Level 8 Flashcards
究
research
On’yomi
きゅう
Kun’yomi
きわ.める
meaning:
You’ve already dug nine holes. You’re doing this for your research which requires you to unbury bodies and take them back to your laboratory.
HINTS
What kind of research is this? Come up with something disgusting or ridiculous to help you to remember the meaning of this kanji.
reading:
You dig up the ninth hole. You think you’ve found what you’re looking for. Your research could finally be complete… but instead, you find the cutest (きゅう) animal in the world (what is your cutest animal?). It jumps out of the hole and gives you super adorable eyes.
HINTS
D’awwwww. Go ahead and remember this animal that you use – we’ll use it later with other words that have きゅう as the on’yomi.
支
support
On’yomi
し
Kun’yomi
ささ.える
meaning:
The hard part about learning this kanji is that the radical looks the same but doesn’t have the same meaning. So, let’s make a story. The frog was all alone (just like in this kanji). Nobody else was there to help him. He had to support the weight of the building to make sure it didn’t fall on the elementary school.
HINTS
When you think “frog” you have to automatically think about this story. Embellish and add to it if you want. Make it more ridiculous. Make it more vivid. Whatever you need to do to remember that Frog = support.
reading:
To remember the reading し, we use the name Charlie “Sheen.” - Remember the frog from when you learned that this kanji means support? He’s holding up an entire building to keep the children safe. Just when you think he’s going to succeed, Charlie Sheen jumps on the building, pushing it down until it crushes the frog. He laughs maniacally as he runs off.
HINTS
Make sure you’re rooting for the frog! He’s trying to support everything by himself, after all. True underdog story. Then, feel horrified when Sheen makes his appearance, ruining everything the frog ever worked for.
住
dwelling, reside, dwell
On’yomi
じゅう
Kun’yomi
す.む
meaning:
The leader, of course, is a master at something. He’s the best of the best, but because he’s so good, nobody can find him. Everyone wants to know where he lives. Because of that, you’re searching for his dwelling.
HINTS
Think about what this leader is a master in. Come up with something crazy but also something that interests you. Also make yourself believe that you want to know where his dwelling is (aka where he lives) more than anything else in the world. Where is his dwelling?
reading:
You are lucky. You finally find the dwelling of this leader master, and it’s not at all what you expected. He lives in a Jewish (じゅう) synagogue. It’s quite splendid, too.
HINTS
Be sure to imagine this place totally over the top. Your master leader is living in a small dorm room somewhere in the basement, which also surprises you.
森
forest, woods
Kun’yomi
もり
meaning:
This kanji is just the tree radical three times. Just based off this, you should be able to figure it out. This kanji means “forest.”
HINTS
Makes sense, because a bunch of individual trees is what makes up a forest!
reading:
One tree? No. Two trees? Not enough. I want more (もり) trees, please!
HINTS
Keep repeating this pattern over and over, continually focusing in on how you need “more” trees to make this forest. For some reason the person working with you only goes up by one at a time, though, so you have to say it a lot (it’ll help you to remember, anyways!).
対
versus
On’yomi
たい
meaning:
You have this doll and you need to get a measurement of it. But, you have to get a measurement faster than your opponent. It’s you versus that crazy lady over there.
HINTS
Imagine something like an advertisement for a cage match showing. The part that stands out big time is the word “Vs.” in the center, between your faces. Also note how ridiculous this battle is. You’re measuring dolls…
reading:
Why are you measuring dolls versus this crazy lady? It’s because you need to know how big to make the tie that you’ll be putting on it.
HINTS
Stick a little tie on that doll of yours. Is it pretty looking? Did you measure right? How is it versus your opponent’s?
君
buddy
On’yomi
くん
Kun’yomi
きみ
meaning:
A wolverine is going down a slide into your mouth. Why is he going into your mouth, though? You’re opening it really wide, because you’re screaming “BUDDY!!! You’re so excited to see your wolverine buddy-pal again. You thought he was dead.
HINTS
Make sure you feel super happy. Even yell “Buddy” out loud while imagining this wolverine coming at you, if you’re not in a quiet-zone.
reading:
As you’re about to embrace your buddy wolverine, a raccoon tackles the wolverine off the slide, preventing your mouth embrace.
HINTS
“RaCCOON!” you yell. “THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Get out of here.” Feel some hate for the raccoon. He ruined everything.
投
throw
On’yomi
とう
Kun’yomi
な
meaning:
You’re hitting Ikea furniture with your nailbat, busting it apart. But, this isn’t fun enough, so you ask your friend to start throwing it at you so you can hit it in the air.
HINTS
Feel the heaviness of the things you’re hitting. It probably hurts your hands and arms just because of the mass of the items being thrown at you. Also wonder how your friend got so strong. He’s able to throw this furniture as if it were nothing!
reading:
Then an accident happens. Your friend throws a drawer set at you, and you smash it to bits… but, the drawer was full of nails (な) that fly out and hit you in the face.
HINTS
Feel all the nails hitting you. There’s so many of them and you try to pull them out. Why did your friend throw that ikea furniture at you?
