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04/10/ · Remembering the kanji by Heisig, James W., Publication date Openlibrary_edition OLM Openlibrary_work OLW 16/08/ · Description PDF Download Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, 6th Edition Full Format The following tips will help you fill out Remembering The Kanji 6th Edition Pdf quickly and easily: Open the template in the full-fledged online editing tool by clicking Get form. Fill in the remembering the meaning and the writing of the kanji—perhaps the single most difficult barrier to learning Japanese—can be greatly simplified if the two are isolated and studied apart from 27/04/ · Updated to include the new kanji approved by the Japanese government in as &#general-use&# kanji, the sixth edition of this popular text aims to ... read more
EMBED for wordpress. com hosted blogs and archive. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Publication date Topics Japanese language -- Orthography and spelling -- Textbooks , Chinese characters -- Japan -- Textbooks , Japanese language -- Textbooks for foreign speakers -- English Publisher Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press Collection inlibrary ; printdisabled ; internetarchivebooks Digitizing sponsor The Arcadia Fund Contributor Internet Archive Language English ; Japanese. A systematic guide to reading Japanese characters. Full catalog record MARCXML. plus-circle Add Review. There are no reviews yet. The fact that we some- times conµate what happened in waking life with what merely occurred in a dream is an indication of how powerful those imaginative stimuli can be.
While dreams may be broken up into familiar component parts, the compos- ite whole is fantastical and yet capable of exerting the same force on perceptual memory as an external stimulus. It is possible to use imagination in this way also in a waking state and harness its powers for assisting a visual memory admittedly ill-adapted for remembering the kanji. In other words, if we could discover a limited number of basic elements in the characters and make a sort of alphabet out of them, assigning to each its own image, fusing them together to form other images, and so building up complex tableaux in imagination, the impasse created by purely visual memory might be overcome. Such an imaginative alphabet would be every bit as rigorous as a phonetic one in restricting each basic element to one basic value; but its gram- mar would lack many of the controls of ordinary language and logic.
It would be like a kind of dream-world where anything at all might happen, and happen differently in each mind. Visual memory would be used minimally, to build up the alphabet. In fact, most students of the Japanese writing system do something similar from time to time, devising their own mnemonic aids but never developing an organized approach to their use. At the same time, most of them would be embarrassed at the academic silliness of their own secret devices, feeling some- how that there is no way to re³ne the ridiculous ways their mind works. Yet if it does work, then some such irreverence for scholarship and tradition seems very much in place. Indeed, shifting attention from why one forgets certain kanji to why one remembers others should offer motivation enough to under- take a more thorough attempt to systematize imaginative memory. The basic alphabet of the imaginative world hidden in the kanji we may call, following traditional terminology, primitive elements or simply primi- tives.
In fact, most of the radicals are them- selves primitives, but the number of primitives is not restricted to the tradi- tional list of radicals. The primitives, then, are the fundamental strokes and combinations of strokes from which all the characters are built up. A few of these will be given primitive meanings; that is, they will serve as funda- mental images. Simple combinations will yield new primitive meanings in turn, and so on as complex characters are built up. If these primitives are pre- sented in orderly fashion, the taxonomy of the most complex characters is greatly simpli³ed and no attempt need be made to memorize the primitive alphabet apart from actually using it. The number of primitives, as we are understanding the term, is a moot question. Traditional etymology counts some of them.
We shall draw upon these freely, and also ground our primitive meanings in traditional etymolog- ical meanings, without making any particular note of the fact as we proceed. We shall also be departing from etymology to avoid the confusion caused by the great number of similar meanings for differently shaped primitives. Wher- ever possible, then, the generic meaning of the primitives will be preserved, although there are cases in which we shall have to specify that meaning in a dif- ferent way, or ignore it altogether, so as to root imaginative memory in famil- iar visual memories. Should the student later turn to etymological studies, the procedure we have followed will become more transparent, and should not cause any obstacles to the learning of etymologies.
The list of elements that we have singled out as primitives proper Index ii is restricted to the following four classes: basic elements that are not kanji, kanji that appear as basic ele- ments in other kanji with great frequency, kanji that change their meaning when they function as parts of other kanji, and kanji that change their shape when forming parts of other kanji. Any kanji that keeps both its form and its meaning and appears as part of another kanji functions as a primitive, whether or not it occurs with enough frequency to draw attention to it as such. The 2, characters chosen for study in these pages given in the order of presentation in Index i and arranged according to the number of strokes in Index iii include the basic 1, general-use kanji established as standard by the Japanese Ministry of Education in ,1 roughly another 60 used chieµy in proper names, and a handful of characters that are convenient for use as prim- itive elements.
Each kanji is assigned a key word that represents its basic mean- ing, or one of its basic meanings. The key words have been selected on the basis of how a given kanji is used in compounds and on the meaning it has on its own. There is no repetition of key words, although many are nearly synony- mous. In these cases, it is important to focus on the particular µavor that that word enjoys in English, so as to evoke connotations distinct from similar key words. To be sure, many of the characters carry a side range of connotations 1 In an additional 95 characters were added to this list. They have been incorporated into later editions of this book. introduction 5 not present in their English equivalents, and vice versa; many even carry sev- eral ideas not able to be captured in a single English word. By simplifying the meanings through the use of key words, however, one becomes familiar with a kanji and at least one of its principal meanings.
Once we have the primitive meanings and the key word relevant to a par- ticular kanji cataloged in Index iv , the task is to create a composite ideo- gram. Here is where fantasy and memory come into play. That image in turn, inasmuch as it is composed of primitive meanings, will dictate precisely how the kanji is to be penned—stroke for stroke, jot for jot. Many characters, perhaps the majority of them, can be so remembered on a ³rst encounter, provided suf³cient time is taken to ³x the image. Others will need to be reviewed by focusing on the association of key-word and primitive elements. In this way, mere drill of visual memory is all but entirely eliminated. Since the goal is not simply to remember a certain number of kanji, but also to learn how to remember them and others not included in this book , the course has been divided into three parts.
Part one provides the full associa- tive story for each character. In Part two, only the skeletal plots of the stories are pre- sented, and the individual must work out his or her own details by drawing on personal memory and fantasy. Part three, which comprises the major por- tion of the course, provides only the key word and the primitive meanings, leaving the remainder of the process to the student. It will soon become apparent that the most critical factor is the order of learning the kanji. The actual method is simplicity itself. Once more basic char- acters have been learned, their use as primitive elements for other kanji can save a great deal of effort and enable one to review known characters at the same time as one is learning new ones. Hence to approach this course haphaz- ardly, jumping ahead to the later lessons before studying the earlier ones, will entail a considerable loss of ef³ciency.
It may surprise the reader casually lea³ng through these pages not to ³nd a single drawing or pictographic representation. This is fully consistent with what was said earlier about placing the stress on imaginative memory. For one thing, pictographs are an unreliable way to remember all but very few kanji; and even in these cases, the pictograph should be discovered by the student by toying with the forms, pen in hand, rather than given in one of its historical graphic forms. For another, the presentation of an image actually inhibits imagination and restricts it to the biases of the artist.
