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Heisig's method in other languages? - Printable Version

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Heisig's method in other languages? - Piotoro - 2009-04-05

Dr. Heisig created his method in English. What do you think of learning it in other languages (not published yet)?

I'm Polish and I don't speak English well, so I sometimes find it extremly difficult to translate keywords into Polish. For egzample I had a problem with translation of "mist". That's because in Polish mist and fog has the same translation "mgła". I think the more I get into it, the more problems would appear... In this case problem is not in understanding the keyword, but in finding proper translation. But sometimes I have no idea what a particular word means. I don't even mention of fatal translations that could happen. I.e. recently I translated "bull's eye" literally. I feel totally defeated...

What can you advice? Maybe there are any kind people who could write English definitions of the meanings of keywords? Not necessarily all of them...

Heisig's method in other languages? - Tobberoth - 2009-04-05

Well, Heisig exists in some other languages though I doubt it exists in Polish.

The only advice I can give you is to use dictionary.com to look up the keywords you do not understand, that's what I did.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Smackle - 2009-04-05

You could also look up individual kanji that give you particular trouble, see how they are used, and then decide, based on that, what Polish keyword you think fits.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Sleepyhead - 2009-04-05

Another thing you could do, is to use http://dictionary.com/. I've found this useful on several occasions when there's words that I've never even heard of. If nessecary, there's always wikipedia too, if something is not explained well enough in that dictionary (though most of the time, it is). Also, if there are kanji with similar keywords, I usually look them up, and see if there are any additional keywords that could be used. I also use Anki instead of this site because of the ability to edit the keywords, add extra definitions etc.

Edit: Ah, didn't see Tobberoth's post untill after I posted this myself. Well, that means dictionary.com is useful at least. =D

Heisig's method in other languages? - Codexus - 2009-04-05

If that's any consolation some keywords seem to be confusing even for native speakers.

For example, "creek" 江, if you look at the stories most people seem to think that's a small stream (the main meaning in the US apparently), but it should be interpreted as inlet or bay to match the Japanese meaning.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Sebastian - 2009-04-05

Smackle Wrote:You could also look up individual kanji that give you particular trouble, see how they are used, and then decide, based on that, what Polish keyword you think fits.
You can use Wakan for that. Wakan uses JMDict, and it has some extremely useful features. For example, it can track your clipboard, so each time you select and copy to the clipboard some word or kanji it will display automatically the related entries without even having to change windows. Besides, it can look up words that start, end or contain whatever you copy to the clipboard. So, you can copy each kanji to the clipboard and skim through the related entries and choose some word that uses that kanji, feels representative of its meaning and isn't too hard to remember.

The same process works pretty well for kanji that are hard to remember, or those that aren't much common.

Heisig's method in other languages? - welldone101 - 2009-04-05

I think you should use a combination of dictionary.com, a Japanese->Polish dictionary (look up the kanji) and a Polish Thesaurus to make your keywords.

There are two principles to Heisig's keywords that I think make them work well.
1) They are attached to at least one meaning of the kanji
2) He tries to use non-standard vocabulary whenever.

Heisig uses many words that people do NOT say on a daily basis. For example, many English speakers use the word fog a lot. Mist can be a poetic way to describe fog, and so it is used much less. Because the keywords are usually poetic or more rarely used English words they stick in our minds better.

Don't be afraid to make your own keywords. That's what heisig did and it worked great for him. Exploring the kanji on your own and coming up with a fun Polish keyword can only help you remember them.
However, you should probably stick to the primitive meanings at closely as possible if you want to use these sites stories as they will match much better.

Heisig's method in other languages? - mentat_kgs - 2009-04-05

I'll tell you a secret: some of Heisig's keyword suck. If you manage to find a kanji->polish dictionary, it might be the way to go.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Harrow - 2009-04-05

Piotoro Wrote:What can you advice? Maybe there are any kind people who could write English definitions of the meanings of keywords? Not necessarily all of them...
One approach: Continue in English and ask here when you encounter a mysterious keyword that may not be in your English-Polish dictionary. Plenty of people here can give you a quick sense of its meaning.

So bull's eye = the very center of a target, like the inner circle when playing darts. Something seems mysterious, just ask! And good luck with your kanji learning Smile

Another approach: Use Heisig in another language you know -- for example, how's your German? Heisig has a German version out, http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Kanji_lernen.htm

But, as far as I know, not (yet!) in Polish.

