Great, if you use it with other tools

books:


	• Remembering the Kanji: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters ... James W. Heisig University of Hawaii Press, 2007 - 460 pages average customer review:based on 84 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A radical paradigm shift.

Learning Kanji by rote memorization the way native Japanese do is something that is only worth pursuing if you happen to start your Japanese language studies at any early age. As a fully developed adult, the way in which one should go about studying vast amounts of characters is entirely different from that of a child. Through various techniques utilizing visualization and imagination, this book presents a radically different approach that blows traditional kanji learning methods out of the water.

It does require some mental flexibility on your behalf but the rewards are astonishing, should you put the proper time and effort forth necessary into this study series.

Do not be afraid by the lack of readings and other aspects you may deem pertinent, as this first series is solely designed to help you commit the characters' meaning and writing to memory. You will find that once you have a character's core meaning internalized all the other elements fall into place.

I highly recommend this book to those who have found themselves frustrated by traditional methods of studying the characters and also to those who wish to systematize what they already may know.

As my studies progressed I found myself altering some of the imaginary/arbitrary meanings associated with radicals in order to cement them in my mind. While Heisig recommends following his system strictly, remember that he created this system from scratch. So this is not the final end all be all. You too are entitled to create your own offshoot or modify this as it suits you best. As human beings we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Once you can harness your true learning potential strengths, the sky is the limit. I was able to take the fundamental principals shown in this book and run with it.

I hope you can use it in a way that will benefit you as well!

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Mistranslated Kanji????

I find Heisig's book to be extremely helpful in memorizing the Kanji, its stroke order, but not its meaning. For example, there is a Kanji in his book listed as being "Word," when in fact it is used as "language" Japanese. Other Kanji which he defines turn out to be slightly different from their actual meaning. I believe he did this in order to make memorization easier, but I find it odd to come across a Kanji, remember that it means "X," but later find out that it also means "Y," or is some slight variation on "X."

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Great, if you use it with other tools

It's been almost two years since I started learning Japanese and I still struggle remembering hundreds of kanji characters I've read over the period. RTK has been my companion only for the past few months, yet I can see a big difference in how I comprehend every new kanji. The method is of course based on mnemonics, which is basically what you cannot live without, when you have to memorize all these characters.

The great thing about this book, is that it gradually introduces the so called "primitives" followed by kanjis themselves. With the help of these "primitives'" system you can either build up your own mnemonics or carefully follow the Heisig provided stories.

Heisig however decided to only assign one English meaning to each character and usually it turns out as a bad choice. Although the intention was to simplify the learning process, it made it somewhat worse, for you'd have to memorize the kanji from the scratch, when you come upon its other meanings. That's one of the biggest flaws of this otherwise great introduction to kanji.

My suggestion would be to carefully look up each Kanji, pick the most common meaning provided and if it's something completely different from Heisig's keywords (thus the mnemonics) just start making up your own stories (which is basically all you're left to do in the middle of the book).
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Finally the tools that you shouldn't start your journey without:
google for "kanji + kohii" website - a great site with user shared mnemonics - highly recommended
SRS (Spaced Repetition System) applications namely Anki (premade Heisig deck available), Supermemo. These will make sure you never forget what you've learnt.

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Learn to write, then learn to read

Heisig developed a unique method for learning the Kanji, or the Chinese characters as they are used in Japan. He splits the study of Chinese characters in two phases.

Phase 1-Learn to write all 2000 Toyo kanji (i.e. the Ministry of Education's general use characters) from an English keyword (Book I).

Phase 2-After learning to write all 2000 kanji, study how they are read and pronounced (Book II, sold separately).

In Book I, Heisig organizes the kanji somewhat as they are organized in kanji dictionaries. Some kanji, often called radicals, are simple and very distinct in form and meaning. More complex kanji are assembled from the simpler radicals. You learn the kanji by concocting mnemonic stories, the more dramatic the better, and using the radicals as story elements.

The method stirs controversy. Usually, kanji are taught by order of frequency, with the most often used characters being taught first. Heisig doesn't care about that order and some obscure kanji come very early in his list. Also the characters aren't conquered one at a time, but rather you learn to write all of the characters in the Toyo list before learning how to read any of them.

If you do chose to follow Heisig's method, you really should get Heisig's flash cards as well. If you complete both books, there is a third book covering another 1000 characters for upper level literary proficiency.

My experience is that Heisig's method will work more or less effectively depending on how good you are at remembering stories. And of course, the method will not exempt you from having to sit down and do the work! It will take you a few months.

But whatever method you chose, you will benefit from living in Japan and combining your kanji study with language study. By living in Japan you will encounter the kanji every day and you will recognize kanji you have learned, a very rewarding feeling.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The aim of this book is to provide the student of Japanese with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of how to write the kanji and some way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing because--contrary to first impressions--it is in fact the simpler of the two. He abandons the traditional method of ordering the kanji according to their frequency of use and organizes them according to their component parts or "primitive elements." Assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that result. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements.

In this way, students are able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their pronunciation in Japanese, they are now in a much better position to learn to read (which is treated in a separate volume).

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