I'm going through Remembering the Kanji 1 and it's definitely helpful to me. The idea is that you will learn the readings later and it'll be in context at that point with kanji that you already recognize. I don't think it's for everybody though.
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The Big Ass Superior Thread of Learning Japanese
- Thread starter RevenantKioku
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I'm going through Remembering the Kanji 1 and it's definitely helpful to me. The idea is that you will learn the readings later and it'll be in context at that point with kanji that you already recognize. I don't think it's for everybody though.
it's how it was done for arcade titles back when the same ROM set shipped w/w, and why change what works?
As for English in general, it's just trendy and mostly-understandable. Like Spanish or French can be in English,
French is English's à la mode. It adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the language. It's like déjà vous, people always bring this up about Japanese as if it was unique trait of the language, but it is common and en vogue practice for even a lingua franca (sorry, cheating a bit here) such as English to borrow words from another.
French is English's à la mode. It adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the language. It's like déjà vous, people always bring this up about Japanese as if it was unique trait of the language, but it is common and en vogue practice for even a lingua franca (sorry, cheating a bit here) such as English to borrow words from another.
déjà vu*
déjà vu*
Oh shit (palm to forehead), I can't believe I made such a silly mistake as use 2nd p.pl vous instead of the past participle of voir. Can I blame it on my iPhone?
airmangataosenai
Member
I've seen "だし" used as a verb ending a few times. What exactly is it used for?
Like connected to the stem of another doushi? It's 出す, usually means to start (it's nuanced and needs to really be learned as a entire word on its own). If connected to a meishi or keiyoudoushi it is the copula だ and the particle し, meaning that the speaker is listing things.
No, you may not. You are undone, take it like a man.
shanshan310
Member
I'm really enjoying it, but I think it works better as an intermediate study tool than a beginner's tool. I can already read a fair bit, so learning only the meanings and writing isn't much of a hindrance to me. I don't think it should be in the OP though, since a lot of absolute beginners will be drawn to it and find themselves able to read one meaning to individual kanji but not much else.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
So uh if the OP isn't really covering hiragana and katakana, where would one start in those areas?
Also, any good (Android) apps for learning?
Also, any good (Android) apps for learning?
This is a little off topic, but I figure this would be the best place to ask it without starting a new thread. But I'm traveling to Korea and Japan this month. I've been to Japan before.
But I suffer allergies and want to take Claritin D with me. I didn't know when I went last time that pseudoephedrine is illegal in Japan which is an ingredient in Claritin D. No one stopped me at all.
But now that I'm aware it's illegal I'm nervous to take my medicine with me. When looking at the embassy website I found that you can take medicine with you as long as it's less than a 2 month supply. But it doesn't specify if Claritin D is off limits.
Does anyone know the specifics? Chances are I'll go without being bothered, but if they find it. I figure they would just throw it away, but I read in a circumstance that a guy who brought a nasal spray that was illegal was detained for a month. :\
anyway. I hope someone can help me get more info. I'm considering calling the embassy because I don't want to take any risks.
But I suffer allergies and want to take Claritin D with me. I didn't know when I went last time that pseudoephedrine is illegal in Japan which is an ingredient in Claritin D. No one stopped me at all.
But now that I'm aware it's illegal I'm nervous to take my medicine with me. When looking at the embassy website I found that you can take medicine with you as long as it's less than a 2 month supply. But it doesn't specify if Claritin D is off limits.
Does anyone know the specifics? Chances are I'll go without being bothered, but if they find it. I figure they would just throw it away, but I read in a circumstance that a guy who brought a nasal spray that was illegal was detained for a month. :\
anyway. I hope someone can help me get more info. I'm considering calling the embassy because I don't want to take any risks.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
Uh, just call the embassy. I doubt there are any experts here.
That's what I'm ruling. I was just hoping someone already went through this before.
Thanks.
*edit*
called the embassy. got connected to another office and they are away on lunch. gotta rince and repeat again in a little while. :\ hopefully i'll get through to someone before my trip.
Start with Kana (Hiragana & Katakana) - if you want to use a book for learning the kana then use 'Remebering the Kana' by James W. Heisig, you will not find a better way to learn them. Although because its unlikely you will take more than a week or two to learn them then buying the book new may seem slightly unnecessary (and expensive).
So because Kana is relatively straight forward to learn you could just get a list of them & learn a few each day, or use one of the millions of free apps/websites.
After that is up to you.
