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The “hunger hormone,” ghrelin, has been linked to improved memory, and it “directly influences activity and plasticity of a brain region associated with learning and memory.”

I don’t know how much difference it will make, but every little bit helps when you have to remember thousands of kanji!

My hack: I can’t claim credit for this one. (I learned this from a book called Kanji Pict-O-Graphix, which has about 1000 mnemonics if you’re interested in seeing some other memorization ideas.)

The first stroke (the longer vertical line) is a police officer, and the little horizontal stroke is his arm out to signal traffic to stop. The third stroke is a child waiting to cross the street, and the final stroke is the ground.

This character is on the cover of the book:

Kanji Pict-O-Graphix

Note: Just in case anyone is suspicious, I have no affiliation with the author of this book and I am not being paid to plug it. I’m just putting it out there as an option for anyone who is interested. For more details on this book and others, check out my reviews.

My hack: it’s not much of a hack, but it does look like a droplet of water, or a bead of sweat in a cartoon kind of way.

Photo by emrank

unknown source

My hack: I like to think of this as a little enclosure, like a fence. You draw an enclosure around things that are the same; so the sheep are in this pen, pigs in another, cows in another….

Components: 𠆢 (roof), 干 (to dry)

My hack:   ( Grr. These radicals are the hardest ones, and you can’t just skip them because they show up EVERYWHERE.)

I try to think of this as a gold mine, where the first 2 strokes are the roof, the next 3 strokes are something like a jack hammer, the two dot-like strokes are sparks, and the last is the ground. I’m sure this has absolutely no relation to how gold is actually produced, but it makes a nice visual stimulus.

My hack: not much need for one, since it looks like a roof. Think of a park pavilion.

Components: 立 (stand), 日 (day, sun)

My hack: If you had to stand on the sun, I’m pretty sure you’d make a sound (if only for a nanosecond).