The more original work the individual does with an image, the easier will it be to remember a kanji. Before setting out on the course plotted in the following pages, attention should be drawn to a few ³nal points. In the ³rst place, one must be warned about setting out too quickly. It should not be assumed that because the ³rst characters are so elementary, they can be skipped over hastily. The method presented here needs to be learned step by step, lest one ³nd oneself forced later to retreat to the ³rst stages and start over; 20 or 25 characters per day would not be excessive for someone who has only a couple of hours to give to study.
If one were to study them full-time, there is no reason why the entire course could not be completed successfully in four to six weeks. By the time Part one has been traversed, the student should have discovered a rate of progress suitable to the time available. Second, the repeated advice given to study the characters with pad and pen- cil should be taken seriously. The method will spare one the toil of writing the same character over and over in order to learn it, but it will not supply the µuency at writing that comes only with constant practice. If pen and paper are inconvenient, one can always make do with the palm of the hand, as the Japanese do. Third, the kanji are best reviewed by beginning with the key word, pro- gressing to the respective story, and then writing the character itself. Once one has been able to perform these steps, reversing the order follows as a matter of course. More will be said about this later in the book. In the fourth place, it is important to note that the best order for learning the kanji is by no means the best order for remembering them.
For that purpose, recommendations are given in Lesson 5 for designing µash cards for random review. The idea arises from, or at least is supported by, a certain bias about learning that comes from overexposure to schooling: the notion that language is a cluster of skills that can be rationally divided, systematically learned, and certi³ed by testing. The kanji, together with the wider structure of Japanese—and indeed of any lan- guage for that matter—resolutely refuse to be mastered in this fashion. The rational order brought to the kanji in this book is only intended as an aid to get you close enough to the characters to befriend them, let them surprise you, inspire you, enlighten you, resist you, and seduce you.
But they cannot be mas- tered without a full understanding of their long and complex history and an insight into the secret of their unpredictable vitality—all of which is far too much for a single mind to bring to the tip of a single pen. That having been said, the goal of this book is still to attain native pro³- ciency in writing the Japanese characters and associating their meanings with their forms. If the logical systematization and the playful irreverence contained in the pages that follow can help spare even a few of those who pick the book up the grave error of deciding to pursue their study of the Japanese language without aspiring to such pro³ciency, the efforts that went into it will have more than received their reward. After careful consideration and review of the hundreds of letters I have received from students all over the world, as well as the changes that were introduced in the French and Spanish versions of the book,2 I have decided to let it stand as it is with only a few exceptions.
The reader will not have to ³nish more than a few lessons to realize that this book was designed for self-learning. What may not be so apparent is that using it to supplement the study of kanji in the classroom or to review for examinations has an adverse inµuence on the learning process. The more you try to combine the study of the written kanji through the method outlined in these pages with traditional study of the kanji, the less good this book will do you. I know of no exceptions. Virtually all teachers of Japanese, native and foreign, would agree with me that learning to write the kanji with native pro³ciency is the greatest single obstacle to the foreign adult approaching Japanese—indeed so great as to be presumed insurmountable. After all, if even well-educated Japanese study the characters formally for nine years, use them daily, and yet frequently have trouble remembering how to reproduce them, much more than English- speaking people have with the infamous spelling of their mother tongue, is it not unrealistic to expect that even with the best of intentions and study meth- ods those not raised with the kanji from their youth should manage the feat?
The Spanish version, prepared in collaboration with Marc Bernabé and Verònica Calafell, is Kanji para recordar: Curso mnemotécnico para el aprendizaje de la escritura y el signi³cado de los caracteres japoneses Barcelona: Editorial Herder, note to the 4th edition 9 ful³lling prophecy. This attitude is then transmitted to the student by placing greater emphasis on the supposedly simpler and more reasonable skills of learning to speak and read the language. In fact, as this book seeks to demon- strate, nothing could be further from the truth. To begin with, the writing of the kanji is the most completely rational part of the language. Over the centuries, the writing of the kanji has been simpli³ed many times, always with rational principles in mind. Aside from the Korean hangul, there may be no writing system in the world as logically structured as the Sino-Japanese characters are.
The problem is that the usefulness of this inner logic has not found its way into learning the kanji. On the contrary, it has been systematically ignored. Those who have passed through the Japanese school system tend to draw on their own experience when they teach others how to write. So great is this neglect that I would have to say that I have never met a Japanese teacher who can claim to have taught a foreign adult to write the basic general-use kanji that all high-school graduates in Japan know. Nor have I ever met a foreign adult who would claim to have learned to write at this level from a native Japanese teacher. I see no reason to assume that the Japan- ese are better suited to teach writing because it is, after all, their language. Given the rational nature of the kanji, precisely the opposite is the case: the Japanese teacher is an impediment to learning to associate the meanings of the kanji with their written form.
The obvious victim of the conventional methods is the student, but on a subtler level the recon³rmation of unquestioned biases also victimizes the Japanese teachers themselves, the most devoted of whom are prematurely denied the dream of fully internationalizing their language. There are additional problems with using this book in connection with classroom study. For one thing, as explained earlier in the Introduction, the ef³ciency of the study of the kanji is directly related to the order in which they are learned.
Formal courses introduce kanji according to different principles that have nothing to do with the writing. Obviously, learning the writing is far more important than being certi³ed to have passed some course or other. And just as obviously, one needs to know all the general- use kanji for them to be of any use for the literate adult. When it comes to reading basic materials, such as newspapers, it is little consolation to know half or even three-quarters of them. The answer, I am convinced, lies in self-study, following an order based on learning all the kanji. I do not myself know of any teacher of Japanese who has attempted to use this book in a classroom setting. My suspicion is that they would soon aban- don the idea. The book is based on the idea that the writing of the kanji can be learned on its own and independently of any other aspect of the language.
It is also based on the idea that the pace of study is different from one individual to another, and for each individual, from one week to the next. Organizing study to the routines of group instruction runs counter to those ideas. This brings us to our second question. The reasons for isolating the writing of the kanji from their pronunciation follow more or less as a matter of course from what has been said. The reading and writing of the characters are taught simultaneously on the grounds that one is useless without the other. This only begs the basic question of why they could not better, and more quickly, be taught one after the other, concentrating on what is for the foreigner the sim- pler task, writing, and later turning to the more complicated, the reading. One has only to look at the progress of non-Japanese raised with kanji to see the logic of the approach.
When Chinese adult students come to the study of Japanese, they already know what the kanji mean and how to write them. They have only to learn how to read them. It is their knowledge of the meaning and writing of the kanji that gives the Chinese the decisive edge. My idea was sim- ply to learn from this common experience and give the kanji an English read- ing. Having learned to write the kanji in this way—which, I repeat, is the most logical and rational part of the study of Japanese—one is in a much better posi- tion to concentrate on the often irrational and unprincipled problem of learn- ing to pronounce them. In a word, it is hard to imagine a less ef³cient way of learning the reading and writing of the kanji than to study them simultaneously. And yet this is the method that all Japanese textbooks and courses follow. The bias is too deeply ingrained to be rooted out by anything but experience to the contrary.
