Japanese Mnemonics and Memory Tricks

木(き)

sounds like “key”

imagine a big tree in the woods. it looks like a normal tree, but if you have the secret bark KEY you can open up a secret compartment! its true! you can put anything you want in there, mongoose eggs, cat foot, pokeballs. as long as you have the KEY to the TREE no one will every find what you put inside.

馬 (うま)

sounds like – uma (thurman)

uma thurman, riding a horse.

首 (くび)

sounds like – “cool bee”

sample story

where would all the cool bees hang out? would they hang out near a person’s feet? yeah…no. would they hang out near the arms? no way, thats where loser bees hang out. the only place that cool bees would every want to be seen is on the smooth neck. that way, they can drive their cool cars around and around, forever.

kubi has the meaning of job also. so if you say that someone’s neck has been cut, it means they have been fired.

部屋(へや)

sounds like “hay” (the kind horses eat)

this is a example of a “key sound” mnemonic (just made that up).  the point here is that you can’t go looking around for perfect mnemonics that sound exactly like something else. if you did that you would run out pretty quickly. you want to make a strong enough mental image (in this case, walking into your room and finding it stuffed full of HAY, and having some horses nudge you as they try to get past you and into the room) – that the “hay” leads you to “haya.” if you remember the hay, your brain will look for sounds that sound like “hay,” which you have put already into your head that could possibly mean “room” in japanese.

as long as you have “spoken” the word to yourself a few times (either out loud or mentally), your brain is probably going to recognize the hey keyword and shoot out “haya”. i’m sure you know what i mean, though i haven’t explained it very well.

room full of hay, keyword hay, japanese words that sound familiar to hay — heya — room.

外 ( そと)

- sounds like “sew toe”

in the future, mothers don’t let their children go out at night because of the “SEW TOE” gang. what do they do you ask? well, if they catch you out at night, they take you and sew your toes together. whenever you see a kid limping, you can be sure that he went out at night and had a unfortunate meeting with the “SEW TOE” gang. it’s sad really.

so don’t go out at night or the sew toe gang will get you.

銀行 (ぎんこー) 

sounds like ginko (from ginko tree, those trees with  the weird smelling fruit/nut)

sample mnemonics -

1. in the apocolyptic future, ginko nuts are the only form of currency. you find a stash of them, and since you can only carry so much, you go to the ginko bank to deposit your ginko nuts. in the future the banks only hold ginko nuts.

2. open a new bank account and get a free basket of ginko nuts! what, why would i want a basket of ginko nuts?

3. you open the door to the bank and tons of ginko nuts pile out, burying you. thats the last time you go to that bank.

i’m back!