Professor Allan Barton is creating a system of mnemonics ("word pictures") based on character etymologies. They also combine to form word mnemonics. The idea behind them is to trigger mental images while also evoking multiple concepts that each character commonly stands for.

I'm testing out an option that lets you use this mnemonics system throughout Skritter, for characters and words for which you haven't selected a mnemonic yet. It's in alpha, on your study settings page (only if you've enabled alpha features on your general settings page):
http://www.skritter.com/account/settings-study

It's only inside the prompts on the practice page for now. And it's currently only set up for Chinese, for a few hundred of the most common characters. I want to test it out to see how useful y'all think before we go any further with it.

Here's an example:

手: HANDY-ACTION-of-HAND-or-ARM - This is a pictograph representing 'hands', 'convenient' or 'handy', 'holding in one's hand', 'action', as well as 'person skilled in something' and 'personally'. Within other characetrs it appears as 扌, and a variant is 才, although this is probably best considered as a separate character. Confusion is possible between 丰, 毛, and 手. (Radical 64/214)

人手 ("manpower"): ONE-PERSON-is-standing-or-bending-MEMBER + HANDY-ACTION-of-HAND-or-ARM

So if you're an alpha tester, please give this option a shot and let me know what you think of Professor Barton's word picture system.

I love this. This is how I have learned most of the radicals from the beginning. It works perfectly for my memory. Long explanations but they tend to stick. For me it works best for radicals. For whole characters with multiple parts i mostly prefer mnemonics but there are some good ones even there. I vote for this feature as an option such as it is now.

Deleted: misread, I think.

I am in the process of building up a mnemonic word-picture for each character - a phrase that aims to combine at least some of the ideas that have gone into the way the character has evolved, including (in upper case) the main current uses. I have linked the ideas with hyphens, trying to tie them together into a mental picture, not an ordinary sentence.

At the same time I try to make the word-pciture memorable - at least for me. As my understanding of a characters develops, I often modify a word-picture, and I expect others who use them to do the same for themselves, to make it more memorable for them.

For words, I find it useful to look at the word-pictures for each character to decide which one or more of the ideas provided by each character has been combined in that particular word.

I look forward to hearing your suggestions!

I don't see what makes these mnemonics any different from the mnemonics other users have come up with, except they're much, much longer. Also, they use the actual Chinese character components, which IMO gives away the whole game, so I would never use them myself.

Just so other people see what I'm talking about, here are the current two most popular mnemonics for 英:

The *British* *hero*, king Arthur, *begged* for his country's freedom in the *center* of the *grass*.
created by tomato39

English people sit in the grass and wear big hats.
created by junglegirl

And here is the Barton mnemonic:

SUPERIOR-ENGLISH-FLOWER-central-on-plant - The index radical 艹 with a 'flower' meaning is combined with 央 which contributes both the original 'yoke' concept for the 'head' of the flower and phonetically 'bloom'. The use extended from 'flower' and 'petal' to people: 'beautiful', 'surpassing', 'outstanding', 'prominent', 'distinguished', 'fine'; 'handsome', talented', 'brave', 'hero', and because of the sound, 'English' or 'British' (abarton)

@jww1066, I see your point and once you got the basics you do not need this but for a beginner that have not yet got the basic radicals/components this is helpful. I think most of us have learned e.g. that 好 is build up of woman + child and that both of those are pictographs. That helps when you later use those characters in other combinations. For me, this where helpful when i started to learn to get the basic. After a while i shifted to mnemonics based on the combinations of radicals/phonetics. Now i mostly do mind mappings to other similar characters. I used "fun with Chinese characters" http://easywaytolearnchinese.blogspot.com/2009/12/fun-with-chinese-characters.html when i learned the first characters. Their stories about the characters still stick in my brain.

I agree with jww1066
This:

SUPERIOR-ENGLISH-FLOWER-central-on-plant - The index radical 艹 with a 'flower' meaning is combined with 央 which contributes both the original 'yoke' concept for the 'head' of the flower and phonetically 'bloom'. The use extended from 'flower' and 'petal' to people: 'beautiful', 'surpassing', 'outstanding', 'prominent', 'distinguished', 'fine'; 'handsome', talented', 'brave', 'hero', and because of the sound, 'English' or 'British' (abarton)

IMO, is same as, some would write: 央 + 艹 = answer

I do not use mnemonics at all, but that seems a too big hint no?