Many of these ideas and impressions, let it be said, only developed after I had myself learned the kanji and published the ³rst edition of this book. At the time I was convinced that pro³ciency in writing the kanji could be attained in four to six weeks if one were to make a full-time job of it. Still, my own experience with studying the kanji and the relatively small number of individuals I have directed in the methods of this book, bears that estimate out, and I do not hesitate to repeat it here. A word about how the book came to be written. I began my study of the kanji one month after coming to Japan with absolutely no previous knowledge of the language.
Because travels through Asia had delayed my arrival by several weeks, I took up residence at a language school in Kamakura and began study- ing on my own without enrolling in the course already in progress. A certain impatience with my own ignorance compared to everyone around me, cou- pled with the freedom to devote myself exclusively to language studies, helped me during those ³rst four weeks to make my way through a basic introductory grammar. This provided a general idea of how the language was constructed but, of course, almost no facility in using any of it. Through conversations with the teachers and other students, I quickly picked up the impression that I had best begin learning the kanji as soon as possible, since this was sure to be the greatest chore of all. The ³rst few days I spent pouring over whatever I could ³nd on the history and etymology of the Japanese characters, and examining the wide variety of systems on the market for studying them.
It was during those days that the basic idea underlying the method of this book came to me. The following weeks I devoted myself day and night to experimenting with the idea, which worked well enough to encourage me to carry on with it. Before the month was out I had learned the meaning and writing of some 1, characters and had satis³ed myself that I would retain what I had memorized. It was not long before I became aware that something extraordinary had taken place. For myself, the method I was following seemed so simple, even childish, that it was almost an embarrassment to talk about it. And it had happened as such a matter of course that I was quite unprepared for the reaction it caused. On the one hand, some at the school accused me of having a short-term pho- tographic memory that would fade with time. But it seemed to me that there was too much left to learn of the language for me to get distracted by either side.
Within a week, however, I was persuaded at least to let my notes circulate. Since most everything was either in my head or jot- ted illegibly in notebooks and on µash cards, I decided to give an hour each day to writing everything up systematically. One hour soon became two, then three, and in no time at all I had laid everything else aside to complete the task. During the two months it took to prepare it for printing I added an Introduction. Through the kind help of Mrs. Iwamoto Keiko of Tuttle Publishing Company, most of the copies were distributed in Tokyo bookstores, where they sold out within a few months.
After the month I spent studying how to write the kanji, I did not return to any formal review of what I had learned. I was busy trying to devise another method for simplifying the study of the reading of the characters, which was later com- pleted as a companion volume to the ³rst. Admittedly, the fact that I now use the kanji daily in my teaching, research, and writing is a distinct advantage. But I remain convinced that whatever facility I have I owe to the procedures out- lined in this book. Perhaps only one who has seen the method through to the end can appre- ciate both how truly uncomplicated and obvious it is, and how accessible to any average student willing to invest the time and effort. For while the method is simple and does eliminate a great deal of wasted effort, the task is still not an easy one. It requires as much stamina, concentration, and imagination as one can bring to it. James W. Heisig Barcelona, Spain 21 December 3 Remembering the Kanji ii: A Systematic Guide to Reading Japanese Characters Tokyo: Japan Publications Trading Co.
This was later followed by Remember- ing the Kanji iii: Writing and Reading Japanese Characers for Upper-Level Pro³ciency Tokyo: Japan Publications Trading Co. Each kanji has been provided with a single key word to represent the basic meaning. Some of these characters will also serve later as primitive elements to help form other kanji, when they will take a meaning different from the meaning they have as kanji. The number of strokes of each character is given in square brackets at the end of each explanation, followed by the stroke-by-stroke order of writing. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to learn to write each kanji in its proper order.
As easy as these ³rst characters may seem, study them all with a pad and pencil to get into the habit from the very start. Finally, note that each key word has been carefully chosen and should not be tampered with in any way if you want to avoid confusion later on. As you would expect, it is is written from left to right. The order of writing goes from above to below, with the ³rst stroke slightly shorter. Note how the second stroke is written left-to-right and then top-to-bottom. This is consistent with what we have already seen in the ³rst three numbers and leads us to a general prin- ciple that will be helpful when we come to more complicated kanji later on: write north-to-south, west-to-east, northwest-to-southeast. Once again, we glide over them until later. This dis- tinguishes seven from the character for spoon 0 frame , in which the horizontal stroke stops short.
The meaning, of course, is derived from the nine players who make up a team. Since the primitive is used in the kanji itself, there is no need to worry about confusing the two. In fact, we shall be following this procedure regularly. Since there are no circular shapes in the kanji, the square must be used to depict the circle. Any of the range of possible images that the word suggests—an opening or entrance to a cave, a river, a bottle, or even the largest hole in your head—can be used for the primitive meaning. lesson 1 19 12 day Õ This kanji is intended to be a pictograph of the sun. And one month, of course, is one cycle of the moon. The reasons for the latter two meanings will be explained in a later chapter.
Be careful when writing this character to get the order of the strokes correct. You will ³nd that it follows perfectly the principle stated in frame 4. In the surroundings of a complex kanji, the primitive will sometimes be turned on its side like this: {. Although only 9 of the 15 kanji treated in this lesson are formally listed as prim- itives—the elements that join together to make up other kanji—some of the others may also take on that function from time to time, only not with enough frequency to merit learning them as separate primitive elements and attaching special meanings to them. In other words, whenever one of the kanji already learned is used in another kanji, it will retain its key-word meaning unless we have assigned it a special primitive meaning. Whenever the primitive meaning differs from the key-word mean- ing, you may want to go back to the original frame to refresh your memory.
An Index of primitive elements has been added at the end of the book. Just think back to one of those graveyards you have visited, or better still, used to play in as a child, with old inscriptions on the tombstones. This departure from the primitive elements in favor of a pic- tograph will take place now and again at these early stages, and almost never after that. Probably you were foolish enough to risk a quick glance once or twice; but just as probably, you passed that bit of folk wisdom on to someone else as you grew older.
Here, too, the kanji that has a sun above and an eye right below look- ing up at it has the meaning of risk see frame Each of them has come to represent one of the common connotations of this key word: the sun, the bright insight of the clear thinker, and the moon, the bright intuition of the poet and the seer see frame You have one mouth making no noise the choirmaster and two mouths with wagging tongues the mini- mum for a chorus. So think of the key word, chant, as monas- tery singing and the kanji is yours forever see frame Just like a diamond. In writing the primitive elements three times, note again how the rule for writing given in frame 4 holds true not only for the strokes in each individual element but also for the disposition of the elements in the character as a whole. In this kanji we see two suns, one atop the other, which, if we are not careful, is easily confused in memory with the three suns of sparkle.
