A mnemonic is a short, deliberately ridiculous scene, built to be hard to forget. Who appears in it and where it takes place are how the pronunciation is stored; the objects in it stand for the parts the character is written with. That is the Marilyn Method, and the comic below is the same scene, drawn.
Joan of Arc (ji) is lifting barbells (斤) in front of the encampment ((e)n1). Before each set she eats all the bananas from a banana tree (⺁) for the magnesium, and after each set she eats a T-bone steak (丅) for the protein.
I'm starting to think that all these silly mistakes the AI is still doing is making it a lot easier to remember the mnemonic, because they're so remarkable. In this example it's just ridiculous how the bar of the barbell is behind Joan's back; pulling the barbell up like that must be really bad for her back.
I find trying to imagine getting back pain from pulling up a 500g barbell like that really strengthens my memory of the mnemonic.
Also, why the hell is she eating the bananas from the banana tree like that???
Matthias, about 2 years ago (edited about 2 years ago)
MandarinBanana teaches pronunciation with the Marilyn Method: every Pinyin syllable is one initial plus one final, the initial becomes a person, an animal or a deity, and the final becomes a place in your memory palace — with the tone deciding which part of that place the scene happens in. Remember the little story below for each half and the whole syllable comes back with them.
Chinese characters are built out of smaller characters. Each component carries a mnemonic symbol - one concrete object that stands in for it - and a mnemonic story hands those objects to the person and the place that stand for the pronunciation. Learn a component once and every character that reuses it gets easier.
Make it your learning target and MandarinBanana works out the shortest route to it: the two sounds its syllable is built from, then the components of the character itself, one short step at a time. No account needed to start.
catty / (PRC) weight equal to 500 g / (Tw) weight equal to 600 g / (HK, Malaysia, Singapore) slightly over 604 g
The barbell is a solid, cold-rolled steel shaft with deep diamond-pattern knurling, featuring heavy cast-iron weight plates secured by chrome-plated spring collars. The metal surfaces exhibit faint scratches and a dull, industrial gray finish with visible grease residue along the rotating sleeves.
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