These notes are very helpful and I like them. But they are annotations or elucidations instead of mnemonics. They show up in the wrong place. I’d suggest creating a home for these annotations.

Like!

I'm not sure it is directly connected, but it happened after I enabled the option: I have lost all the Italian definitions I made where they were only in English. I mean: they are still there if I click on the magnifier, but I have to go to edit definition and save to get them again on the study table.

I agree with pts.
They are handy, probably for the first few times i see a completely new character. I found a similar resource was MDBG, looking at all the info and links of a character. Prof Barton's notes are quicker, but actually this isn't always a good thing.
As an extra option they are good. What's the downside?
I guess we all use the "mnemonics" box in slightly different ways, and Prof Barton's notes fit in better with some people's study than with others'.
I certainly would not like to lose the current shared mnemonics though - there are some really great ones out there - thanks guys!
Rachael.

Could the notes include the Simplified and Traditional forms for reference?

For example, I'm studying Simplified, and I was just looking at 斗. I think the comments say that 斗 is a variant of 门, but the explanation talks mostly about the trad form so isn't entirely comprehensible to me.

Rachael.

it looks like Xu Shen, Father Wieger and zhongwen.com have some competition!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Shen

I like the long explanations, and I might work them into my own mnemonics. I like that they seem fairly based in fact. Imaginative mnemonics like "hats in the grass" have their place, but they are not as sharable and re-usable as more scientific ones.

@jww1066 I don't think it's possible for a mnemonic to "give away" anything, at least the way I use it. I don't usually use mnemonics as hints, I use them as ways to remember. If a mnemonic helps me understand the character, that's a good mnemonic. The three mnemonics you list are all good and quite different.

So I think these mnemonics do add something, and can save me a trip to zhongwen.com or mdbg.net or chineseetymology.org

@Kai Note that in my previous comment I said "I would never use them myself"; I'm only talking about my personal preferences. Other people like to put components in mnemonics, no big deal. I have no problem at all with people using whatever mnemonics they like.

But to expand on another thing I feel is lacking, the Barton mnemonics are missing an opportunity. There's the mnemonic proper - in this case SUPERIOR-ENGLISH-FLOWER-central-on-plant - and all the rest, which is a combination character breakdown and etymological history, which is not particularly memorable (and thus is not a mnemonic). Those two things are not related at all, at least not in this example. I personally prefer mnemonics that actually *do* refer back to the etymology and/or structure of the character as that gives a double whammy: they help to remember this character and they help to reinforce the meanings of the components. The tomato39 mnemonic I mentioned above refers back to the structure, in a clever and memorable way, so it would be the one I would actually use.

If we want to add etymology data to characters, I'm all for it, but that should really be independent of which mnemonic we happen to choose, no?

James

@James I agree with you 100% on your last message.

I suppose Prof. Barton's mnemonics + explanations are getting put in along with other mnemonics because that was the easiest way to get people to have a look at them without changing anything in the web site (what's the Chinese word for "a hack"? :-) 駭客?)

Maybe some day we will have configurable views on the words so everyone can have the info they want where they want it. In the meantime, I am enjoying occasionally seeing one of the professor's glosses. I haven't yet seen one for a character that really stumps me, but I look forward to it!

I don't like to have them for compound words.
Rachael.

So what do y'all think about taking out the etymological part and putting that into a separate etymology field that just shows up in the word popup, without a separate option to enable it (it's just always on), and then keeping the option to default to the Barton mnemonics as is (with the shortened word picture mnemonics)?

@nick sounds like a good plan.

As the etymology field now in use is full of errors, placing the etymological part by its side will help pointing out those errors and have them being quickly reported and then corrected. This can lead to a great improvement of the site.

BTW, the picture mnemonics should have one version for the simplified characters and another version for the traditional characters. Taking 丰/豐 as an example, currently, both characters have the same mnemonic “ABUNDANT-tall-pot-of-beans-&-peas”. While this is okay for豐, those learning only simplified characters will have trouble figuring out where the “tall-pot-of-beans-&-peas” comes from.