Focus on the number this way: since we speak of prosperous times as sunny, what could be more prosperous than a sky with two suns in it? Just be sure to actually see them there. This time, however, we shall ignore the pic- tograph and imagine sunµowers with needles for stems, which can be plucked and used to darn your socks. The sense of early is easily remembered if one thinks of the sunµower as the early riser in the garden, because the sun, showing favoritism towards its namesake, shines on it before all the others see frame If you look at this kanji in its com- pleted form—not in its stroke order—you will see three tens. What the kanji says, if you look at it, is that the part of the body that keeps the brain in working order is the stomach. Hence the choice of this rather odd key word, night- break. What all of this has to do with the gall bladder is not immediately clear.
You can almost see the journey of the sun as it moves from one horizon the µoor to its noonday heights in the sky overhead ceiling and then disappears over the other horizon—day after day, marking the span of our lives. Note the odd feeling of the third stroke. There are very few times you will have to write it. After completing this lesson you should have a clearer idea of how the course is laid out. We merely add a couple of primitive elements to the kanji we already know and see how many new kanji we can form—in this case, 18 in all—and when we run out, add more primi- tives. And so on, until there are no kanji left.
There is no need to make a special effort to memorize them. The sheer frequency with which most of them show up should make remembering them automatic. It carries with it the connotations of lame- ness and whatever else one associates with the use of a cane. Rarely—but very rarely—it will be laid on its side. Whenever this occurs, it will always be driven through the middle of some other primitive element. In this way, you need not worry about confusing it with the primitive meanings of one. At other times it can be stretched out a bit. In cases where you have trouble remem- bering this, it may help to think of it as an eyedropper drip- ping drops of something or other. Examples will follow in this lesson. The rest will take care of itself.
The Japanese refer to themselves by pointing a ³nger at their nose— giving us an easy way to remember the kanji for oneself. Hence, a single drop of sun spells white. This latter stems from the fact that it appears at the top of the kanji for bird, which we shall get to later frame Remember the trouble your mother had getting medicine in your mouth? Now put the elements together by thinking of squeezing two more zeros out of an eyedropper alongside the number ten to make it a thousand. A B C D 42 measuring box © This is the character for the little wooden box that the Japan- ese use for measuring things, as well as for drinking saké out of. Be very careful when you write this character not to confuse it with the writing of thousand. The reason for the difference gives us a chance to clarify another general principle of writing that supersedes the one we mentioned in frame 4: when a single stroke runs vertically through the middle of a character, it is written last. For instance, if you add just a wee bit, the tiniest drop, to nine, you end up with a round number.
Think of a grotesquely fat man whose paunch so covers the plate that he is always getting hit by the pitch. Hence a round baseball player becomes a fat man. In the old system, it was one-tenth of a shaku whose kanji we shall meet in frame The picture, appropriately, represents one drop of a ten with a hook! There is no need to devise a story to remember this, since the primitive will appear so often you would have to struggle hard not to remember it. rice ³elds. That is how one would read the primitive elements of this kanji from top to bottom. In fact, few people remain content with a single specialty and usually extend themselves in other ³elds as well. This is how we come to get the picture of ten ³elds glued together to represent a specialty. N At the left we have the needle; at the right, the kanji for spe- cialty, plus an extra drop at the top.
Think of a Dr. who is a spe- cialist with a needle an acupuncturist and let the drop at the top represent the period at the end of Dr. In principle we are trying to avoid this kind of device, which plays on abstract grammatical conventions; but I think you will agree, after you have had occasion to use the right side of this kanji in forming other kanji, that the exception is merited in this case. We have already seen one example of how to form primitives from other prim- itives, when we formed the nightbreak out of sun and µoor frame Let us take two more examples of this procedure right away, so that we can do so from now on without having to draw any particular attention to the fact.
Alternately, you can think of it as a magic wand. In either case, it should suggest images of magic or fortune-telling. Nowadays it is written in the stroke order given here when it appears as a primitive, but until recently the order was often reversed in order to instill correct habits for more stylized cal- ligraphy. Note how the movement from top to bottom the movement in which the kanji are written is also the order of the elements which make up our story and of the key word itself: ³rst divin- ing rod, then mouth. This will not always be possible, but where it is, memory has almost no work at all to do. But the characters do not follow that custom, so we have to choose something else, easily remembered.
Anyway, go right on to the next frame, since the two belong together and are best remembered as a unit, just as the words above and below suggest each other. In addition to giving us two new kanji, the two shapes given in this and the preceding frame also serve to ³x the use of the primitives for ceiling and µoor, by drawing our attention successively to the line standing above and below the primitive element to which it is related. At the bottom is the primitive also a kanji for early or sunµower. At the top, a needle. Con- veniently, mist falls early in the morning, like little needles of rain, to assure that the sunµower blooms early as we have learned it should.
If you can think of the moon tilting over to spill mist on your garden, you should have no trouble remembering which of all the elements in this story are to serve as primitives for constructing the character. But remember: there is no reason to study the primitives by themselves. They are being presented systematically to make their learning automatic. Like the four that follow it, this primitive is not a kanji in its own right, though it is said to be derived from k, the charac- ter we learned earlier for eight. It always comes at the bottom of the primitive to which it is related.
The one animal not allowed is our friend homo sapiens, whose legs ³gure in the next frame. Even where the term legs will apply metaphori- cally to the legs of pieces of furniture, it is best to keep the asso- ciation with animal legs. You may review frame 6 here. Though they are not likely to suggest the legs of any human you know, they do have something of the look of someone out for a stroll, especially if you compare them to animal legs. If you had any trouble with the kanji for the number four, now would be the time to return to it frame 4.
The main thing to remember when writing this element is that the second stroke bends outwards, like a gust of wind blown from above. In addition to the basic meaning of wind, we shall also have occasion to use the image of a weather vane. The der- ivation is obvious. If you have trouble remembering when it serves as an enclosure with the hook and when not without the hook , you might think of the former as a chain and the lat- ter as a rope. The horns can never simply be left hanging in the air. When there is no line available, an extra horizontal stroke like a one is added. The ³nal kanji of this lesson gives an example. But that might not help you recall later just how many ridges to put on the shell.
Better to imagine a freakish shell³sh with a single, gigantic eye roaming the beaches on its slender little legs, scaring the wits out of the sunbathers. lesson 4 39 55 upright Ì Now take the last primitive, the shell³sh, and set a magic wand over it, and you have the kanji for upright. After all, the clam and the oyster are incapable of walking upright. It would take a magician with his wand to pull off such a feat—which is pre- cisely what we have in this kanji. Just remember the advice new employees get about keeping their mouths shut and doing their job, and then make that more graphic by picturing an of³ce building full of white- collar workers scurrying around with clams pinched to their mouths.
Surely, somewhere in your experience, there is a vivid image just waiting to be dragged up to help you remember this character…. Incidentally, this is the only time in this book that the kanji for olden times will appear as a primitive element in another kanji, so try to make the most of it. It talks about how all things were made, and tells us that when the Creator came to humanity she made two of them, man and woman. While we presume she made two of every other animal as well, we are not told as much. Hence two and a pair of human legs come to mean beginning. The one at the top tells us that we only get a rather short book, in fact only one page. lesson 4 41 61 stubborn V This character refers to the blockheaded, persistent stubborn- ness of one who sticks to an idea or a plan just the way it was at the beginning, without letting anything that comes up along the way alter things in the least.