The method in the OP is a bit of an odd way to learn Japanese - you will learn to recognize & write all the Kanji but will not learn the readings and will only learn a very loose (& relatively useless) meaning. So although you may recognize a Kanji with ease, you have little idea what it means or how to pronounce it.
The advantage of it is that when you get round to learning grammar & vocabulary then you should have no problem with the Kanji.
(The good & bad of this mehtod have been discussed many times in this thread)
The more common method for self learners is a basic text book that will work its way through teaching you vocabulary, grammer & will gradually introduce Kanji. This is what I have been doing & I think is what most other people in this thread have being doing also (correct me if I'm mistaken)
There are many textbook recommendations throughout this thread, and its hard to say which one is best suited for you. So you would be better doing some research into these books yourself to see which one you like the look of.
Personally I'm using Genki which has been great, but im not sure if its best for everyone.
I will preface this by saying that I know very little grammar and vocabulary which means I am not as familiar with the actual language as many of you are. But, from my experience, I have been able to recognize lots of words just because I know the meanings provided in the book. Kanji compounds are something that are pretty prevalent and still don't make much sense to me though. Remembering the Kanji definitely doesn't seem to be for everyone, but saying that the meanings (and, in turn, the method, since the meanings are probably more important than the writings at this point) are relatively useless just seems a bit hyperbolic.
I'm approaching the half way point of Remembering the Kanji. I think my input may be more valuable when I'm finished with the book and am more experienced with the language itself, but this is just my experience so far.
I don't want to be too rude in saying this, and I wish you the best in trying to reach your goals using this method, however, I don't think you are in any position to make this determination.
Let's look at 頂. You without a doubt read this as "place on head", right? So why is it people say ”頂きます"　before eating a meal? That seems like a strange thing to say. I could go on, but I think I've illustrated the point. Kanji, and their associated meanings (which can often be opposites) are virtually useless unless you understand the language.
注意して下さい. Or for Heisig
I tried to point out the fact that I recognize I am not nearly as proficient as many of you and that I was just stating my personal experience a few times in there, sorry if it didn't come across very well. I am able to pick out some words, and verbs in particular are much easier for me to identify because of Remembering the Kanji. All I was trying to say was that I think Remembering the Kanji has a bit more merit than it seems to be given. Maybe my personal success with the method is coloring my opinion of it overall. But I have had success with the method so far and that is all I am trying to get across. Calling it relatively useless seems a little dismissive.
I am not saying you will be able to read complex sentences just by completing the book. But the keyword, even if it doesn't encompass every possible meaning of the kanji, provides a context that helps me a lot. So I'll stick with it.
EDIT: Or rather, 吾 will 付 to the 法, as us RTK users would put it. Haha.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, I don't think I'll ever understand the Heisig method. I imagine it as something like learning Chinese without actually being able to use the language in any meaningful way.
According the the OP, it somehow allowed him to completely master Kanji writing, though, so maybe there's that merit. I know I'm terrible when I have to hand-write something without any reference.
It's just that there are so many expressions and Kanji compound that don't really mean what you'd think they mean if tried to guess from their individual compounds. Seems like that knowledge (divorced from any understanding of Japanese) could actually be a hindrance at times since you'll be going into the language with certain expectations.
According the the OP, it somehow allowed him to completely master Kanji writing, though, so maybe there's that merit. I know I'm terrible when I have to hand-write something without any reference.
It's just that there are so many expressions and Kanji compound that don't really mean what you'd think they mean if tried to guess from their individual compounds. Seems like that knowledge (divorced from any understanding of Japanese) could actually be a hindrance at times since you'll be going into the language with certain expectations.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was anything wrong with this method of learning & if you've put a lot of time into learning this way then the last thing you want to hear is people calling it useless!
I meant more that a lot of meanings you learn cannot be put to immediate use in actual Japanese words, but obviously in the long term learning Kanji this way will pay off.
Clearly this method works very well for some people (as shown in the OP) but its not for everyone.
But like i said - it has been discussed many times in this thread already, so maybe we shouldnt get into it again
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was anything wrong with this method of learning & if you've put a lot of time into learning this way then the last thing you want to hear is people calling it useless!
I meant more that a lot of meanings you learn cannot be put to immediate use in actual Japanese words, but obviously in the long term learning Kanji this way will pay off.
Clearly this method works very well for some people (as shown in the OP) but its not for everyone.
But like i said - it has been discussed many times in this thread already, so maybe we shouldnt get into it again
I think my post came off as kind of aggressive, sorry about that. I didn't intend it. But yeah, you're right. It's not for everyone. Seeing people much more advanced than me calling a method I've put so much time into not very good is a little heart breaking and makes me question it. But, like I said, it's helping me so I'll continue working on it!
