The KanjiHybrid Learning System—employing effective methods of visual familiarisation and memory recall in psychology—is built on the following scientific findings: a) Symbol/Meaning Paired-Association Model (Behavioral Sciences, Volume 3, Issue 4, October 2013); b) Subliminal Repeated Exposure Paradigm (Psychological Science, October 2013); c) Memory & Cognition (The Psychonomic Society, October 2013), and d) Pattern Recognition (The Journal of the Pattern Recognition Society, Volume 46 (2013).

1). KanjiHybrid, the hidden first letter: Scientific experiments have long revealed that the human psyche is more mind-set on the negative than positive ones. In a landmark study, Professor Clifford Nass opined that one reason is the human brain handles positive and negative thoughts in different hemispheres of the brain. As such, the human psyche processes negative thoughts more thoroughly and faster than good ones. Though the good will always prevail, largely due to its overwhelming quantity, Professor Roy F. Baumeister asserted that, the human psyche has a far more lasting impression on negative thoughts. By extension, we tend to recall the negatives first and carry a more lasting impression of them—of what isn’t right, of what’s improper, of what’s lacking, of what’s missing, of what’s hidden, who misbehaved, or who was missing; than positive ones—what’s right, what’s enough, what’s exist, what can be seen, who did the right thing and who wasn’t hiding.

The Theory of KanjiHybrid is firmly rooted on this scientific fact. As one integral and indivisible units, in KanjiHybrids, the first letter of the word is “hidden” or “covered” with the exact meaning in Kanji characters. The idea is to provoke the human psyche into the exact spot where the Kanji character is located, in order to elicit on memory recall and retention.

2). Memory Recall and Retention: Memory recall on Kanji characters involves three (3) components; a) Definition[s] or what a Kanji character means, b) Appearance or how does it look, and c) Reading[s] or how its pronounced. If Kanji characters were compared to a person, the latter two components may be their physical attributes, including distinguishing features, and equally important, their name[s]. Like persons with varying names—surname, middle name, first name, nickname, pen name, screen name, Skype name—Kanji characters may have different readings—ON-yomi, KUN-yomi and ateji pronounced differently though the Kanji meanings may be the same. Inability to recall a person’s name or physical attributes nullifies memory recall and even, confuse one from another. Familiarity with the three (3) components above will be crucial in establishing a “mental foothold,” on Kanji characters. There’s no way an eyewitness can describe a criminal to police authorities unless he or she has seen the criminal’s face and physical attributes. The longer and more frequent exposure, the stronger is the mental recognition. This learning system proposes the same thing: constant, repeated and unrelenting exposure to Kanji characters; that in the long run, one can distinguish even similar-looking Kanji characters, such as; “星 [hoshi]” for “star” from “皇 [nō]” for “Emperor”. This author strongly believes this objective can be achieved without removing the non-Japanese native-English speaker from his or her own home language environment. Rather, exploit that existing advantage, resulting to a mutually-re-inforcing relationship between Kanji characters and English environment. This is the central Theory of KanjiHybrid.

As there is only one Kanji character assigned for every KanjiHybrid, the rationale goes all the way back to the kindergarten days when before learning to read and write, “cats, dogs, boys, girls,” pupils were first taught to read and write “A, B, C, D, E” individually, one letter at a time. That explains the sequencing priority.

3). Origin of KanjiHybrid: The evolution started with primary symbols, which by substitution can express logical coherence, such as below:
If: “The ☎elephone rang: there are no ★tars in the night sky, then heck take out an ☂mbrella..!”
Then: “The telephone rang: here are no 星tars in the night sky, then heck take out an 傘mbrella..!”
Ergo: “The telephone 鳴ang: there are no 星tars in the 夜ight 空ky, then 取ake 出ut an 傘mbrella..!”

4). “Looking more at the forest than the trees…”: The Theory coincided with a scientific finding at the University of Nottingham, which has proved that the human mind does NOT read every letter of a word, but absorbs the whole word, so that even if the letters in that word were mixed up—as long as the first and last letters are in the right places—there would be no problem and logical comprehension is undisturbed (Rawlinson, G. E. (1976) The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.). In the same manner, the Theory builds on the scientific fact that the human mind in looking “at the forest for whole words rather than the individual letters,” KanjiHybrids are one integral and indivisible units with the first letter of an English word “hidden” behind the Kanji characters bearing the exact meaning. Rather, it reinforces the meaning-intensity of the word.

5). Hypothesis 1 “Subliminal Association”: Put simply, the Theory proposes that its easier for native-English speakers to mentally digest and internalize KanjiHybrids—a combination of Kanji character and its exact meaning in English, rather than pure Kanji compounds alone such as “毎日、数年、特級、短期、全員” though it will eventually lead in that direction. KanjiHybrids- are one integral and indivisible units; examples include “毎very ​日ay” for “everyday”, “数umber of ​年ears” for “number of years”, “特pecial ​級lass”, for “special class”, “短rief ​期eriod” for “brief period” and “全very ​員ember” for “every member.”