役
service, duty
On’yomi
やく
meaning:
You’re loitering around in Ikea, just waiting for someone to help you. What’s up with this terribleservice? It’s their duty to serve and they’re failing terribly.
HINTS
While you’re at it, imagine yourself writing a review about this Ikea on Yelp (or some other review site). Make the focus of this imaginary review be about the terrible service. Go ahead and make up your own story about how bad the service was, too.
reading:
Why are you getting such bad service from people who supposedly have great service as theirduty? It turns out the employees are all standing around just going “yak (やく) yak yak yak yak” (that’s the sound of people talking, by the way).
HINTS
Go ahead and mock these employees by saying “yak yak yak” over their talking. Feel a bit upset about this as well.
研
sharpen
On’yomi
けん
meaning:
You’ve found yourself a stone lantern. You need a quick way to sharpen your blade so you use it, then catch your sword on fire. Time to go fight again!
HINTS
Try to feel the rush of the situation. People are chasing you to cut you down, but your blade is too dull. So, you sharpen it quickly on something normal, like a stone lantern, then rush back into the fight.
reading:
When you’ve sharpened your sword, you turn around to do battle. What are you fighting? Several giant ken (けん) dolls.
HINTS
Imagine yourself doing battle with these human-sized dolls. They’re quite good at fighting, despite being made out of plastic. What gives?
買
buy
On’yomi
ばい
Kun’yomi
か
meaning:
Sauron is looking at some clams to buy.
HINTS
Have him go through various questions. “How much are these?” “Can you go lower on your prices? I Have a lot of orcs to feed.” “Are these ones on sale?” etc. Always make it focused on the buying, though.
reading:
Some how Sauron goes from trying to buy clams to buying an entire car (か). He drives away in it, forgetting about the clams. Come up with a story about how he ended up buying this car from the clam salesman. Should be ridiculous to help you to remember that the kun’yomi reading for this kanji is か.
HINTS
The on’yomi for this kanji (which you’re not learning with the mnemonic, because it’s not as common) just sounds like the word “buy,” which makes it pretty easy to remember later on, when you need to.
馬
horse
On’yomi
ば
Kun’yomi
うま
reading:
You are looking at a horse. It’s looking at you. You try making horse noises at it, to get a reaction. Instead of reacting with a normal horse noise, it just makes sheep noises: “Baaa,” (ば) it says. “Baaaaa.”
HINTS
Feel the shock of this. It sounds just like a sheep, it’s strange.
絵
drawing, painting
On’yomi
え
meaning:
Using just thread meeting the paper (with a little ink on the end) you create a masterpiece of adrawing (or a painting).
HINTS
It’s unbelievable the kind of drawing you’re able to draw with just the tip of a thread. So much detail. So artistic. If it helps, imagine that you drew the Mona Lisa, better than the original, only using this floppy thread tool.
reading:
You tell someone that you drew this drawing only using a a thread. Their response? “EH?!?!?” (え)
HINTS
Tell a few more people how you drew this. Have them all do the same “Eh!!??” reaction.
楽
comfort, ease, pleasure
On’yomi
がく, らく
Kun’yomi
たの.しい
meaning:
The white ice tree is a magical tree. When you eat its ice flowers it gives you incredible amounts of comfort, ease, and pleasure.
HINTS
Imagine yourself picking the white ice flowers off the tree. Then, put it in your mouth. Make it taste comforting… It puts you at ease. Then, swallow it. Feel your head go nuts with comfort. This is the greatest drug in the world when it comes to comfort. So much pleasure!
reading:
You want more of this, You gather as much as you can, and create an entire rack (らく) at your store with this tree. You sell out immediately, and have to refill your rack.
HINTS
Imagine setting up the rack. Make it look beautiful. Shift around the flowers. Fill up the entire rack. Of course, your focus should be on the rack portion.
話
talk, speak
On’yomi
わ
Kun’yomi
はな.す
meaning:
When you say something with your tongue you’re obviously talking.
HINTS
The logic of this one is almost too good, so don’t let that fool you!
reading:
What (わ) are you talking about? You’re talking about walruses.
HINTS
Or, if you’d like, you can come up with some other “wa” starting word to use to think about what you’re talking about. Just be sure to actually imagine yourself talking about that thing.
雲
cloud
Kun’yomi
くも
meaning:
What are rain boobs? They’re things that create, produce, and emit rain. I would say those things are the big fluffy things in the sky, also known as clouds.
HINTS
Makes sense, if you think about it. Boobs produce milk, clouds produce rain! Kind of a weird comparison, admittedly, but it’ll probably help you to remember this kanji pretty well!
reading:
Let’s imagine something besides rain coming out of these clouds though. Imagine a cool mom (くも) falling through the sky towards the earth (or a lot of them). They’re all doing things that cool moms do.
HINTS
Such a strange mnemonic, but くも doesn’t lend itself well to mnemonics. Come up with cool things that the cool moms are doing while they fly towards the earth from their clouds. Depending on you, those things will be different, so I want you to make something up here that will help you to remember that these are cool moms (and not anything else!).
