Kanji Mnemonics #1 - Man
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman’s uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles.
Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman’s system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first six years of school in Japan (~1,000 Kanji). Each week we’ll be releasing a new flash movie introducing 6-12 new Kanjis.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Matt Wachsman to our blogging team.
Dr. Matt Wachsman is married with two boys ages 12 and 16 who have been fond of anime and Japanese culture from a very early age. He lives in the town of Havre de Grace, Maryland where he took up his father’s general medical practice. Besides his MD, Dr. Wachsman also has his PhD in pharmacology. His hobbies include rocket science, and, of course, Japanese.
Havre de Grace was founded more than 200 years ago, it is at the top of the Chesapeake Bay where the Susquehanna River flows into it. It is near several army bases and was home to a small group of Japanese war brides after WWII with influence on the local cuisine and culture.
Posted by JapanesePod101.com in Kanji Mnemonics |
January 16th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
This is GREAT !
I think I already rememberd those Kanjis just by watching the flash once! (I’ll forget some of them soon, obviously, but) I’ll be looking forward to more of these Kanji flashes to come up!
January 16th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
先生、Nice one! Keep up the good work!
January 17th, 2008 at 4:44 am
Great! Always looking for neat ways to connect the various symbols in Kanji, and make sense of them or think up reminders in remembering them. Looking forward to more. Wondering if JapanesePod101 is going to keep these posted somewhere for easy access, or does this gentleman have a website to refer to?
January 17th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
These are excellent, thank you! I think the story progression is an excellent help. I like how the proposal even looks like a bended knee
January 21st, 2008 at 9:56 am
gosh, thanks. Gee, it looks better than I remember it; the Japanese pod 101 staff have been instrumental in bringing the kanji animations to the site. They have been helpful in every phase of the development (important, since I don’t actually know Japanese !).
Hmm… I thought they’d have been premium content. Just as well as I can’t afford a premium membership.
This is one of over 20 that are done and 50 total outlined so far (about 180 kanji ready, 300 kanji outlined, 500 kanji for the first set planned).
The two sets of kanji currently submitted are ‘Japanese box’, ‘Man’ (this one), “Woman’, ‘Child’,
and ‘king’ and the more recent set ‘earth’, ‘heaven’, ‘world’, ’sun’ and next weeks,
‘moon’. This week’s kanji animation, is sent because of the kanji 追 being in the blog, is one going out of order as the next set submitted to Japanese Pod 101, it was going to be in the fourth set. This one, entitled, “BUTTOCKS” … is interesting.
Dr. Matt
January 29th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Dr. Matt,
I think the animation mnemonic is awesome. I think as it is, the progression is a great way to get JPodders to visualize and recognize new kanji.
Maybe, in the comments, there could be more in-depth discussions of the kanji? For example, if you say 湧 means SHOUTS, I don’t really know how to read it, nor what compounds it’s used in.
(Actually, I am still having trouble with this one. My dictionaries say 湧かす means “gush, flow.” Can anybody help show me how to use the kanji to mean “shout”?)
Thanks, from a fellow Marylander.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Hi, Andorei! Your question intrigued me, so I thought I’d investigate the matter. For what it’s worth (from yet another Marylander, at least during childhood!), here’s what I’ve found about 湧.
One extremely weird thing: If you look at the motionless list of kanji and definitions above, it says “uproar.” But if you play the video, you initially see “shouts,” and then that changes to “uproar.”
As you may know, Halpern says the following about 湧:
On-yomi: ユウ、ヨウ
Kun-yomi: わ（く）
Original meaning: to well up, spring forth, gush out.
That can refer to either spring water or emotions and ideas.
The kanji can also mean “to breed, be hatched.”
Breen has the meanings as “boil; ferment; seethe; uproar; breed.”
湧き上がる (wakiagaru), more commonly written as 沸き上がる, has “to get excited; to be in uproar” as its 3rd meaning. That’s still not “to shout.”
But … the homophone 沸く (waku), which seems to be used interchangeably in certain words (as indicated above), DOES mean “to shout” in the following example from Breen:
勝利の知らせに国中が喜びに沸いた。
Shouri no shirase ni kunijū ga yorokobi ni waita.
On hearing of the victory, the whole nation shouted for joy.
Breen connects that sentence with the following definition of 沸く(which has many meanings)：”to get excited; to take place energetically.”
Hope that helps a little!
April 15th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
what if the kanji mnemonic is followed with its yomi kata? i think that would help more