erlog Wrote:Well, here's the deal. Learning is going to take time no matter what, and it doesn't much matter that you don't have the luxury of it. There are good ways and better ways for learning, but not really a ton of bad ways aside from brute force.

Nagareboshi Wrote:I really don't see why you should buy a book for learning the radicals. Since you are familiar with the Heisig method, you should have no problem, to learn the radicals with this .pdf file. *direct link* It contains all 214 radicals with their Japanese reading and english translation.

Zarxrax Wrote:Its a fine resource if you only want to get your feet wet, but what are you going to do after you learn those 250 kanji?

erlog Wrote:Well, here's the deal. Learning is going to take time no matter what, and it doesn't much matter that you don't have the luxury of it. There are good ways and better ways for learning, but not really a ton of bad ways aside from brute force.

I believe that RTK does the best job in terms of bootstrapping Japanese language learners with an understanding of kanji. The understanding of kanji you will have through RTK is equivalent to what many Japanese language learners many years ago had to get through with years upon years of brute force. RTK primes your brain with kanji first, and in itself makes learning Japanese more efficient for users of it.

You also don't necessarily have to ever finish RTK for it to beneficial. It can be combined with traditional instruction very easily, and after a short while they'll start coinciding very helpfully. At first it's going to be annoying because a lot of the kanji coming from RTK won't show up in a regular textbook until much much later, but there comes a time at about the end of the first volume of whichever textbook series you're using where about 50% of what you've been studying using RTK will overlap with about 50% of what you're learning in the traditional order.

You'll also shock and delight any Japanese teacher you have with your understanding of complex kanji and knowledge of radicals. Not all of the elements Heisig uses are radicals, but enough of them are that Heisig is very beneficial even if you never learn all the official radicals. If anything, Heisig tends to manufacture too many of his own radicals. So all the usual radical suspects should be represented very well through Heisig.

The "divide and conquer" learning method for kanji will also help you in traditional kanji study so you'll be able to learn new kanji in a more traditional setting more easily than you otherwise would have if you hadn't done Heisig.

Reg777 Wrote:

erlog Wrote:Well, here's the deal. Learning is going to take time no matter what, and it doesn't much matter that you don't have the luxury of it. There are good ways and better ways for learning, but not really a ton of bad ways aside from brute force.

I believe that RTK does the best job in terms of bootstrapping Japanese language learners with an understanding of kanji. The understanding of kanji you will have through RTK is equivalent to what many Japanese language learners many years ago had to get through with years upon years of brute force. RTK primes your brain with kanji first, and in itself makes learning Japanese more efficient for users of it.

You also don't necessarily have to ever finish RTK for it to beneficial. It can be combined with traditional instruction very easily, and after a short while they'll start coinciding very helpfully. At first it's going to be annoying because a lot of the kanji coming from RTK won't show up in a regular textbook until much much later, but there comes a time at about the end of the first volume of whichever textbook series you're using where about 50% of what you've been studying using RTK will overlap with about 50% of what you're learning in the traditional order.

You'll also shock and delight any Japanese teacher you have with your understanding of complex kanji and knowledge of radicals. Not all of the elements Heisig uses are radicals, but enough of them are that Heisig is very beneficial even if you never learn all the official radicals. If anything, Heisig tends to manufacture too many of his own radicals. So all the usual radical suspects should be represented very well through Heisig.

The "divide and conquer" learning method for kanji will also help you in traditional kanji study so you'll be able to learn new kanji in a more traditional setting more easily than you otherwise would have if you hadn't done Heisig.

I agree but I'm planning on taking 2kyuu this december. Would heisig method be a good preparation for 2kyuu?

Learning radicals is also a divide and conquer learning method for kanji

erlog Wrote:Yes, heisig is more than adequate for 2kyuu. I would credit my heisig studies as being part of why I was able to pass 2kyuu.

Tzadeck Wrote:I passed 2kyuu with Heisig as my only real studying of the kanji. In fact, I found the kanji questions to be the second easiest part of the test, the listening being the easiest. Taking N1 in July (although I think I'll fail because my vocabulary is too low). I mean, if you're doing 2kyuu, you need to know a shit-ton of kanji, so it's not like you can learn them overnight anyway. Isn't the reason people do Heisig speed of learning? It takes forever to learn 1,000 kanji by most methods.

Reg777 Wrote:Thats good to know guys. But if I can only do 5 kanji a day, that would take me like a year or so and the exam is on dec. But I only need a thousand or so kanjis for N2.

JimmySeal Wrote:

Reg777 Wrote:Thats good to know guys. But if I can only do 5 kanji a day, that would take me like a year or so and the exam is on dec. But I only need a thousand or so kanjis for N2.

Who said you can only do 5 a day?

Reg777 Wrote:I guess I'll just have to try it and see for myself

Reg777 Wrote:I guess I'll just have to try it and see for myself