New Heisig Tool

I have authored a simple python-based tool that allows one to query with Japanese text and map the text to Heisig (author of Remembering the Kanji, or just RTK) keywords. Some might wonder what value it would be to someone to know the RTK keywords? Anyone who has studied RTK has created a map of the keyword to a story that contains elements that should bring forth the actual Kanji character. Going the other way from the Kanji to keyword is harder and really isn't that important. However, when studying Kanji compounds it is helpful to think of the RTK keyword components. For example: 家族 (かぞく) maps to the RTK keywords [house] and [tribe]. You can see the value in utilizing the keywords to recall the compound - some of course are downright obvious, some funny and others vague. The script is available here and basically runs as a server in the background.

And a bookmarklet for those who want to be able to select random text while reading and have the text mapped to keywords:

javascript:(function(){q=document.getSelection();location.href='http://localhost:8080/?decode='+encodeURI(q)})()