Back up to the image we used two frames ago— Adam and Eve in their Eden—and try again: The root of all stubbornness goes back to the beginning, with two brothers each stubbornly defending his own way of life and asking their God to bless it favorably. Abel stuck to agriculture, Cain to ani- mal-raising. Picture these two with their giant, swelled heads, each vying for the favors of heaven, a stubborn grimace on their faces. No wonder something unfortunate happened! Now imagine two oysters engaged in shell-to- shell combat, the one who is defeated being bound and gagged with seaweed, the victor towering triumphantly over it.
The bound shell³sh thus becomes the symbol for defeat. Given that the comma is used in larger numbers to bind up a numerical unit of one thousand, the elements for one and bound up naturally come to form ten thousand. The order of strokes here needs special attention, both because it falls outside the general principles we have learned already, and because it involves writing the element for bound up in an order opposite to the one we learned. If it is any con- solation, this exception is consistent every time these three strokes come together. After all, a phrase is nothing more than a number of words bound up tightly and neatly so that they will ³t in your mouth. So whenever a part of the body gets exposed to the wind, its texture is affected. So we resurrect the classical phrase, decameron, whose connotations the tales of Boccaccio have done much to enrich.
Actually, it refers to a journey of ten days taken by a band of people—that is, a group of people bound together for the days of the decameron. See the last drop left inside the ladle? Together they bring to mind the picture of a moose-head hanging on the den wall, with its great horns and long nose. Here we get a good look at what we mentioned when we ³rst introduced the element for horns: that they can never be left µoating free and require an extra horizontal stroke to prevent that from happening, as is the case here. If we were to step outside of the standard list, there are actually any num- ber of other kanji that we could learn at this time. It carries with it the connotations of lameness and whatever else one associates with the use of a cane. Rarely—but very rarely—it will be laid on its side. Whenever this occurs, it will always be driven through the middle of some other primitive element. In this way, you need not worry about confusing it with the primitive meanings of one.
At other times it can be stretched out a bit. In cases where you have trouble remembering this, it may help to think of it as an eyedropper dripping drops of something or other. Examples will follow in this lesson. The rest will take care of itself. The Japanese refer to themselves by pointing a finger at their nose— giving us an easy way to remember the kanji for oneself. Hence, a single drop of sun spells white. This latter stems from the fact that it appears at the top of the kanji for bird, which we shall get to later frame Remember the trouble your mother had getting medicine in your mouth? Now put the elements together by thinking of squeezing two more zeros out of an eyedropper alongside the number ten to make it a thousand. The reason for the difference gives us a chance to clarify another general principle of writing that supersedes the one we mentioned in frame 4: when a single stroke runs vertically through the middle of a character, it is written last.
For instance, if you add just a wee bit, the tiniest drop, to nine, you end up with a round number. Think of a grotesquely fat man whose paunch so covers the plate that he is always getting hit by the pitch. Hence a round baseball player becomes a fat man. In the old system, it was one-tenth of a shaku whose kanji we shall meet in frame The picture, appropriately, represents one drop of a ten with a hook! There is no need to devise a story to remember this, since the primitive will appear so often you would have to struggle hard not to remember it.
rice fields. That is how one would read the primitive elements of this kanji from top to bottom. In fact, few people remain content with a single specialty and usually extend themselves in other fields as well. This is how we come to get the picture of ten fields glued together to represent a specialty. At the left we have the needle; at the right, the kanji for specialty, plus an extra drop at the top. Think of a Dr. who is a specialist with a needle an acupuncturist and let the drop at the top represent the period at the end of Dr. In principle we are trying to avoid this kind of device, which plays on abstract grammatical conventions; but I think you will agree, after you have had occasion to use the right side of this kanji in forming other kanji, that the exception is merited in this case. Let us take two more examples of this procedure right away, so that we can do so from now on without having to draw any particular attention to the fact. Alternately, you can think of it as a magic wand.
In either case, it should suggest images of magic or fortune-telling. Nowadays it is written in the stroke order given here when it appears as a primitive, but until recently the order was often reversed in order to instill correct habits for more stylized calligraphy. Note how the movement from top to bottom the movement in which the kanji are written is also the order of the elements which make up our story and of the key word itself: first divining rod, then mouth. This will not always be possible, but where it is, memory has almost no work at all to do. But the characters do not follow that custom, so we have to choose something else, easily remembered. Anyway, go right on to the next frame, since the two belong together and are best remembered as a unit, just as the words above and below suggest each other.
In addition to giving us two new kanji, the two shapes given in this and the preceding frame also serve to fix the use of the primitives for ceiling and floor, by drawing our attention successively to the line standing above and below the primitive element to which it is related. At the bottom is the primitive also a kanji for early or sunflower. At the top, a needle. Conveniently, mist falls early in the morning, like little needles of rain, to assure that the sunflower blooms early as we have learned it should. If you can think of the moon tilting over to spill mist on your garden, you should have no trouble remembering which of all the elements in this story are to serve as primitives for constructing the character. But remember: there is no reason to study the primitives by themselves.
They are being presented systematically to make their learning automatic. It always comes at the bottom of the primitive to which it is related. The one animal not allowed is our friend homo sapiens, whose legs figure in the next frame. You may review frame 6 here. Though they are not likely to suggest the legs of any human you know, they do have something of the look of someone out for a stroll, especially if you compare them to animal legs. If you had any trouble with the kanji for the number four, now would be the time to return to it frame 4. The main thing to remember when writing this element is that the second stroke bends outwards, like a gust of wind blown from above.
In addition to the basic meaning of wind, we shall also have occasion to use the image of a weather vane. The derivation is obvious. When this latter happens— usually because there is not enough room—and it is set on top, the little hook at the end is dropped off, like this: 聴. If you have trouble remembering when it serves as an enclosure with the hook and when not without the hook , you might think of the former as a chain and the latter as a rope. The horns can never simply be left hanging in the air. When there is no line available, an extra horizontal stroke like a one is added. The final kanji of this lesson gives an example. The meaning of this element is wide enough to embrace the horns of bulls, rams, billy goats, and moose, but not the family of musical instruments. But that might not help you recall later just how many ridges to put on the shell. Better to imagine a freakish shellfish with a single, gigantic eye roaming the beaches on its slender little legs, scaring the wits out of the sunbathers.
After all, the clam and the oyster are incapable of walking upright. It would take a magician with his wand to pull off such a feat—which is precisely what we have in this kanji. Just remember the advice new employees get about keeping their mouths shut and doing their job, and then make that more graphic by picturing an office building full of whitecollar workers scurrying around with clams pinched to their mouths. Surely, somewhere in your experience, there is a vivid image just waiting to be dragged up to help you remember this character….
