Mnemonic comic for

Translation

lái = l + ai2: to come / to arrive / to come round / ever since / next

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.

Lancelot (l) is cooking dinner in the airplane’s kitchen (ai2) when he hears an eerie ticking, and is soon after shocked to see a mean crocodile (丷) with a ticking kitchen timer (未) stuck between its teeth entering! Panicking he leaves the airplane through the window sitting on top of a spinning boomerang (mnemonic symbol for 来), but he didn’t realize that a boomerang always comes back (来).

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How to pronounce 来

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.

= l initial

L is for Sir Lancelot.

By Matthias • updated 3 months ago
+ ai2 final

In the airplane’s kitchen.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago

来 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
= b + a1
"eight" component in Chinese characters / archaic variant of 八[ba1]
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one of the characters used in kwukyel, an ancient Korean writing system
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wèi = w + ei4
not yet / did not / have not / not / 8th earthly branch: 1-3 p.m., 6th solar month (7th July-6th August), year of the Sheep / ancient Chinese compass point: 210°
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= mi + Ø3
rice / CL:粒[li4] / meter (classifier)
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= y + Ø1
one / single / a (article) / as soon as / entire; whole; all; throughout / "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1) / also pr. [yao1] for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit
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Characters with 来 as component

lái = l + ai2
name of weed plant (fat hen, goosefoot, pigweed etc) / Chenopodium album
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lài = l + ai4
to bestow / to confer
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lái = l + ai2
brook / ripple
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Words with 来

show 319 more
(after a verb) indicating the beginning and continuation of an action or a state / indicating an upward movement (e.g. after 站[zhan4]) / indicating completion / (after a perception verb, e.g. 看[kan4]) expressing preliminary judgment / also pr. [qi3 lai5]
to stand up / to get up / also pr. [qi3 lai2]
to return / to come back
Sentences with 来
wáng
huí
lái
le

Want to remember 来 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.

lái

to come / to arrive / to come round / ever since / next

Prompt snippets

The boomerang is a crescent of weathered, honey-colored acacia wood, scarred by countless flights. Its surface is etched with faint, rhythmic tribal patterns.

AI Images