So I just came back to studying Japanese after I had to take an 8 month break due to having no time at all for language learning, and I am repping massive amounts of Anki—150 new a day, 500-800 review—and doing WaniKani at the same time, and then immersing afterwards using YouTube, graded readers, and Anime, so I can safely say I’m in it for the long haul and serious this time.
One constant annoyance in the Anki decks and the WaniKani are the sheer number of sexual mnemonics involved. Not only are they vulgar and gross, but they make me actively reject memorizing them or try using something different in their place. These mnemonics are being slammed into my skull, and are going to get so ingrained that I’ll likely remember them for the rest of my life. I understand that they might help for the comedic and shock value, but it’s really just hindering my learning.
Decks I’m using;
**RRTK I**— very few if any sexual references
**WaniKani**—Not constant, but consistent use of sexual references
**RRTK 450**—Constantly using gross mnemonics,
**Japanese V2K**—Straight translations, almost no mnemonics in general. Great deck, btw.
Why is this the go-to for mnemonics and Anki decks? Is it really helping me remember better to use this kind of stuff?
15 comments
I’m interested in hearing about this too
I mean you said its ingrained that you’ll likely remember it for the rest of your life, that is the whole ideal. Generally if something is amusing, people are more apt to remember it. If you’re so opposed, you could just use the ones that don’t have it or create your own deck, there is some value in creating your own notes as the contextual clues and things on the card are supposed to be the things pertinent to you. But yeah, for other people they find that the sexual stuff sticks. lmao.
Sex in most cultures has a lot of indirect ways to talk about it, because of religion / shame. So it’s always metaphoric. And what’s better than an image to remember words made from images (kanjis)?
Taking the question at face value, we remember things better when we have an emotional connection to the mnemonic. Sex provokes an emotional response.
WaniKani has *wayyyy* more mnemonics about Jesus than it does about sex.
>These mnemonics are being slammed into my skull, and are going to get so ingrained that I’ll likely remember them for the rest of my life.
Anyone else looking for gross and offensive mnemonics that will make them remember kanji for the rest of their lives should also check out [https://www.kanjidamage.com/](https://www.kanjidamage.com/).
A lot of the gross mnemonics for those decks are being pulled from the same place (Koohii Kanji website). If you’re using one of the RTK decks and it has a ‘Koohii Story’ or similar field, it’ll have the gross mnemonics. Just delete em.
I don’t know if somebody answered that point, but I don’t think all mnemonic necessarily stay forever. Most are forgotten when real things associated with it are comprehended.
If you have a sexual mnemonic for let’s say “商”, when you’ll learn about “商人”, “商品”, “通商”, chances are you’ll forget any previous reference that is not reinforced.
For the start, sexual references are not a bad thing in such a way it makes things “pre-stick” I would say, but I definitely don’t think it’ll be forever.
At least, not for all kanjis.
As for why it’s heavily used, we can come up with multiple theories, but let’s assume what sells best in this world for wide audiences is “you’ll get money, sex and health”, the two others are quite difficult to make mnemonic on.
Try renshuu.org, I don’t think I’ve seen any sexual or otherwise extreme mnemonics on that one.
As soon as i saw 服 oral sex immediately came to mind and it was one of the easiest flash cards ever lol.
It is what it is though anything to form those connections in the brain right, said it yourself they obviously work.
I totally remember the sexual ones or other “inappropriate” ones I come up with on my own better than most.
I think there is a business in this, mnemonics that are all sexual lol! Pornji! I’d be fluent now…
From my experience, our memorization primarily depends on how emotive something is, and how often we see it. It’s more or less proportional, something extremely shocking can dig into out long time memory from a single occurrence, while something extremely dull would take more time. With things like SRS it doesn’t matter much, because ideally any review should take only 1-3 seconds, so even if you review it 5-10 times more, it wouldn’t really take a lot of time. But I still prefer to to think about one or several situations where I could use it. Provoking content is more universal, because it’s emotive for many people, but generally you can do any approach. What is really important is not to consider new words as some kind of random syllables, but try to attach it to anything you already know. Also such approach is better in terms of context, because you don’t consider words as simply something you have seen in an app, but look at it more from practical viewpoint, where it appears, how situation flows and so on. Would you use it in a store, at work, maybe you would use such words talking with your friends, typing something online and so on.
Take it with a grain of salt, because I’ve never tested if it’s actually beneficial, but it’s something that works for me and I have ~95% retention.
This is a troll post, the user has literally never posted anything but this for years
The way memory is encoded in our brains can be weird. Some people can remember things more easily through association with strong imagery and emotion because of how our brains filter what’s important and what isn’t. Some people remember better with humorous associations, and for some, sex is more memorable.
It’s shocking and memorable. That’s the whole point. You can also contribute your own. Part of being an adult is being able to stomach things you might not like or agree with.