Mnemonic Devices, Japanese Style

I must admit, the Japanese characters are not flying into my head as rapidly as I would like. Yesterday, to expedite the absorption of kana by my recalcitrant brain, I made a mnemonic device to help me remember the order of the characters.

Why was this necessary? Well, the order of sounds in Japanese does not correspond at all to the order of sounds in English. There is no a-b-c-d-e-f-g thing going on. 

Instead, here is the order of sounds—syllables, actually—in the Japanese “alphabet” (which is how you need to memorize them if you ever want to be able to function properly in the language):

• vowels: a i u e o
• k syllables: ka ki ku ke ko
• s (and s-like) syllables: sa shi su se so
• t (and t-like) syllables: ta chi tsu te to
• n syllables: na ni nu ne no
• h (and h-like) syllables: ha hi fu he ho
• m syllables: ma mi mu me mo 
• y syllables: ya yu yo
• r syllables: ra ri ru re ro
• w syllables: wa (w)o
• a last lonely syllable-ish thing: n

The first challenge: the vowels (see the first bullet above) are “out of order” if you are used to English. I figured out some days back that the pattern is the first English vowel (a), third English vowel (i), fifth English vowel (u), second English vowel (e), and fourth English vowel (o). 1-3-5-2-4.

Realizing this was phenomenally helpful to me, because it is a pattern that repeats itself. In other words, if you look at the second bulleted line above, the same order of vowel sounds is preserved for the k syllables: ka-ki-ku-ke-ko. 1-3-5-2-4. And for the s syllables on the third line. And for the t syllables on the fourth line. And so on.

But how to remember the order of consonants? I needed a mnemonic device, and here is what I came up with:

• “kissed,” for k-s-t in lines 2, 3, and 4 above
• “NoHo,” for n-h in lines 5-6, with NoHo being the affectionate shorthand for North House, the residential college where I lived as a Harvard undergraduate
• “Mayer,” for m-y-r in lines 7-9 above, as in Oscar Mayer wiener

The last three syllables—wa, (w)o, and n—I was able to remember without tricks. 

Anyway, now every time I write the alphabet, I think, “1-3-5-2-4” and “kissed NoHo Mayer.” It sounds stupid and nonsensical and is definitely not broadly marketable as a mnemonic device. A marketable mnemonic device is one like “fanboys,” which helps people remember the seven coordinating conjunctions in English: “for,” “and,” “nor,” “but,” “or,” “yet,” and “so.” I love that one, which I guess makes me a “fanboys” fan. I regret that I could not come up with something similarly elegant in this Japanese-alphabet-memorizing case.

But stupid or not, my “kissed NoHo Mayer” mnemonic device works for me, and my point is, you can invent your own highly personal and stupid mnemonic to work for you!