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Images and Words. - krusher - 2006-07-13
Hey Guys, since most of you guys are way ahead of me, I was wondering if you could give me a little feedback. At the start of part two, Heisig is talking about the importance of longer stories to fix a clear image in memory, and not just associate words with other words... I think I have been doing some of both, it seems that a sentence with the keywords in them leads me to some sort of image. At the start I had problems with writing elements in the wrong places based on the order of the keywords in the sentence, but I'm now trying my hardest to correct that problem with solid images. I thought I was having the most success with making my own stories with the element-keywords in the same order as the writing in my sentences, but maybe I'm straying off the path and not getting the hang of using solid images properly. Did you guys have problems like this? I was also wondering at about which point in the book did you fully get the hang of the method? Well... I hope that made sense.
Thanks
Images and Words. - ファブリス - 2006-07-13
Yes, if you have doubts about the placement of primitives, give yourself hints by placing elements in your mental images for the story. Use images whenever you can. I like to think the brain memory is 3D. That's why images are better than abstract concepts.
Writing a longer story can help you get started, words will bring images to mind. But you can also not write anything and just stand in someplace quiet, close your eyes, and start building stuff.
I did not write anything down for the last part 1500-2000. I just closed my eyes, and worked on mental images. This kind of prolonged concentration is very refreshing. I always felt more mentally alert and less tired afterwards. I actually miss RTK I and my daily dose of concentration. That's why I can't wait to get started on doing all the onyomi with kanji chains!
Back to placement of primitives, you also get a feel for it as you progress through the book. Or you can do a lookup on the radicals in a program like JWPce (Japanese text editor), to see which are the stronger primitives. The keyword is also often a hint for the placement, for example when you are in doubt, anything that's to do with eating, talking, shouting, will have the "mouth" appearing on the left (main primitive).
If you like you could start a topic about primitve placement, give some examples of kanji for which you have doubts about the primitive placement. We can examine more in detail some kanji, and why the primitives appear where they are.