I’ve been learning Kanji recently. The way I find I learn best is by writing the character out on a whiteboard several times while whispering the mnemonic to myself, followed by more forcefully speaking simply the definition to myself while writing it out.
Well, I was reviewing 遠.
The mnemonic I was given for this is something along the lines of:
“The lidded crock on the *distant* roadway might be a bomb”
I didn’t make it up, it was the one from my Anki deck.
So, I’m there sitting in a busy airport terminal, hunched over, staring at the laptop at my feet, scribbling weird foreign characters on a whiteboard while chanting cryptic messages.
Needless to say, I didn’t realize how bad this looked.
Eventually I get to the definition repeating part and I go at it again. Except, I didn’t say *distant* more forcefully, I confused it with *bomb* from the mnemonic.
So there I am aggressively ruining an expo marker while seemingly disciplining my whiteboard by saying *bomb*.
Security showed up and took me aside for a “chat”
Thankfully, after explaining the language mnemonic, kanji, and showing them my laptop, they laughed and told me to be more aware
TLDR; Chanted the wrong word from my mnemonic and got a talking to by airport security
6 comments
I think your mnemonic will probably be you being pulled aside by airport security from now on, but hey, whatever works, works.
😀 😀 Well now it will be a lot easier to remember it.
Is a long and obtuse mnemonic like that really easier to remember than just remembering the kanji itself?
Let’s be real, kanji is a form of terrorism. What gives you more stress—20 new kanji cards or a bag left unattended?
My friend was flying back to college in Canada through SeaTac about 15 years ago and some TSA goblin was looking through her bag and got really hostile for some reason, asking all of these questions about what she was doing in Canada. She said she was a German major and then he got really smug and asked if she was studying German, why was she carrying a book called “Teach Yourself Islamic.”
…She had been learning Icelandic for fun and was carrying “Teach Yourself Icelandic.” I’m the end it was fine, but even after she explained the guy seemed really suspicious of her. I guess the moral of the story is to not ever learn a foreign language, but also never say the word bomb in an airport.
And the name of the security guy was… Albert Einstein.