It talks about how all things were made, and tells us that when the Creator came to humanity she made two of them, man and woman. While we presume she made two of every other animal as well, we are not told as much. Hence we need only two and a pair of human legs come to the kanji that means beginning. The one at the top tells us that we only get a rather short book, in fact a book of only one page. Back up to the image we used two frames ago—Adam and Eve in their Eden—and try again: The root of all stubbornness goes back to the beginning, with two brothers each stubbornly defending his own way of life and asking their God to bless it favorably. Abel stuck to agriculture, Cain to animal-raising. Picture these two with their giant, swelled heads, each vying for the favors of heaven, a stubborn grimace on their faces. No wonder something unfortunate happened! Now imagine two oysters engaged in shell-toshell combat, the one who is defeated being bound and gagged with seaweed, the victor towering triumphantly over it.
The bound shellfish thus becomes the symbol for defeat. Given that the comma is used in larger numbers to bind up a numerical unit of one thousand, the elements for one and bound up naturally come to form ten thousand. The order of strokes here needs special attention, both because it falls outside the general principles we have learned already, and because it involves writing the element for bound up in an order opposite to the one we learned. If it is any consolation, 40 remembering the kanji 1 this happens every time these three strokes come together. After all, a phrase is nothing more than a number of words bound up tightly and neatly so that they will fit in your mouth.
So whenever a part of the body gets exposed to the wind, its texture is affected. So we resurrect the classical phrase, decameron, whose connotations the tales of Boccaccio have done much to enrich. Actually, it refers to a journey of ten days taken by a band of people—that is, a group of people bound together for the days of the decameron. See the last drop left inside the ladle? Together they bring to mind the picture of a moose-head hanging on the den wall, with its great horns and long nose. Anyway, if you let the word neck conjure up the image of a moose with a very l-o-n-g neck hanging over the fireplace, whose horns you use for a coat-rack and whose nose has spigots left and right for scotch and water, you should have no trouble with the character. Here we get a good look at what we mentioned when we first introduced the element for horns: that they can never be left floating free and require an extra horizontal stroke to prevent that from happening, as is the case here.
If we were to step outside of the standard list, we would see that there are 42 remembering the kanji 1 actually any number of other kanji that we could learn at this time. Just to give you an idea of some of the possibilities though you should not bother to learn them now , here are a few, with their meanings: 唄 pop song , 泪 teardrops , 吋 inch , 肘 elbow , 叱 scolding. While many of the stories you have learned in the previous lessons are actually more complex than the majority you will learn in the later chapters, they are the first stories you have learned, and for that reason are not likely to cause you much difficulty. By now, however, you may be wondering just how to go about reviewing what you have learned. The best method is to design for yourself a set of flash cards that you can add to as you go through the book.
If you have not already started doing this on your own, you might try it this way: Buy heavy paper about twice the thickness of normal index cards , unlined and with a semigloss finish. Cut it into cards of about 9 cm. long and 6 cm. On one side, make a large ball-pen drawing of one kanji in the top two-thirds of the card. Writing done with fountain pens and felt-tip pens tends to smear with the sweat that comes from holding them in your hands for a long time. On the bottom right-hand corner, put the number of the frame in which the kanji appeared.
On the back side, in the upper left-hand corner, write the key word meaning of the character. Then draw a line across the middle of the card and another line about 2 cm. below it. The space between these two lines can be used for any notes you may need later to remind you of the primitive elements or stories you used to remember the character. Only fill this in when you need to, but make a card for every kanji as soon as you have learned it. The rest of the space on the card you will not need now, but later, when you study the readings of the characters, you might use the space above the double lines. The bottom half of the card, on both sides, can be left free for inserting kanji compounds front side and their readings and meanings back side. A final note about reviewing. You have probably gotten yourself into the habit of writing the character several times when memorizing it, whether you need to or not; and then writing it more times for kanji below that you have trouble remembering.
If a kanji causes you trou50 ble, spend time clarifying the floor with magic wand below 偸 lesson 5 43 imagery of its story. Also, when you review, review only from the key word to the kanji, not the other way around. The reasons for this, along with further notes on reviewing, will come later. We are now ready to return to work, adding a few new primitives one by one, and seeing what new characters they allow us to form. We shall cover 24 new kanji in this lesson. Since it is a pictograph of a fishhook, it should not be hard to associate it with the key word.
Its shape will rarely be quite the same as that of the kanji. When it appears at the bottom of another primitive, it is straightened out, almost as if the weight of the upper element had bent it out of shape: 肌. And when it appears to the right of another element, the short horizontal line that gets the shape started is omitted and it is stretched out and narrowed, all for reasons of space and aesthetics: 肋. Examples follow. Together they represent the eye of a needle. Below them is a fishhook that has been straightened out and its barb removed so that it can pass through the eye of the needle.
Conveniently, it is always drawn at the very bottom of any kanji in which it figures. The first stroke, the horizontal one, is detached from anything above it, but is necessary to distinguish tool from animal legs. It indicates where your hands your ten fingers fall when you let them droop: by your side. The stroke order of this character can be reversed; but whichever stroke is written second, that stroke should be drawn longer than the other. The difference is slight, and all but unnoticeable in printed characters, but it should be learned all the same.
Note how the second stroke droops over to the left and is longer than the first. Imagine a little mouth hanging down by your side—like a little voice of conscience—telling you the 46 remembering the kanji 1 right thing to do. Here the second stroke should reach out to the right and be drawn slightly longer than the first. Take careful note of the stroke order. Keep the connotation of the last frame for the word possess, and now expand your image of shells to include the ancient value they had as money a usage that will come in very helpful later on. Now one who is possessed by shells is likely to abandon any higher principles to acquire more and more wealth. These are the easiest ones to bribe with a few extra shells. Simply because a ruler bestows a noble name on a deed is hardly any consolation to the masses who must part with their hard-earned money.
Little wonder that this ancient craft of getting money by calling it a tribute has given way to a name closer to how it feels to those who pay it: a tax. When we think of a paragraph, we immediately think of a heading device to break a text into parts. Think of the elaborate heads often seen at the start of medieval manuscripts and the task becomes easier still. This is to our advantage, in that it helps us make a distinction between two primitive elements based on this kanji. When it appears to the right of another element, it is commonly stretched out like this 刂 and takes the sense of a great and flashing saber, a meaning it gets from a character we shall learn later frame See the little drop of blood clinging to the blade?
It is hard to think of cutting anything with a knife without imagining one of those skillful Japanese chefs. The related but less tame key word seduce was chosen because it seemed to fit better with the—how shall we put it? Observe if you will that it is not sure whether the long slender object is seducing the small round one or vice versa. Just be sure to associate it with a very concrete image. Think of digging for clams in an area where there are gaming rules governing how large a find has to be before you can keep it. So you take your trusty saber, which you have carefully notched like a yardstick, crack open a clam, and then measure the poor little beastie to see if it is as long as the rules say it has to be. It takes its meaning from the common image of the overwealthy as also being overfed. More specifically, the kanji shows us one single mouth devouring all the harvest of the fields, presumably while those who labor in them go hungry. Think of the phrase exactly as it is written when you draw the character, and the disposition of the elements is easy.