Heisig's method in other languages? - mentat_kgs - 2009-04-05

Bull's eye is one keyword I think Heisig did not chose well. The kanji is rarely used that way. 99% of the times I see it it has another meaning.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Smackle - 2009-04-05

Well, when it is by itself, it is used that way. You often encounter it in RPGs and such in that matter. 標的 also uses this meaning.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Katsuo - 2009-04-06

This spreadsheet compares Heisig's keywords for kanji with other sources. It may help to clarify the meaning sometimes.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Piotoro - 2009-04-06

Thanks for response!

I should write what I actually have been doing. Well I used a lots of materials to translate keywords. For example keywords of all available translations (Spanish, French, German, English). Unfortunately I don't speak any of above, but it was useful to find mist equivalent. I've chosen "drizzle", but I've been thinking of Polish equivalent of nebula, which is "mgławica" (similar to "mgła" [fog], but a bit different meaning). Before I choose right translations I do a million of things. I check other translations (I use online dictionaries. Maybe you can advise some good/the best Spanish-, French-, German-English online dictionaries?), I check kanji meaning in 2 Polish kanji dictionaries (which are not too big), sometimes in jisho.org or Jim Breen's dictionary and of course I use some English dictionaries (actually all I have which are: PWN-Oxford, Oxford Wordpower, Oxford Pocket, Langenscheidt and Buchmann). Additionally I sometimes use Polish thesaurus and wikipedia. As if that weren't enough, I look up keywords which contain keyword I'm just working on.

Well, that's a bit, isn't it? And all this is fine, but it takes a lot of time... And still I am not guaranteed I would find appropriate translations, because some of keywords have so many different possibilities in translations (sometimes even Heisig's story doesn't help much. And what will be later, when it run out?). And that's why I'm repeating my question:

Are there any, probably native speakers, persons who could make a list of keywords with its English definitions (with only one meaning - this used by Dr. Heisig)? Mabe systematically, e.g. 20 a day? I think that for a native speaker it would be a peace of cake... Such a list would be very helpful for me and my friends using this system.

EDIT:I use Wakan too, also Kanji Learners Dictionary (I forgot to mention it).

Heisig's method in other languages? - Sebastian - 2009-04-06

Piotoro Wrote:I check kanji meaning in 2 Polish kanji dictionaries (which are not too big), sometimes in jisho.org or Jim Breen's dictionary
Actually, they both use the same data:

From jisho.org:
Quote:The data is publicly available and comes from the excellent WWWJDIC project.
So it would be better for you to use Wakan instead of them.

Heisig's method in other languages? - welldone101 - 2009-04-06

All you people who do spreadsheets online through collaboration. If somebody could set this up I'd be happy to contribute a certain amount a day.

However, Mr. Piotoro, I think that maybe this would not work as well as you'd like it too.

Just looking at the stories for one English keyword on this site, I see that people use many facets and meanings of the word and choose which one suits them best for making their story. Then for some words people don't even use the meaning, but a different word that sounds the same (and may be spelled differently). The key is to trick your mind into remembering the shape of the kanji above all. Since no matter which keyword you choose, most kanji's Japanese meanings will only ever be close and not exact.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Katsuo - 2009-04-06

Piotoro Wrote:I use Wakan too, also Kanji Learners Dictionary
The Kanji Learners Dictionary gives better overall meanings than RTK. However, the meanings are sometimes duplicated, so it doesn't fit with the RTK system (where each keyword must be unique).

welldone101 Wrote:All you people who do spreadsheets online through collaboration. If somebody could set this up I'd be happy to contribute a certain amount a day.
Here is a Google spreadsheet with the keywords and a blank column for definitions. If any native English speakers (or very proficient non-natives) would like to contribute...

Heisig's method in other languages? - ファブリス - 2009-04-06

Kodansha's Kanji Learner Dictionary is very helpful for choosing keywords and nailing the concept. It gives you example words with all the characters, and their own selected "keywords" (also in english, but often more common words than those of Heisig, because KKLD does not try to have unique keywords). Sometimes KKLD gives you 2 or 3 keywords to match different meanings of the character.

