Comments on: A Mnemonic Device To Remember Japanese Dictionary Order

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:32:58 +0000

Darn it! Just discovered your “Kindergarten School Teachers…” mnemonic. I wish I’d found it years ago! All this time, I’m STILL having trouble with dictionary order. Now I’ll never forget it. Very clever. I wrote that sentence in the inside cover of my dictionary. Thanks.

By: thomas

thomas — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:25:13 +0000

@Annabel398: nice one!

By: Annabel398

Annabel398 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:08:30 +0000

Ah… Kana Symbols! Take Note How Many You Read / Write (None??)

Take the initial of each word and you have the order.

By: Brett Fyfield

Brett Fyfield — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:44:39 +0000

Hey, I like this idea! These sorts of memory aides aren’t covered enough in language learning I think.

I noticed it in a children’s book I often read to my kids, “Guri and Gura’s A-I-U-E-O Book”, and decided to incorporate the idea in to a short course in Japanese I’m giving at http://eduFire.com

By: thomas

thomas — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:46:50 +0000

@adjusting: Frere Jacques! That’s awesome. You can even sing it in rounds :)

@Abi: “Someone, somewhere is talking.” That song radiates Truth! It sounds like it takes a bit of time to get through the whole song though.

By: Abi (Ramos) McFiggins

Abi (Ramos) McFiggins — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 03:10:00 +0000

I took Japanese all 4 years I was in high school, and continued in college… My HS teacher taught us a song that went something like this ” A I U E O, Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko, dare kaga dokoka de hanashite iru… Sa Shi Su Se So, Ta Chi Tsu Te To, dare kaga dokoka de…

I have since lost most of my vocabulary, but the song is very fresh in my mind, and I’ve gotten very used to looking things up on my dictionary. Little silly songs like that help a lot more than most people think! I never thought 14 years ago, that this song would be so fresh in my mind after all that time…

By: adjusting

adjusting — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:08:12 +0000

I tend to use songs or chants too.
For the Japanese dictionary order, I sing it to the tune of Frere Jacques:

Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, dormez vous? dormez vous?
Aka Sata, Naha Maya, rawa n? rawa n?

By: thomas

thomas — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:22:30 +0000

Rmss : Thanks for answering my question. I was curious to know if it was the same or not.

By: Chapter 2: How to Say Testicular Cancer in Japanese | babelhut.com

Chapter 2: How to Say Testicular Cancer in Japanese | babelhut.com — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:17:37 +0000

[...] is “ta”, “na”, “ra” and the rest of them. Check out the chart here. In Japanese there is no plain “k”. Only “ka”, “ki”, [...]

By: Rmss

Rmss — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:39:34 +0000

thomas: they teach the standard letters and the combinations and their sounds (for example: ij is pronounced like the y in why). But officially it has only 26 letters where the other ‘letters’ are just combinations with seperate sounds.