The trick is to study etymology. The poster’s first successful practice was back in middle school when, during an English class, someone asked what to do if they couldn’t remember “discover”. The OP stood up and said that cover means “to cover”, dis‑ means “negation”, so together they form “discover”. Simple, right? But many people treat words like passwords and never discover the meaning.
Another example in Japanese: 苏醒 → 蘇り（よみがえり, yo mi ga e ri). Looking at such a simple word, why does it have five sounds? It’s hard to remember. But you only need to know its etymology:
- 黄泉の国 → yomi no kuni
- 帰る → ka e ru
and you can see that “苏醒” actually means “to return from Yomi”, i.e., to awaken.
Digging deeper: the two characters 黄泉 are a Japanese ateji that borrowed a Chinese concept to represent a word, and they are not the same concept as the Chinese 黄泉. Their