Anyway, you mentioned you were using a text book and that it's been going well. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do when I'm done with Remembering the Kanji. I was kind of thinking of going through Tae Kim's grammar guide while simultaneously doing a core 2k vocabulary list but I'm open to suggestions. If text books are viable for me then I could even start one now while doing RTK. That would be tough since I don't have a ton of free time that I want to allot to that right now but maybe I could work on it on weekends and go full time once I'm done with RTK.
Any insights or suggestions would be appreciated!
KidA Seven
Member
I've mostly used Tae Kim's grammar guide. I have Genki as well, but it's useless because Tae Kim's site is that much better.
For Vocab, I use Anki.
I keep track of all the kanji I know as well.
I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR ARGUING ABOUT THE MERITS OF THE HEISIG METHOD. I WROTE THE ENTIRE POST WITHOUT REALIZING WHAT I WAS DOING.
I didn't use the Heisig method but now that I've been studying Japanese for a long time, I can really see the value in it. Kanji has a way of simultaneously fostering and impeding the development of vocabulary: when you know the kanji involved, everything is dandy and the words are in fact easier to learn because the language has a memory tool built into it; however, when you don't know the kanji, learning a word for use in reading/writing is unnecessarily difficult because even if you remember how to say the word without kanji as a reference -- an increasingly daunting task once more words are thrown into the mix due to the small sound inventory -- you won't be able to read it (or write it without looking like a child) because it'll always be written in kanji anyway.
Where I live, basically nobody speaks Japanese, and I only rarely get an opportunity to interact verbally in Japanese. As a result, I've focused primarily on expanding my ability to read and write Japanese as a way to crack into the language, and because the grammar comes very naturally to me (...most of the time) I find myself spending the vast majority of my time spent studying the language on kanj because I simply cannot get a grasp on vocabulary without it. This method of learning vocabulary is as slow as molasses.
Heisig does away with this by offering a tangible way to remember what kanji look like without forcing you to also learn the readings and the usage at the same time. This allows you to identify words in written language without having to first understand and then become romantically involved with for a brief period each kanji in the compound. The traditional method of learning all of the elements of each kanji the first time you learn them is fine if you have no imperative to learn kanji to understand... anything, but when you do, it's just slow and inefficient. You aren't using the assigned meanings to learn words; you're using the assigned meanings to remember the kanji to learn words. The Heisig method simply extrapolates the technique that many learners do of assigning placeholder meanings to kanji they don't understand in words that they do to the entire language.
I'll use your example above (注意して下さい
. Specifically I'll look at 注意, because 下 is one of the first kanji learned and ください is also fairly common to see written in hiragana. It took me at least a few months of studying kanji to get to the kanji to read 注意; however, 注意 is probably one of the most common words in the entire language. In what other language is it reasonable to go through months of study to learn a word as common as 注意? Heisig eliminates that gap by giving you a tool to learn the word 注意 (and thousands of other words) without having to sit down and learn and compartmentalize 注 and 意. For one word, learning and understanding each kanji is not so bad, but Japanese has thousands of words and the vast majority of them involve at least one kanji character, so this becomes so cumbersome so quickly. A Heisig learner can make whatever imaginary association they come up with for 注 and 意 and would then instantly be able to understand that word, even if they don't exactly have a thorough understanding of the characters that make it up. The added benefit is that when your real (ie not RTK) kanji studying brings you to 注 and 意, you'll probably have seen them used at least a few times and will have less of an ass-backwards way of remembering how to read them.Of course, it goes without saying that Heisig must be treated as complementary to actually learning the kanji, as Heisig is merely a tool to help you parse sentences.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
Is Heisig's Remembering The Kana out of print?
It seems like everywhere only has used copies for sale.
It seems like everywhere only has used copies for sale.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
Isn't there a lot more? hiragana and katakana combined?
There's the same number of katakana as hiragana, so it's less than 100 symbols total, and you see them everywhere. Just learn five a day or something like that.
You get used to them quick.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
I can't speak for Heisig since I'm not familiar with it, but to try and clarify:
Hiragana and katakana can be thought of as a sort of basic alphabet for Japanese; think of them as sort of like English letters. Each represents a single sound in a word. Any Japanese word can thus be written in hiragana or katakana; however, in practice many words are written in kanji instead (which I'll get to in a second). They're also used for grammatical particles. Since there's only so many sounds in words, there's only around 50 hiragana and their equivalent katakana.