They were constant companions, like the cowboy of the Old West and his six-shooter. This character depicts what must have been the height of separation-anxiety for a samurai: to be bound up with a rope and unable to get at his saber leaning only a few feet away from him. Look at that mouth bellowing out for shame and sorrow! Note the order in which the element for tied up is written— just as it had been with the character for ten thousand. Should it happen, on reviewing, that you find the pictographs get jumbled, then think of jerking a street sign out of the ground and using it as a nail to repair your garage roof. Remember what was said earlier: when used as a primitive, a kanji may either take its primitive meaning or revert to the original meaning of its key word.
In this lesson we shall concentrate on primitives that have to do with people. As you were reminded in frame 92, even those kanji that are given special meanings as primitives may also retain their key word meaning when used as primitives. Although this may sound confusing, in fact it turns out to be convenient for making stories and, in addition, helps to reinforce the original meaning of the character. Thus a child with its arms wrapped up into the back-sack is the picture of a job successfully completed. A little farfetched, until you draw the character and feel the grace and flow of the three simple strokes. Remembering the kanji is easy; being able to write it beautifully is another thing. Freud again, but his eye for symbolism is often helpful to appreciate things that more earthy imaginations once accepted more freely but that we have learned to cover over with a veneer of etiquette.
For instance, the fact that things like the mouth of a cave served as natural ritual substitutes for the opening through which a woman gives birth. Hence, in order to be reborn as an adult, one may have to pass through the psychological equivalent of the womb, that is, something that bears a likeness to the opening of the woman from whom you were born. Take careful note of the fact that the form is altered slightly when this kanji serves as a primitive, the final two dots joining together to form a longer stroke. An example follows in the next frame. The kanji here is read, top to bottom: mama. All you need to do is imagine piercing an ear so that it can hold a mother-of-pearl actually, a mamaof-pearl you have just wrested from an oyster. But let us begin slowly and not get ahead of ourselves, for it is only after you have mastered the simple forms that the apparently impenetrable complexities of later primitives will dissolve. The primitives we give here will immediately suggest others, on the basis of what we have already learned.
Hence the somewhat haphazard order among the frames of this lesson. The point of writing it three times is to rub the point in: little, little, nothing but little. Written above a horizontal line, its form is slightly altered, the last two strokes turning inwards like this: 聹. This happens because a single, isolated drop will never appear beneath its relative primitive in its normal size, for fear it would drop off and get lost. As for the meaning, let the tiny drop indicate a further belittling of what is already little—thus making it a few of something little. It should not be too hard to locate the two legs and outstretched arms. Therefore, this shape will become a large dog or, if you prefer, a St. Bernard dog. In frame we will explain why this choice was made. You can almost see someone standing at the top looking down into the abyss below.
Here we have two moons three of them would take us back to the beginning of time, which is further than we want to go , lacking the final stroke because they are partially hidden behind the clouds of time. Meantime we have a perfect blend of picture and idea in this kanji to play on the English word for nightfall, eventide: drops of water inching their way up the shore in the evening. Now, as every magician worth his abracadabra knows, bringing your magic wand out into the evening air makes your magic much more powerful than if you were to stay indoors. Hence, evening and magic wand takes you naturally outside. It is an impressive naming custom and fits in tidily with the way this character is constructed: evening. At evening time, a mouth pronounces the name that will accompany one throughout life. Perhaps it is the hiding place where Ali Baba and his band of thieves have stored their treasures, in which case that magic word known to every school child who ever delighted over the tales of the Arabian Nights should be enough to push the stone aside.
But take care—the cliff is steep, and one slip will send you tumbling down into the ravine below. If you think of the edge jutting outwards in keeping with the story above , the problem should be taken care of. It speaks of a little bit of flesh. If you want an explanation: the kanji for moon also carries a secondary sense of fire, which we omitted because we are keeping that meaning for other primitives. Here we imagine pouring it over a rock and watching the sparks fly as it bores a hole through the rock. Since they will be coming together from time to time, let us give the two of them the sense of a game of cricket in which a needle is laid across the wicket.
Then imagine using a rock for a ball. A smash hit would probably splinter the bat in all directions, and a smashing pitch would do the same with the needle wicket. If you have ever seen the process, you will have been amazed at the speed and agility with which the adept can plane a hunk of wood into shape. Indeed, you can almost see the sparks fly from their sabers. The 4th stroke that separates them is added for reasons of aes- 60 remembering the kanji 1 thetics. No sooner do you hear it than you think of a round and ample-bodied person falling into a sofa like a large drop of oil plopping into a fishbowl—kerrrr-plump! It shows a large and fluffy St. Bernard dog stretched out on a table all stuffed and stewed and garnished with vegetables, its paws in the air and an apple in its mouth. At each corner of the table sits an eager but empty mouth, waiting for the utensils to arrive so the feast can begin.
Our friend the St. Bernard is alive and well, its nose in the air sniffing suspiciously after something stinking somewhere or other. When we refer to a woman as exquisite, we mean to praise her as the sort of person we meet but few and far between. It means to block out what is nonessential in order to fix our eye on a few important matters. Perhaps it is because deep down we cherish the belief that by nature people are basically tender and sensitive. Be that as it may, the Japanese character for thick depicts a child abandoned out on the wild cliffs, exposed to the heat of the sun, and thus doomed to develop a head and skin as thick as the parent who left it there. Bernard dog and can. Lots of phrases pop to mind to attach these words to the keyword, but they end up too abstract because of the word can. It is important in such cases and there will be plenty of them as we go along to stick closely to the elements, in this case, mouth and nails.
Bernard whose mouth has been nailed shut because he was hitting the brandy keg around his neck too hard. We have already met the element for wind, and now we shall introduce the others, one by one, in a somewhat longer than usual lesson. Fortunately for our imaginative memories, these suggestive and concrete primitives play a large role in the construction of the kanji, and will help us create some vivid pictures to untangle some of the complex jumbles of strokes that follow. All of this is more than evident in the kanji given here, a pictograph of a stream.
Note, however, that there are certain small changes in the writing of the element, depending on where it appears relative to other elements: on the left, it is written 川 on the top, it is written 巛 on the bottom, it is written 職 州 state Here we see drops of land little islets rising up out of a stream, creating a kind of sandbar or breakwater. Ever wonder how the state-line is drawn between states separated by a river? And that turns out to be convenient for remembering its meaning of obey. Both these senses come together in this kanji. 嘸 噂 噌 噴 水 water This character, which looks a bit like a snowflake, is actually a pictograph of water—not any particular body of water or movement of water, but simply the generic name for water.
Should you have any difficulty remembering it, simply think of a walking stick being dropped vertically into the water, sending droplets out in all four directions. Then all you need to learn is how to write it in proper order. This latter, as we will see, is far more common. The extra drop to the left, added as a second stroke, changes the picture from a splash caused by a walking stick dropped into water to form an icicle. If it helps, when you hold an icicle up to the light, you can usually see little crystallizations of five-pointed stars inside of it, which is the shape we have in this kanji.