6). Artistic Symmetry and Memory Recall: Since linguistics is not exactly a science, but has morphed into another discipline as Language Arts, the role of artistic elements will bear an imprint. If you are gunning to master writing skills on Kanji characters, full grasp of physical attributes will definitely be a deciding factor. The only way you can write Kanji characters from straight from memory is via active recall as against passive recognition. As matters of appearance, there’s artistic value to be considered. Your ability to appreciate symmmetrical values will certainly help your memory recall and recognition on Kanji characters. As always, the human psyche will first remember symmetrical shapes. Kanji characters that are “symmetrically-appealing” are more beautiful than those that aren’t. Movie actresses known to be good-looking have facial features that are proportionally perfect. In plain language, there are some ugly-looking Kanji characters too or “eyesores” in the eyes of the beholder, such as; 彙 [I] “same kind, classify and comply”, and 奬 [SHŌ] “encourage, prompt, propel” where there’s little symmetry in them. Yikes! Within “symmetrical” Kanji characters, I can detect further two groups; a) Symmetrically-Perfect, and b) Symmetrically-Balanced. Under the first group are so “symmetrically-perfect”, that either a horizontal or vertical line can be drawn right in the middle. The resulting two halves are so symmetrically-perfect that when folded right in the middle, they would turn out to be almost exact replicas of the other half–either vertically or horizontally. Another way to explain: they can be inverted either upside-down, or sideways and that when turned around—either a “sommersault” or an “about face”—they will appear more or less the same. Take a hard look at the physical attributes of “symmetrically-perfect” Kanji characters below;

Symmetrically Perfect
1. 工 [KŌ] “craft, artisan”
2. 十 [JŪ] “ten; Holy Cross”
3. 三[SAN] “three”
4. 口 [KŌ] “mouth; opening”
5. 中 [CHŪ] “middle; China”
6. 米 [BEI, MAI] “rice; America”
7. 目 [ME] “eye, sight”
8. 田 [TA] “rice field, rice paddy”
9. 亜 [A] “Asia”

And the second group, “symmetrically-balanced” Kanji characters that when a horizontal line can be drawn right in the middle. The resulting two halves are so symmetrically-perfect that when folded right in the middle, they would turn out to be more or less, exact replicas of the other half–but only horizontally. Another way to explain: they can be inverted sideways and when turned around—or an “about face”—they will appear more or less the same. Take a hard look at the physical attributes of “symmetrically-balanced” Kanji characters below:

Symmetrically Balanced
1. 天 [TEN] “heaven, sky”
2. 金 [KIN] “gold; money; metal”
3. 英 [EI] “England; brilliant”
4. 喜 [KI] “happiness”
5. 豊 [HŌ] “abundant”
6. 量 [RYŌ] “amount, volume, quantity”
7. 宣 [SEN] “declare, announce”
8. 冒 [BŌ] “adventure”
9. 畳 [JŌ] “tatami mat; fold up”

Clearly, the default settings of the human psyche is in favour of symmetrical objects, or an attempt to find a sense of balance including Roman and Greek letters. By far, symmetrical letters are easier to write and by extension easier to recall—you need only one half to remember the other half—symmetry should be the point of concentration on Kanji recall. And its more fun to think of symmetrical objects, just as its more pleasant to recall good-looking actresses. The human penchant for symmetry is also evident on basic arithmetic, Roman alphabets, Roman numerals and Greek letters—though no evidence exist that the creators of these writing systems joined in a collusion; much less one copied from the other, or simply who influenced whom. Let’s take a quick look: basic arithmetic; +, −,×, ÷ and = ; then, the Roman letters: A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X and Y—with all the vowels except for the letter E; the Roman numerals: I, II, III, V, M and X; and the Greek letters: Α, Δ, Η, Θ, Ι, Λ, Μ, Ξ, Ο, Π, π, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ and Ω are all “symmetrically-balanced,” just as the second group of Kanji characters above. You can write a vertical line right in the middle, and both halves will match each other when folded. In other writing systems, the presence of symmetrical letters indicate a universal truth across civilizations, centuries and continents. For the bulk of Kanji characters whose shapes are neither “symmetrically-perfect,” nor “symmetrically-balanced,” still there are components that are partially symmetrical, such as the lower part of Kanji characters, 彙 [I] “same kind, classify and comply.” Memory recall and retention of Kanji characters is no different from building blocks; your knowledge of basic Kanji characters; 田 [TA] “rice-field,” and 木 [KI, MOKU] “tree,”—put one on top of the other—will lead you to 果 [KA] “result; fruit,” which is already the lower part of Kanji character 彙 [I] “same kind, classify and comply,”—whew, memory recall half-done! Yes, its simply building blocks like the toy Lego. All it takes is to remember some basic Kanji characters to get to more complicated ones. In effect, familiarity with one leads to another, and to another. With your ability to distinguish one group from the other above, you can then proceed to pay attention—which are symmetrical, non-symmetrical or partially-symmetrical Kanji characters. Eventually it will reach to point of familiarity on “distinguising features” of Kanji characters, just as you can tell your friends’ facial features and physical attributes. This will lay the mental foothold on memory recall and retention—from passive recall to active recall—with the latter as the ability to write Kanji characters straight from memory. However, considering the massive number of Kanji characters used in daily newspapers—2,000—the ability of passive recall is already a highly-exceptional knowledge. Not too many non-Japanese or non-Chinese foreigners are near that level. In fact, that alone is worth an achievement of a lifetime.

If the functional definition of a language is a carrier of thoughts, so ideas can travel across time and space, swipe into the next pages to see if KanjiHybrids will fit in the equation. But first things first: before name[s] and physical attributes of Kanji characters, the more important thing is their meaning[s]—just as every person wishes to find his or her meaning in life. You must first master the meaning[s] of Kanji characters. Forget about the rest in the meantime. The name[s] and physical attributes must come only after the meaning[s]—never the other way around. Always put the horse in front of the cart! That’s the core theory of KanjiHybrid. Swipe into the next pages; you are now ready to plunge head-on into the meaning[s] of Kanji characters and Kanji compounds via KanjiHybrids.

Vee David
16 December 2014
Kyushu University of Health and Welfare
Miyazaki, Japan