Mnemonic comic for

Translation

shuǐ = shu + ei3: water / river / liquid / beverage / additional charges or income / (of clothes) classifier for number of washes

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.

Sheldon Shrimp just climbed the Eiffel Tower. He’s really thirsty, so he’s glad to find a water fountain. After he quenches his thirst, he also finds a snack: A banana is swimming in the water. He never ate a banana before, so he tries a mix of different methods: Putting on a fake beak to pick on the banana, holding it with a finger and peeling it with a crowbar.

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Comments

Hahaha. Very clever solution of the AI on how to include the finger. I was debating to remove the thumbs up in order to not cause confusion about 寸, but I think 水 is common and easy enough for this to not cause any issues.

Matthias, 22 days ago

How to pronounce 水

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.

= shu initial

Shu is for Sheldon Shrimp.

By Matthias • updated 3 months ago
+ ei3 final

In the Eiffel Tower’s living room.

By Matthias • updated 4 months ago

水 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
Character component without intrinsic meaning
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jué = ju + e2
"vertical stroke with hook" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 6) / see also 豎鉤|竖钩[shu4 gou1]
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丿
piě = pi + e3
radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 4) / see 撇[pie3]
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= n + a4
Right-falling stroke
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Characters with 水 as component

phonetic dap or dābo / rice paddy (Korean gugja)
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= li + Ø4
cross stream by stepping on stones
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Words with 水

show 1359 more
perfume / cologne
to dive / to go under water / (in an online forum) to lurk
Sentences with 水

Want to remember 水 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.

shuǐ

water / river / liquid / beverage / additional charges or income / (of clothes) classifier for number of washes

Prompt snippets

The water fountain is a tiered structure of weathered, moss-covered limestone featuring a central fluted pedestal and scalloped basins. Water trickles from a tarnished bronze lion-head spout into the lower basin, creating concentric ripples across the surface of the clear, stagnant water.

AI Images