglet and saber but I'm going to modify Tiger to Tigger to fit in with piglet and while saber as in sword is a decent keyword I'm going to make it light saber [Music] in this drama this dramatic play the climax consists of Tigger and piglet having a duel with lightsabers it's supposed to be a mere drama just acting but Tigger accidentally kills piglet vivid images are great and some of the most vivid images for you might be memories of things you've experienced this kanji means window it contains four primitives housed human legs elbow and heart for this kanji I remember the time I came home after I'd forgotten my house key so I had to get inside by climbing through a tiny window into the kitchen which we left open for our cat I imagined the image of my body half inside the house with my human legs hanging outside after finally squeezing through and landing on the kitchen floor I had a sore elbow and my heart was racing from all the adrenaline this really happened to me actually four or five different times so it's hard for me to forget memorizing so many kanji using simple rote memorization would be really hard or at least take a long time but using mnemonics using your imagination and associations to help you remember is an extremely useful tool in your arsenal it's also a heck of a lot more interesting than just drilling the same kanji a million times in order to remember it so if you're learning Japanese Kanji have a look at high zigs remembering the kanji and give it a try of course it requires a lot of dedication to come up with stories for 2,000 different kanji and you do have to review them in order to reinforce them but people who complete the program and do their reviews rarely regret it there's also a version for Chinese as well which comes in two versions simplified chinese and traditional chinese but even if you don't use this specific method the general idea of using your imagination and creativity as a memory tool is something that we can learn from it oh and I must apologize for forgetting to explain this kanji meaning apologize this one contains two primitives words and shoot each of which have their own stories and can be broken down even further this kanji represents an abusive husband every time he hurts his wife he comes back to her and apologizes profusely but this time when she hears his words the question of the day to people who have used the remembering the kanji course to learn kanji what was your experience with it did it help you remember the meanings of kanji and to other people do you use any kinds of memory techniques that help you learn characters words or other parts of a language let us know in the comments down below if you enjoyed this video then check out liang focus on the various social media platforms like YouTube Facebook Instagram and Twitter and as always I want to say a very special thanks to all of my patreon supporters especially these amazing ones right here on the screen they are my top tier patreon supporters thank you very much to them and to everyone thank you for watching and have a nice day you

Channel: Langfocus

Views: 83,613

Rating: 4.909842 out of 5

Keywords: language study, polyglot, phrases, linguist, linguistics, Japanese language, Chinese characters, Kanji, Remembering the Kanji, RTK, Heisig, James W. Heisig, mnemonic, memory techniques, memory tricks, Chinese language, how to learn Kanji, kanji primitives, kanji radicals, Kanji stories, How to read Kanji, Are kanji difficult to learn?, learn Kanji, learn Japanese

Id: k1VSoym8X2s

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/FarrelMFajar]

Langfocus: "To make me memorize easier I changed the primitives and the story a bit to my liking."

Heisig: "Wait, that's illegal."

[u/polarisrising]

It's paired with readings as well, but I usually turn to kanjidamage.com when I can't think of one.