[Yomitan - The Moe Way]

site:: [[GitHub]] user:: themoeway url:: https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan accessed:: 2024-01-04

reply to LynneKelly at https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/asian-memory-methods-secret-memory-techniques-kyoto-1771/79217

Thanks for this Lynne! I've ordered a copy.

I've been working on-again, off-again at learning Japanese and spent quite a while looking at mnemonic techniques with respect to it and kanji in particular. I've done a reasonably thorough, though not exhaustive search on the topic with respect to titles in English.

I had come across Rowley's book along with a few others, though generally they've only got a few hundred examples, usually meant for early learners. One of my favorite more comprehensive texts was:

Henshall, Kenneth G. A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. 1st ed, 7th Printing. Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1988.

It is much more comprehensive and has some incredibly useful descriptions of kanji, how they relate to other kanji (pictographically), as well as additional subtle meanings and what I would almost call "mini-stories" about the words, origins and their development over time, which for me made them much easier to recall and use. These descriptions also included some scholarly mentions as well as interesting Japanese historical and cultural context that also slowly build up to something bigger over time. He cleverly links and interlinks various words together to build up meanings over time as well. In addition to this, he included specific mnemonic phrases to make the kanji easier to remember. (Many of these become cumulative and rely on knowledge of previous words and pictograms.) I'll note that later editions were somewhat similar, but the incredibly rich stories were significantly pared down or removed making them less valuable, at least to me. He covers 1,945 kanji including those up to the sixth grade and general use kanji which he individually numbers within the text (so one could also more easily create and cross link them within their own memory palace/journey/songline.) Given the relationship of Japanese with Chinese, perhaps similar texts may exist for Chinese?

As an illustrative example of the work in the text, here's a link to a picture from a random page of the book: https://boffosocko.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/wp-1672269705369-scaled.jpg that may be helpful.

WWWJDIC: Online Japanese Dictionary Service http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1C

http://countryoftheblind.blogspot.com/2011/10/product-review-remembering-traditional.html

Review of Remembering Traditional Hanzi, by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson which is related to Heisig's similar Japanese book.

While Heisig's book in Japanese is interesting, it's interesting and feels less useful than a similar and more contextualized book by Kenneth Henshall.

https://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/radicals-reveal-order-chinese-characters

Article about the importance of radicals in Chinese (and by extension Japanese) with hopes that pedagogy will change to make the teaching and remembering of kanji easier.

https://mikuwashi.com/2020/01/20/how-to-practise-kanji/

To surround, to encircle. Is everywhere.

Wiktionary

人名用漢字（じんめいよう・かんじ）literally means "person's-name-use kanji" or "kanji for use in peoples' names."

Kanji have been added and (re)moved from the list several times throughout its history. See the page Wikipedia: Jinmeiyoo Kanji

常用（じょうよう）漢字（かんじ）means "daily use" kanji.

Also known as Kyōiku kanji (教育漢字, literally "education kanji"). see Wikipedia: Kyouiku Kanji

The simplification of Japanese kanji was done to a lesser extent than that of the Chinese hanzi.

Testing a highlight on Ruby text.

Highlight is meant to wrap this image:

Highlight is also meant to include the super-script hiragana characters: まぶた

Actual highlight includes the hiragana characters "まぶた" as well as "）"