Kanji, which are the difficult thing to learn, are derived from Chinese characters. They can represent more than one sound in one symbol, and depending on how they're used, can represent different sets of sounds. These can be thought of as a little closer to whole words rather than letters, though again, any word can be written in hiragana or katakana, and many Japanese words are written with more than one kanji. In other words, don't think of kanji as a one-to-one mapping to words. In actual writing, many Japanese words are written only in kanji, not hiragana or katakana, since everyone's expected to know certain kanji. Earlier-level textbooks or Japanese material for young learners won't use kanji nearly as much as actual Japanese writings. There are thousands of kanji, with about 2,000 on a government-created list that you're expected to know by the time you're out of high school.
To give a solid example, one pronoun for "I":
Romaji: Watashi (wa-ta-shi)
Hiragana: わたし (わ= wa, た = ta, し = shi)
Katakana:　ワタシ (ワ = wa, タ = ta, シ = shi)
Kanji:　私 (= watashi)
Or another, "private (eg. private matters)", to show how kanji can combine:
Romaji: Shiteki
Hiragana: してき (し = shi, て = te, き = ki)
Katakana:　シテキ (シ = shi, テ = te, キ = ki)
Kanji: 私的 (私 = shi, 的 = teki)
So 私 shouldn't be thought of as just the word "I/watashi", but rather as a representation of the idea of "I" that can be combined with other kanji (here, "的", which can represent the idea of "-like" or "typical") to make other words that could have a variety of spellings in hiragana.
My friend - who speaks no Japanese - knows katakana simply because he's played some Japanese videogames and has used the katakana table on Wikipedia enough times that he's memorized them. Hiragana and katakana are a very small component of the writing system, and, unlike kanji, you will probably take to them quite readily because you will be reading and writing them constantly, particularly if you make a concerted effort to avoid romaji.
Why the hell didn't I study for Japanese at all over the holidays?! Back to class and while I still remember grammar rules/structure and how to read hiragana/katakana and most of the kanji I learned, I'm drawing an almost total blank on vocabulary. *sigh*
I'm fucked for this semester aren't I?
I'm fucked for this semester aren't I?
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR ARGUING ABOUT THE MERITS OF THE HEISIG METHOD. I WROTE THE ENTIRE POST WITHOUT REALIZING WHAT I WAS DOING.
I didn't use the Heisig method but now that I've been studying Japanese for a long time, I can really see the value in it. Kanji has a way of simultaneously fostering and impeding the development of vocabulary: when you know the kanji involved, everything is dandy and the words are in fact easier to learn because the language has a memory tool built into it; however, when you don't know the kanji, learning a word for use in reading/writing is unnecessarily difficult because even if you remember how to say the word without kanji as a reference -- an increasingly daunting task once more words are thrown into the mix due to the small sound inventory -- you won't be able to read it (or write it without looking like a child) because it'll always be written in kanji anyway.
Where I live, basically nobody speaks Japanese, and I only rarely get an opportunity to interact verbally in Japanese. As a result, I've focused primarily on expanding my ability to read and write Japanese as a way to crack into the language, and because the grammar comes very naturally to me (...most of the time) I find myself spending the vast majority of my time spent studying the language on kanj because I simply cannot get a grasp on vocabulary without it. This method of learning vocabulary is as slow as molasses.
Heisig does away with this by offering a tangible way to remember what kanji look like without forcing you to also learn the readings and the usage at the same time. This allows you to identify words in written language without having to first understand and then become romantically involved with for a brief period each kanji in the compound. The traditional method of learning all of the elements of each kanji the first time you learn them is fine if you have no imperative to learn kanji to understand... anything, but when you do, it's just slow and inefficient. You aren't using the assigned meanings to learn words; you're using the assigned meanings to remember the kanji to learn words. The Heisig method simply extrapolates the technique that many learners do of assigning placeholder meanings to kanji they don't understand in words that they do to the entire language.
I'll use your example above (注意して下さい
Of course, it goes without saying that Heisig must be treated as complementary to actually learning the kanji, as Heisig is merely a tool to help you parse sentences.
I feel like that didn't explain in any way how it's beneficial to study the Heisig way. How is being able to recognize the 注意 and its component meanings particularly helpful when you don't know how to read it, use it within the context of Japanese, or even really understand what the word means and in what situations it can be used.
Also, why do you have to go through months of study to learn 注意? That seems like it's more contingent on whatever method you chose to study the language. If you're just reading stuff and looking up the words you frequently encounter, you could have learned this word very early indeed.