Heisig's method in other languages? - aaronvanvalen - 2009-04-06

Dude I'm pretty upper hand in English but there are so many words in Heisig that require looking into before learning the kanji. Get a class A source to translate the words, but stick with the English words for referencing, I'd say. You'll expand your English while learning your Japanese.

Your English seems upper hand enough to get through Heisig without severe problems just がんばれ the shit out of it man.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Piotoro - 2009-04-06

aaronvanvalen: It's nice to hear such a compliment from you. Smile You've said it very precisely: "Your English SEEMS upper hand". Yes, it only seems... With dictionary within reach it's not so difficult...

I use both, the English keywords (at the top of the reviewing pages, I haven't changed it) and the Polish equivalents in my stories.

Katsuo: Thanks for the Google spreadsheet. That's what I was thinking of. Do you have, maybe, a similar list of primitives? They make problems too.

Now please, good people (it’ll be best, if you were natives) from far and near, fill it. Smile

Heisig's method in other languages? - thomasritz - 2009-04-06

Piotoro Wrote:Maybe you can advise some good/the best Spanish-, French-, German-English online dictionaries?)
For German/English I would use LEO. For Japanese/German I'd recommend Wadoku. The Firefox plugin Rikaichan provides word dictionaries for Japanese/{English,German,French,Russian}. Maybe this helps a bit.

Heisig's method in other languages? - Katsuo - 2009-04-07

Piotoro Wrote:Katsuo: Thanks for the Google spreadsheet. That's what I was thinking of. Do you have, maybe, a similar list of primitives?
No, at least not a complete list. There are over 200 here: Primitives vs. Radicals: RTK’s names for the traditional 214 radicals.

But there are also many other primitives that are not radicals (maybe 80 or 90 I guess).

Heisig's method in other languages? - Piotoro - 2009-04-08

Katsuo Wrote:No, at least not a complete list. There are over 200 here: Primitives vs. Radicals: RTK’s names for the traditional 214 radicals.
I was thinking of a spreadsheet like list, which enables translation of the definitions of primitives...

Heisig's method in other languages? - marmoo - 2009-04-11

Hi, first sorry for not answering your email, I thought it was spam and I threw it away without reading it. I guess your email had something in common with the topic of this thread (once again, sorry). I think you are paying too much attention to details, there are few kanjis here, where it is hard to understand their meaning, or to "create" a block for them in your memory - for myself those were such kanjis like 桂 (Japanese Judas tree?); 桐 (paulownia?); 銑 (pig-iron?); 錦 (brocade?);競 (vie?) etc. Those, which meaning I don't understand or don't know I usually tend to ignore, mainly those which I'm not interested (like names of trees - oak, cedar, paulownia or archaismuses (speaketh?) - why should I learn those, if I find out those are important I'll learn them later (other fact is I already know these without trying, looks like ignoring something doesn't make you immune to learning it (funny fact is I was still too lazy to check their meanings Smile, the same goes in case of RTK2, I try to learn words which dr Heisig gives as examples, but in cases, where his examples are surnames or Buddhist terms (or similar stuff which is completely unfamilar to me, I ignore it). I think it may be the easiest way to check the meanings you are not sure on English wikipedia and after that, moving to Polish wikipedia - you will be sure to get detailed information. Anyway, feel free to email me (once again sorry) or post your question here, I'll be happy to give an advice if I'll be able to Tongue. (anyway your English seems to be much better than mine Tongue).


Best regards

Heisig's method in other languages? - Jamapi - 2009-04-22

I am learning with the German books of Heisig. When using the flashcards with the English keywords I noticed, that sometimes it is very hard finding the fitting word in German. I use the leo.org translator of course, but often words have about 20 meanings, and if I do not see the exaxt keyword in German, it is hard to know the Kanji at once. I think you are very focused on a particular combination of Keyword an Kanji, and if the keyword is a little different, it is hard to derive the Kanji - just my 2 cents ^^ I started a list with some hard to translate words that you cannot affilate from an online translator, but it is very painful. Is there anyone around who maybe has such an English-German Heisig keyword translation? Is there a possibility for an add-on to "feed" the cards with the German keyword? In this thread "spreadsheets" are mentioned, maybe this is something along those lines (get a blocker for these pages so I could not look into them at the moment).

Heisig's method in other languages? - Teskal - 2009-04-22

I have a Excel spreadsheet with the german and english keywords, if this is any help.