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+--- Thread: Japanese keywords (/thread-929.html)
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-06-24
Indeed, many people (if not most people) choose to use the Japanese words after they've completed RTK 1 using English keywords. I switched at about Frame 1700.
Japanese keywords - stehr - 2009-06-25
thecite Wrote:Seems far too difficult to manage for me. While I'm sure I could remember them all, I think it would take at least twice as long as having an english keyword, and I don't know that there's any way I could have continued with the the same vigour for that amount of time without just losing the will to go on. While it seems like a good idea, it would be turning it into a semi RTK2 book. I think Heisig had it right, one should remember them all in the easiest way possible, then tackle the Japanese words.I think most of us finished RTK (English keywords) before moving on to JRTK/RTKJ. I finished RTK over a year ago and continued reviewing for roughly six months before getting burned out on the extra, seemingly trivial, daily RTK reviews. For me, JRTK has been rewarding work after finishing RTK, and has also been a great supplement to my other Japanese studies.
Japanese keywords - wio_dude - 2009-06-27
I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but I'm putting my input into it anyway.
There are a lot of people here who have become very anti-English in there method of studying Japanese. While it's true that using English can at times hinder Japanese learning, I do think that our native language can ASSIST our learning of Japanese.
You see, because you have a native language, you have a good understanding of many concepts and a way to express them. Why throw away your only advantage over a Japanese child?
RTK is a one perfect example of how your native language can assist you. Heisig makes a point in RTH about how Hanzi have different readings across the dialects, but in the end what they do share is an meaning, an idea. Some of the words in RTK I had to look up because they're not used as much these days. Imagine having to translate that to English and then looking up the English meaning? Don't tell me someone who's learning RTK can use a Japanese-Japanese dictionary either.
I see JRTK like a spork. It tries to combine two things together, a fork (kanji) and a spoon (vocab). In the end, a spork is a really crappy fork, and doesn't hold water as a spoon (literally, the water pours out though the forky side). If you want to learn vocab, then you should make a separate vocab deck. As you add kanji, add the JRTK words in to the separate deck. This way, when you're finally done with RTK you can throw away that kanji deck anyway.
Well, I might sound harsh about this. In the end I think everyone should do what they feel comfortable with, but if anyone asks me then I say use your native language for keywords.
Japanese keywords - Codexus - 2009-06-27
I agree with you, wio_dude. A lot of people seem to have this obsession with "going monolingual" which in my opinion doesn't help at all if it's forced and too early. It might feel more like "hardcore learning" but I don't think it's really more efficient.
Now what can be really helpful is to add some Japanese to the keywords to help identify which kanji we should try to remember. It's a waste of time to fail a kanji that you know simply because the Heisig keyword was misleading.
Japanese keywords - igordesu - 2009-06-27
I still don't agree that learning words in your native language as meanings for kanji is the best way to go about it. I mean, sure *maybe* it's helpful in the beginning for a while, but, for the most part, I've found it to be a pretty worthless skill. It doesn't help me when I'm reading. At all.
See, when you learn these english keywords, you have to remember that those words have a very particular meaning or nuance in english, whereas in Japanese the kanji don't really have the same particular meaning. Why would you waste your time trying to "translate" every little thing into some meaning in English when you can just learn the real context in Japanese.
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-06-27
stehr Wrote:For me, JRTK has been rewarding work after finishing RTK, and has also been a great supplement to my other Japanese studies.I just wanted to say that this was really great to read after so much time and effort making the work freely available. I'm glad that you found it rewarding.
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-06-27
wio_dude Wrote:I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but I'm putting my input into it anyway.I don't think anyone needs to get flamed for voicing their opinion.
I'd say the vast majority of people have used Japanese keywords *after* they've finished RTK 1. In which case, they've taken the benefit of their native tongue as far as it can go, and they want to move on.
Hopefully we can all agree that students of Japanese should eventually be able to write 大きい when given おおきい as a prompt or 羨ましい when given うらやましい. I'm sure that everyone wants to be able to do that eventually. Being able to write the kanji given "big" or "envious" might be ok to start, but no one wants to leave it there, do they?
Most people feel tempted to switch to JRTK when their Japanese has progressed substantially through other studies. They use kanji like 始める and 初めて and when they see the keywords "commence" and "first time", they can't remember which keyword goes with which kanji and they fail the card - very frustrating. A better example might be "town" and "village". There are many more. If you reach this stage, you're having to combine your Japanese knowledge with a pretty arbitrary mapping from English words to kanji. Just about everyone realises that this is a waste of time and the prompt should just be the hiragana.
My personal belief, which most people on the forum don't share, is that you can go from Frame 1 with Japanese keywords. I think you can cut out that unnecessary "town", "village", "envious", "big" stage and go straight to a Japanese word. Especially if you've been studying Japanese for a while. Most people, including Codexus and wio_dude, disagree with this.
I think you have a point that people take the monolingual obsession too far sometimes. It's not good to switch to Japanese keywords if you're doing it for the wrong reasons and if it burns you out when you could have gone further more easily with Heisig's keywords.
However, I honestly believe that for students of RTK, it's useful material to have and you can switch whenever you feel comfortable. The choice is either to switch or to give up. No one wants to be 20 years down the line and still reviewing from Heisig keywords. I can tell you for a fact that if you don't switch, and you stop reviewing, you WILL forget how to write the kanji. So either incorporate writing practice and reviewing into your studies or your ability to write kanji will die. This is a fact. JRTK is one method to keep it going.