Because being able to understand what it means will allow you to parse the sentence it's used in, and learning how to say it will eventually make learning those kanji properly more easy. RTK is not a substitute for learning kanji; it just removes the specific arbitrary barrier created by traditional teaching methods that requires a student to become unnecessarily familiar (for the purposes of reading) with each individual kanji.
The individual word is irrelevant. 冷蔵庫。If you don't know the kanji, you have basically no chance of pronouncing it correctly -- even if you know the word for fridge is れいぞうこ -- and your chances of figuring out that it means "fridge" are equally low, yet it's a common enough word. If I want to be able to read the word fish in French, someone just has to tell me it's poisson and I'm good to go. There's no need for me to learn how to draw a character that looks absolutely nothing like a fish, and when you have to do this for every single word just to be able to read a newspaper it amounts to a lot of unnecessary work, work which is removed by RTK. RTK is simply a method that says that you don't need to know how to draw or pronounce a character to memorize what it looks like, and they're right.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Arbitrary barrier? It's a natural barrier. It's also the same barrier that Japanese natives face. They don't have some magical understanding of Kanji meanings before they learn them within the context of words. It seems like the Heisig method just puts you in a position to learn Japanese as if you were a Chinese speaker, except without any actual ability to speak Chinese.
I must not be understanding correctly. How does RTK remove any unnecessary work? Knowing the individual meanings of 冷, 蔵, and 庫 helps you how? You'd probably think 冷蔵庫 meant "cold storage" and think of a warehouse unless you knew the combination of the characters specifically refers to refrigerators.
Just like how you most likely wouldn't come to the conclusion that 注意 together is used to mean "Caution" or "Warning" simply by knowing the meaning of the individual characters.
I called it an arbitrary barrier because it's one introduced by the teaching method. It's also not the same barrier that Japanese natives face as they have the advantage of being perpetually bombarded by the language that they're learning in reading, writing, and speaking. Foreigners learning the language shouldn't learn it like they live in Japan (unless they do live in Japan) because fully immersed children have virtually nothing in common with almost entirely removed adults.
I agree that RTK won't give you the ability to infer the meaning most compounds, but that's not what I'm saying RTK does for you. Besides, that is also true of the traditional ways of learning Japanese: You can look at the kanji in 注意 all day and you'll never find a connection to its meaning.
If you know how to identify 冷, 蔵, and 庫 you can look at the word, learn what it means (probably by looking it up; as I said earlier, RTK isn't a substitute for actually learning kanji), and, if you're smart, reverse engineer the on-readings of each of the kanji. Non-RTK learners (like myself) in a similar position will be, as the RTK learner is, forced to look up the word, but will then probably forget about it because they'll have no internalized mechanism to remember how to read or identify the meaning of the word. The RTK learner will see 冷蔵庫 in the future and think "cold-(I don't even know what meaning you could apply to 蔵
-storage -- fridge!" whereas the non-RTK learner will have no real reason to remember one of the surely thousands of compounds consisting of characters they don't know. Yes, you could then go and LEARN those kanji, but like I've said, this is a really slow way to learn vocabulary because learning kanji doesn't help you learn new vocabulary; it just better allows you to memorize the words you already know and read them in the future.You're focusing a lot on the meanings assigned to the kanji when that's really just a way to remember and identify them in English.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I'm going to have to disagree here. I think immersion is the only way to become truly fluent in a language. It's definitely the only way I got to where I am. I suppose it wouldn't work very well for people with no access to Japanese people and Japanese language media. Of course, the Internet can be an invaluable resource when it comes to that.
I agree that RTK won't give you the ability to infer the meaning most compounds, but that's not what I'm saying RTK does for you. Besides, that is also true of the traditional ways of learning Japanese: You can look at the kanji in 注意 all day and you'll never find a connection to its meaning.
If you know how to identify 冷, 蔵, and 庫 you can look at the word, learn what it means (probably by looking it up; as I said earlier, RTK isn't a substitute for actually learning kanji), and, if you're smart, reverse engineer the on-readings of each of the kanji. Non-RTK learners (like myself) in a similar position will be, as the RTK learner is, forced to look up the word, but will then probably forget about it because they'll have no internalized mechanism to remember how to read or identify the meaning of the word. The RTK learner will see 冷蔵庫 in the future and think "cold-(I don't even know what meaning you could apply to 蔵
You're focusing a lot on the meanings assigned to the kanji when that's really just a way to remember and identify them in English.