Happily, the white is just where it should be, at the top, and the water is at the bottom. The final 4 strokes the element for water are abbreviated to the lesson 8 65 three small drops that we learned earlier as the kanji for little, giving us: 聽. Simply think of little springs bubbling up across the meadow to form a sort of path that leads you right to the brink of a precipitous cliff. Now if you can see Schwester Maria skipping along merrily, dodging in and out of the springs, and then falling headlong over the cliff, you have a ridiculous story that should help fix this kanji in memory. Since the key word already suggests something like a formal request made of some higher power, let us imagine a gigantic Wizard-of-Oz head located in the middle of the flowery meadow we used in the last frame. Then just picture people kneeling hopefully before it, petitioning for whatever it is they want. The scarecrow wanted brains, the lion, courage, and the tin man a heart.
What about you? To the right, we see the kanji for eternity. Knowing how much children like swimming, what could be a better image of eternal bliss than an endless expanse of water to swim in without a care in the world? Why certain land becomes marshy is probably due to the fact that it felt thirsty, and so tried its best to seduce the water over to its side. But, like most inordinate seductions, the last state of the victim is worse than the first. Hence the slushy marsh. The key word open sea readily suggests being out in the middle of a great body of water.
While the geological history of the larger bodies of water is hard to surmise sometimes, all of us know from our childhood how creeks are made. You probably even dug one or two in your time. All you need to do is find a mainstream of water somewhere and dig a little path into dry land. The creek is thus a lesson in water-craft, as this kanji would agree. This kanji does it three better, giving us a ten-ingredient soup. On the left is the water—that much is easy. On the right we have only one primitive, the kanji for morning learned back in frame See how an apparently complex kanji falls apart neatly into manageable pieces? To get the meaning of the key word tide, just think of it in connection with the character for eventide that we learned back in frame Here we have the morning-tide, its complement.
By the way, if you missed the question about the number of primitives, it is probably because you forgot what we said earlier about kanji becoming primitives, independently of the pieces that make them up. As a rule, look for the largest kanji you can write and proceed from there to primitives stranded on their own. In this kanji, it is under the meadow, where we just saw it breaking the surface in those bubbly little springs. This kanji depicts the idea of lively by having tongues babble and splash around like flowing water. First of all, take the water at the left as the drops of water that are used to depict water in general. In the best of all possible worlds, the most efficient way to extinguish a fire would be to see that each drop of water hits one spark of the conflagration. An unthinkable bit of utopian fire fighting, you say to yourself, but helpful for assigning this key word its primitives. Just picture yourself ready to go off on your first date as a teenager, and having your mother grill you about your manners and ask you embarrassing questions about your hygiene.
So water and teenager combine to give us but of course. You have heard of legends of people being abandoned in the mountains when they had become too old to work. Well, here is a legend about people being set adrift in the waters of a stormy lake because their flesh had gotten too old to bear the burdens of life. What could be simpler? But be careful; its simplicity is deceptive. Be sure to picture yourself fathoming a body of water several hundred feet deep by using a ruler of gargantuan proportions. All I can recommend is that you memorize it as it is. Anyway, it will be occurring with such frequency that you have almost no chance of forgetting it, even if you try.
From there it also takes the added meanings of dirt and land. It is not hard to imagine what you might do if you got a mouth full of dirt. As least I know what I would do: spit it out as fast and far as I could! This can be caused by any number of things from heavy rainfall to heavy buildings to the absence of sufficient deep-rooted vegetation to hold the layers together. Here we see a steep cliff without a tree in sight. The slightest pressure on it will cause a landslide, which, with a little help from your imagination, you will be able to see happening in this character. The soil on the left tells us we have to do with land, and the strange on the right tells us it is a cape where unusual things go on. Put a haunted house on it, an eerie sky overhead, and a howling wind rustling through the trees, and you have yourself a picture of Cape Strange or, if you prefer, Cape Odd.
The character in this frame is going to get one meaning and the primitive another, with no relation at all between the two. In time, I hope you will see how helpful this is. The kanji key word, squared jewel, depicts a mammoth precious stone, several feet high, made by piling up large heaps of soil on top of one another. Not something you would want to present your betrothed on your wedding day, but a good image for remembering this rare character, used chiefly in personal names nowadays. Instead of using the traditional wax seal, you glue a sprig of ivy on the outside. In this way the elements ivy and glue give you a curious and memorable way to seal your secret letters. Here is your chance to take that metaphor literally and imagine some fellow walking into a Buddhist temple with a fervent resolve to attach himself to the place.
Augustine in his memoirs. Ask me, and I cannot tell you.
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Search Metadata Search text contents Search TV news captions Search archived websites Advanced Search. Remembering the kanji Item Preview. remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. EMBED for wordpress. com hosted blogs and archive. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Publication date Topics Japanese language -- Orthography and spelling -- Textbooks , Chinese characters -- Japan -- Textbooks , Japanese language -- Textbooks for foreign speakers -- English Publisher Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press Collection inlibrary ; printdisabled ; internetarchivebooks Digitizing sponsor The Arcadia Fund Contributor Internet Archive Language English ; Japanese.
A systematic guide to reading Japanese characters. Full catalog record MARCXML. plus-circle Add Review. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review. Books for People with Print Disabilities. Internet Archive Books. SIMILAR ITEMS based on metadata.
Remembering Kanji 1,
Download Remembering the Kanji 1 PDF Kanji Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters (English remembering the meaning and the writing of the kanji—perhaps the single most difficult barrier to learning Japanese—can be greatly simplified if the two are isolated and studied apart from 27/04/ · Updated to include the new kanji approved by the Japanese government in as &#general-use&# kanji, the sixth edition of this popular text aims to 04/10/ · Remembering the kanji by Heisig, James W., Publication date Openlibrary_edition OLM Openlibrary_work OLW Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, () Remembering the Kanji 2: A Systematic Guide to Reading Japanese Characters. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, () 16/08/ · Description PDF Download Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, 6th Edition Full Format ... read more
The two sides combine to create a great pagoda made of dirt, with flowers by the tens of thousands fitted together for the roofing of each of the layers. The reader will not have to fi nish more than a few lessons to realize that this book was designed for self-learning. Not just kanji, but any written character from hieroglyphs to Sanskrit to our own Roman alphabet. It indicates where your hands your ten ³ngers fall when you let them droop: by your side. Cancel Delete. Should the student later turn to etymological studies, the procedure we have followed will become more transparent, and should not cause any obstacles to the learning of etymologies.
No doubt you, too, will ³nd something interesting to bend your memory around these four simple strokes. I do not myself know of any teacher of Japanese who has attempted to use this book in a classroom setting. Think of being so scared through and through that the goose µesh moves from the outside in, giving you goose membranes. A word about how the book came to be written. And that turns out to be convenient for remembering its meaning of obey.
