Re: Remembering the Kanji

Essential Touch <.> writes:

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:17:34 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:

I am thinking about getting 'Remembering the Kanji: Complete Course
on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters
v. 1' by James W. Heisig,

I strongly recommend this method as it's working fine for me;

How long have you been on this system so far?

My Japanese study is completely stalled at the moment, and has never
been brisk.

I have probably put a total of about 2 months of study into using
Heisig's RtK:I method, and have got about half-way, but that has been
divided into several bursts of study so I've no doubt lost a lot of
time there getting back up to speed. (This would of course be true for
any method: stopping for long periods will waste time compared to
learning in continuous stretches.)

Without the interruptions, I would estimate about 3 weeks of proper
study has been put into Heisig's method for remembering the
kanji. (I'm a dreadful student in the absence of a teacher, which is
one reason why the systematic, always-forward method presented by
Heisig is so suitable for me.)

What I've been pleased to find is that although I haven't studied
kanji (or any Japanese) at all for nearly a year, and am not in common
contact with any Japanese material, I still immediately recognise any
kanji that I've learned, and can confidently write those that I want
to recall. Even the pronunciations I've learned are easy to recall, so
long as they're associated with kanji I have already learned.

and what (and how) had you studied before, and for how long?

I was fortunate to have the determination to study kanji
systematically early in my study of Japanese. I didn't try any method
other than ad-hoc drills of "100 most common kanji" and the like.

I've kept Heisig's method and sequence, but discarded his
keywords. Instead, I've made my flash cards with the "core
meanings" from Halpern's _Kanji Learner's Dictionary_ and other
works [...]

I've read quite a bit about this too, How straight forward is it to
replace his keywords (having not seen either his book or the one you
mention above)?

It's quite straight-forward, though it took me some time to hit on my
preferred hierarchy of "authoritative" core meanings. Actually
applying it is (straight-foward) mechanical research work, but I hope
to publish the result some day to save others that work.

Is there a straight description of [the details of Heisig's method]
anywhere else I could peruse before deciding if it is for me or not?

Not that I'm aware of.

The best I can do is point to a detailed description of the synthetic
method I use. You've likely already read it since you say you've
browsed the archives, but here it is:

<URL:http://groups.google.com/group/sci.lang.japan/msg/8a085fed4edcca79?dmode=source>

That also details the hierarchy of authoritative sources for kanji
"core meanings" that I used in constructing my flash cards.

Craig Welch <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

You can download the first few chapters for free:
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RK4/RK%201_sample.pdf
and read the introduction.

Though the outline of the method is there, it's unfortunately not
enough to get a good idea of what the method actually entails. Heisig
spreads that throughout the book, making it difficult to point to
something brief (short of the entire volume of RtK:I) and say "that's
what Heisig's method is".

Essential Touch <.> writes:

It seems to revolve around creating imagery and I'm not sure how
good I would be at that.

Heisig gives, in the early chapters, detailed imaginative stories that
the student can use as examples of the type of story they should be
making for themselves (in their mind, with vivid moving images rather
than words).

I can't speak for how you'll go, but I initially shared your doubt at
my creative ability, and I surprised myself by quickly getting the
habit of making strange and memorable imaginative scenes, that work
very effectively for fixing the meaning-to-writing association in my
memory.

Thanks for your input.

Happy to help, and good luck in your studies.

--
\ "When I was born I was so surprised I couldn't talk for a year |
`\ and a half." -- Gracie Allen |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
.

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