Maybe I just don't understand what RTK does for you compared to the traditional method of "find word" -> "look up word" -> "look up Kanji compounds" -> "practice writing word and look up other ways to use it." I don't see why an RTK learner would more easily remember 冷蔵庫 and its meaning than someone who learned the word through normal means.
You don't see how already knowing each kanji of a compound word makes it far easier to remember?
If I told you both the phrase "happy shoelace pressure" and the phrase "wosub slaik plert" meant "living room" in Martian which is easier to remember?
It's easier for me to remember compounds made up of kanji I've already been through in RTK because I easily recognize them and they have some sort of meaning to me instead of looking like random squiggles. RTK makes you familiar with thousands of kanji quickly, letting you tell one apart from another and giving you a tool (the meaning) to quickly learn words associated with them.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I disagree with your assumption that Kanji compounds look like random squiggles to those studying via more traditional methods.
In the "look up Kanji compounds" step I mentioned, you learn about the radicals for each Kanji and what they originally are supposed to mean. At least the way I did it, I had to identify the radical of any unfamiliar Kanji I encountered to even be able to look it up. After a bit, things really start to come together and you recognize how each individual Kanji is composed.
I don't see how your comparison with Martian is at all relevant. Aren't you assuming that people will learn a word and the Kanji that are attached to it, but somehow immediately forget it? That doesn't sound like learning to me.
Man, I expected the language to be alien compared to English, but holy fuck. I can't think of a single word in Japanese that would even be close to being called a "cognate" for English.
Hell, when I first heard the word "Watashi" i thought it was a Phrase...come to find out it's the pronoun "I".
Hell, when I first heard the word "Watashi" i thought it was a Phrase...come to find out it's the pronoun "I".
Grimpadlock
Member
Namae = name
Cognates don't really work when languages don't stem from the same root but there are a few words that kind of sound similar.
I'm not sure people learning traditionally study radicals much at all. Nobody in my Japanese classes through 201 did, at least. Anyway, Heisig also teaches radicals.
The Martian comparison was supposed to illustrate that someone who is already familiar with hundreds or thousands of characters will remember words more easily because they already mean something to that person, without having to look up and memorize the individual kanji, and they can already easily recognize them and write them.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Hmm... OK. I guess my method was not so traditional then. I just assumed that kind of thing would be taught in classes.
I think my main problem with Heisig is that it kind of encourages translation through one's native language, which I think is one of the biggest hindrances to learning another language. By learning all of the meanings of individual characters in your native tongue outside of the context of Japanese, I can't help but think you'll constantly be thinking in your native language whenever you encounter a new Kanji.
My method was all about learning Kanji in a similar way to how Japanese kids learn Kanji--by practicing drills, memorizing associated vocabulary, and reading materials in which those Kanji are used.
Zoe
Member
This is how I did it. My point is just that it's terribly inefficient to do it this way because until you get to around the 1000 kanji mark, a large percentage of the words you see will contain (or consist entirely of) kanji you don't know, which impedes your ability to memorize those words.
I don't think Heisig encourages translation, because it acknowledges that the words you're using for those kanji are just memory devices. It doesn't even talk about usage or reading.
Zoe
Member
That's what furigana is for. Even if you don't explicitly learn some compounds off of a vocab list, you're still learning them from texts you review.
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I guess I just don't understand what makes it more efficient.
How is Heisig going to help you anymore than the traditional method in the case you mentioned. Yes, you'll run into tons of Kanji you don't know if you know fewer than 1,000. Hell, this can be said even if you know 2,000 characters. I still don't see how Heisig's method will come in handy if you don't know Kanji within the context of Japanese.
With Heisig's method, you're learning the meaning of the Kanji in English, right? That's the whole point, isn't it? It's why you supposedly retain Kanji better without having to learn them in the context of Japanese first, right? I don't see how constantly associating Kanji with an English word is not encouraging constant translation, but I've never tried the method, so maybe I'm just not comprehending it.
Furigana isn't that common and ultimately just a crutch.
No, the whole point is to be able to see kanji (and therefore words consisting of kanji) that you don't know particularly well as more than just squiggles on a page.
The stories you come up with for the kanji don't have to have anything to do with their meaning in Jaoanese; the associations exist simply to help you remember a lot of them in a very short period of time. Your association word for 谷 can be "picture of a house". It's not translation.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Pretty sure my first post ever in this thread was about how inefficient Heisig is and how people I had known who had used it plateaued very early. Just learn the words lol.
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