Mnemonic comic for

Translation

zuó = zu + o2: yesterday

Mnemonic

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.

Yesterday (昨) Zapatista Zebra (zu) cut the sun’s (日) hair in the observatory’s kitchen (o2). They were both singing “yesterday” (昨) as Zapatista Zebra was turning the sun’s crazy hair into an awesome Mohawk (乍) cut.

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How to pronounce 昨

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.

= zu initial

Zu is for Zapatista Zebra.

By Matthias • updated 3 months ago
+ o2 final

In the observatory’s kitchen.

By Matthias • updated 3 months ago

昨 character breakdown

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.

Component Translations
zhà = zh + a4
at first / suddenly / abruptly / to spread / (of hair) to stand on end / bristling
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= r + Ø4
abbr. for 日本[Ri4 ben3], Japan
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= r + Ø4
sun / day / date, day of the month
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Characters with 昨 as component

昨 is not used as a component in another character.

Words with 昨

yesterday evening / last night
yesterday
last night
Sentences with 昨
昨 currently does not appear in any sentence.

Want to remember 昨 for good?

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.

zuó

yesterday

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