It's alive, it's aliiiiiive!

I had a thought that now would be a good time to write in a little intercession post, and low and behold, it's been precisely 3 months to the day since I started this blog! With over a dozen movies under the belt, can I say this method has helped my ability to read and retain Japanese on-yomi? The answer is a resounding Y E S!!!

I remember reading on a forum (perhaps the RTK ones) something about how "the only good way to memorize on-yomi is through vocabulary. I couldn't disagree more! At least in my experience. For example, sometimes I have tried to remember them via cross-referencing vocab in my mind However, since they're all compounds, (2, 3, 4 characters) they are easily confused this way! If I think, ok, it's the けい from 経験... but god, which kanji was pronounced けい again?!? It can lead to lots of problems. And, as is the whole PURPOSE of the life-changing book "Remembering the Kanji," I wanted to break out of just boring, repetitous rote memorization. Yaaawwwnnn.

Some tips in execution of the method that I've worked out recently:

-Whenever you find a scene where you want to associate the image with a character, pause the movie. Watch that scene while writing the character and repeating the on-yomi to yourself 10 times or so. Remind yourself of it later, after the movie is finished.

-Don't worry about learning every character! As I've mentioned before, partial retention is all we are going for here. Naturally, some templates (lists of on-yomi groups) will contain not so memorable stories from not so memorable scenes. When the vocab comes up (I do 100+ flashcard through anki a day, myself) take a look at the template, remind yourself of the scene. Eventually, it will stick! And, as with RTK, eventually the story/movie scene will be long forgotten, whilst you retain the on-yomi!

I know this site only has a handful of followers, but for those who are trying this experiment with me, keep it up! I plan to keep this going strong as long as possible.

Over and out,

-Ben

P.S. Star Wars is next, I think. ;)

How to use this site

1) The movie you want to use to supplement your studies should be a movie you are well familiar with, and can recall certain scenes from with ease.

2) Look over the template, see if you like the "story" ideas (the sentences used to link some aspect of the film to the keyword of the kanji). If not, change them to your liking.

3) Watch the movie, bearing in mind the on-yomi and each character you are trying to learn as their respective scenes comes up.

4) As for review, I'm not yet certain myself - ideally you hope to remember most of the characters, but if one or two give you trouble down the road, I think a quick reminder of their grouping and association to whatever movie/pronunciation used should be sufficient. Watching the movie more than once isn't necessary, as you should already be pretty familiar with its content.

I'm new to this too (I'm learning as I go along and make up these templates) so I'm open to feedback.