Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - Printable Version

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - Printable Version

+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: General discussion (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-8.html)
+--- Thread: Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order (/thread-593.html)

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - amthomas - 2007-06-12

Okay, so I realize that the whole point of Heisig is that you are focusing on pictographically related images and making stories and whatnot. I'm just curious if anyone knows of a comparison of the order of Heisig's kanji and the order of the Joyou Kanji set.

Mostly, I'm curious how many low-level kanji (for Japanese people) that I won't learn until nearly the end of the book, or vice versa how many high-level kanji (again, for native Japanese speakers/writers) I've learned early on in the book. I know that I've had some coworkers freak out at my ability to write apparently "impossible" kanji that they can't remember, and then they're even *more* freaked out that I don't know a bunch of much much simpler kanji. I assume this is just a difference in the order with which they and I have learned the kanji, and the method, but still... I'm curious...

So, anybody know where I can find a comparison of Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order?

Thanks!

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - Megaqwerty - 2007-06-12

Wholly asymmetrical, to say the least: any similarities would probably be coincidental.

I believe this is stated in the book's introduction, and it's quite obvious from the actual layout of the book, but one of the book's greatest strengths is that it presents the kanji systematically. Mnemonics are certainly the main plus of the Heisig method, but structural order is also extremely important.

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - JimmySeal - 2007-06-12

A few rare ones are saved until the end even though they could be introduced earlier, and since you gradually accumulate primitives, more complicated characters will be more numerous in the second half of the book than the first half, but Megaqwerty is basically correct.

送, classified as Grade 3 in the education system, has Heisig number 2016.

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - esgrove - 2007-06-12

I find myself getting very impatient to "learn" kanji that I already know. they just don't feel real to me until I've incorporated them in with the rest of my stack. I'm always nervous writing them, unlike the other ones I've learned so far, I'm not 100% certain how to write it.

Maybe he puts the easy, common kanji in the back as an incentive to keep going at a fast pace. It's certainly working for me.

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - Kieron - 2007-06-13

I had a copy of the RTK1 index that I added grade levels too, but I haven't corrected it against ziggr's latest update -- perhaps I should clean that up and post it somewhere. It's more of a curiosity than anything useful, but what's wrong with curiosity?

Trivia time! The last grade-1 kanji in the book is frame 1885 (気, "spirit"), and the last elementary school kanji at all is frame 2017 (関, "connection", 4th grade). The first character in the book that is not on the 常用漢字 list or on the 人名用漢字 (names) list is frame 60 (頁, "page").

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - synewave - 2007-06-13

Kieron Wrote:I had a copy of the RTK1 index that I added 教育漢字 grade levels too, but I haven't updated it against ziggr's latest update -- perhaps I should clean that up and post it somewhere. It's more of a curiosity than anything useful, but what's wrong with curiosity?

I would be interested in seeing your list...only if you update it though Wink

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - amthomas - 2007-06-13

Yup, ditto on wanting to see the list. I completely adore Heisig's method, and I know that it works way better than anything else that I've tried for remembering kanji.

I found that the easiest parts of stuyding for the Kanji Kentei for me were the stroke order diagrams, and the parts where there were radical hints for words that you had to write. That was a total cakewalk, because I had half of the Heisig story already written for me, and then the Japanese furigana reminded me of the word I was looking for. Same goes for the "opposites" category, actually. Totally easy once you've motored on through Heisig for those kanji.

I suppose mostly I was just curious for the sake of curiosity. Once I write the KanKen on Friday, I'm going to be concentrating all of my efforts on finishing Heisig. But, the past couple of months I've been studying the Kanken Step books, and I was often surprised by the seemingly tricky kanji (整 #1670) for example, that fall into the 3rd grade of elementary school's kanji curriculum. I easily made up a story for the kanji, and will burn through it in no time when I hit that part of Heisig, but still... Makes you wonder...

Plus, I think it would help us get a bit more insight into what Japanese people consider to be difficult kanji. From my experience, people think kanji learned in the later years of education, most often high school, are the most difficult of the Joyou set. But, I'm sure that some of the ones that the kids struggle with are presented in an incredibly straightforward manner in Heisig. So, it would be interesting to maybe get some insight into what seems easy for us but horrendously difficult for Japanese people.

*shrug*

Anyway, Kieron, if you post that somewhere, please post a link!

Thanks!

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - Kieron - 2007-06-14

List of Heisig kanji, with grade information. Based off of ziggr's list (thanks!), with one additional column for the grade information at the right.

Key:
1-6: Elementary grade levels
J: Secondary (Jouyou) kanji
N: Name (Jinmeiyou) kanji
X: None of the above

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - chamcham - 2007-06-14

what does "index ordinal" mean?
From the list, it's certainly not the same thing as the Heisig number.

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - Kieron - 2007-06-15

That's the order they're displayed in on ziggr's page -- first sorted by stroke count, then by primary radical.

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - vosmiura - 2007-06-15

I recently checked how much of JLPT4, 3 & 2 I had covered with the first 700 Heisig kanji. It looks like about 60% of level 4, and about 40% of levels 2 & 3.

So what that tells me is that there is some level of correlation between Heisig's kanji and JLPT levels, since 700 kanji is just 34% of the book but covers more than half of JLPT4. However there's still plenty more to go and I reccon I'd have to just about finish the whole book to cover the lower JLPT levels completely.

It looks like you have to know nearly every type of primitive in the book to cover JLPT4 & 3. Just goes to prove how inefficient learning kanji in order of usage is.

I was interested in doing some detailed analisys to see how 'optimal' Heisig's ordering is with respect to introducing the primitives, so I started making a list of all kanji with their primitives. Its quite slow going though, entering them all by hand. Has anyone seen such a list anywhere?

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - synewave - 2007-06-15

Cheers Kieron Smile

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - amthomas - 2007-06-15

Wow! that's awesome. Thanks!

Heisig vs. Joyou Kanji order - chamcham - 2007-06-15

I'm not surprised by the results. With Heisig you have to finish the whole
book before you'll really begin to reap the benefits. It's not meant to be left half-done. Studying for the JLPT is really just a matter of "studying to the test". But Heisig is just more for kanji comprehension in general.

Heisig reorders to kanji so that they have a cumulative effect. So if you're
on Lesson 10, the only kanji that'll appear will make use of the primitives
and kanji from previous lessons and he'll introduce a new primitive when necessary.
Also, I think Heisig intentionally put many of the "harder" kanji first and it isn't until you're near the end that you see a lot of easier, more common kanji. I'm pretty sure if the order matches at all with the Jouyou list, then it's purely coincidental.

With Heisig, you can have more confidence when coming face-to-face with any
kanji. And even better, you won't forget most of them. I'm sure for many JLPT
test takers that don't use Heisig or any other kanji learning system, they'll just forget everything a few months after taking the exam.

Anyway, the feature I liked the most about the list is that it points out which
are the Jinmeiyou kanji, which I was always interested in knowing.