Japanese keywords - wio_dude - 2009-06-27
igordesu Wrote:I still don't agree that learning words in your native language as meanings for kanji is the best way to go about it. I mean, sure *maybe* it's helpful in the beginning for a while, but, for the most part, I've found it to be a pretty worthless skill. It doesn't help me when I'm reading. At all.But... I've never considered knowing them by their key words as a 'skill'. I've considered being able to correctly write them and distinguish them as a skill, where as knowing the English meaning was simply method of proving that skill.
Your native language is something you're familiar with. The words of a language that you're beginning to learn are not. You're trying to familiarize yourself with kanji, putting vocab into the mix is only making a difficult challenge twice as difficult. Using keywords of your native language isn't a 'skill', it's a 'catalyst' for which there is no consequence, because as you learn vocabulary you end up learning more about the kanji (such as readings, alternative meanings, etc).
Quote:See, when you learn these english keywords, you have to remember that those words have a very particular meaning or nuance in english, whereas in Japanese the kanji don't really have the same particular meaning. Why would you waste your time trying to "translate" every little thing into some meaning in English when you can just learn the real context in Japanese.The problem is that you expect RTK1 to do more than it is supposed to do, which is something Heisig WARNS about.
No SINGLE Japanese word echos every 'nuance' of a kanji anyway, so the 'problem' with English keywords applies even to Japanese key words. The fact is that you WON'T know the meaning of kanji down to the last nuance very well until you've gotten considerably good at Japanese. It's going to be a long time until then, and right now all you're trying to do is get past one of the challenging hurtles in the beginning of the race.
How do you climb up stairs? Do you try to jump up to the top and roll down if you don't make it, or do you take one step at a time?
EDIT:
As for the point made about learning JRTK after you've done RTK....
My question is, why call it RTK? Why not just call it vocab? You know the kanji.
I could very well take kanji like 大 小 目 火 out of my deck (I don't for the sake of completeness in my deck). If you're confusing which kanji to use for each word, then you should either make 'production' cards for you sentences and or vocab.
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-06-27
wio_dude Wrote:My question is, why call it RTK? Why not just call it vocab? You know the kanji.You can call it whatever you want. The Japanese keywords were chosen with various criteria in mind. One of these criteria is that the meaning of the Japanese word should try to be close to the Heisig word. By doing this, it eases the transition and allows you to continue to use the Heisig stories if you wish. I finished RTK a long time ago, I've been doing these Japanese keywords for a year or two now and I still find my original stories helpful.
I could very well take kanji like 大 小 目 火 out of my deck (I don't for the sake of completeness in my deck). If you're confusing which kanji to use for each word, then you should either make 'production' cards for you sentences and or vocab.
Japanese keywords - Katsuo - 2009-06-27
Heisig's advice is to move to Japanese keywords once you have finished (and are comfortable with) RTK1.
"After you have acquired a sizeable number of cards for drill, you will have to set up for yourself a routine for drilling (1) from meaning to writing, (2) from exemplary compound to on-yomi, and (3) from inflected kanji to kun-yomi. If you worked your way faithfully through Vol. I, you may feel that there is no longer any neeed for drill (1). In this case I recommend that you drill the writing directly from the hiragana kun-yomi on Side 2."
(from RTK2, chapter 11)
Japanese keywords - stehr - 2009-06-28
wio_dude Wrote:As for the point made about learning JRTK after you've done RTK....The reason that it's called RTK is simply because of the setup of the deck, by RTK frame-numbers, by its style of study, and in the choice of many of the vocabulary, which are most often approximations of the English keywords in RTK.
My question is, why call it RTK? Why not just call it vocab? You know the kanji.
I could very well take kanji like 大 小 目 火 out of my deck (I don't for the sake of completeness in my deck). If you're confusing which kanji to use for each word, then you should either make 'production' cards for you sentences and or vocab.
I use JRTK both because I like having a Heisig-style deck kept current with my studies, and also because I dislike reviewing production cards, which I feel are much too time-consuming. JRTK cuts down on my number of production cards without sacrificing too much comprehensiveness. And, as wrightak pointed out, I also get frustrated with confusing similar English keywords. I could never go back to using English keywords however, I still love RTK (really RvTK), so for me it's a perfect match.
Because it was mentioned earlier, I'd like to point out that I'm not a huge proponent of going monolingual, and that was not the basis of my choice to use JRTK. For example, I added an extra field for English definitions on my JRTK model, which I use liberally.
@wrightak: I'm very grateful to have access to this deck, and I also think that the website you host it on is terrific. I'm well past the half-way point so I'll share my thoughts here when I finish in the coming months.
Japanese keywords - eroichigo - 2009-07-25
I just started Japanese Keywords after doing about 1500 of English RTK. I'm much happier now as I am learning a lot of new Japanese vocabulary rather than trying to keep Heisig's obscure English keywords straight in my head.
I just wanted to thank everyone who helped bring the japanese keywords together for our use.
Japanese keywords - nest0r - 2009-08-18
@wrightak
What do you think about, as part of the idea of using jRTK from Frame 1, using the keywords taken from the iKO lists here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=38799#pid38799 and applying them to the Oniichan mod to the RTK Lite script here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=64047#pid64047
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-08-19
@nestor
I've been looking at the RTK Lite thread now. First impressions are that it's doable and it would be interesting to see results.
However, I anticipate the following difficulty with using an RTK Lite version (with keywords in any language):
The reason for my recommendation of going through the Japanese Keyword list in Heisig frame order is that it harnesses the positive feedback effect that Heisig achieved by grouping primitives together. The ordering Heisig used is very important in my opinion - more important than word/kanji frequency. By removing a large chunk of kanji (almost half) you will very likely run into cases where that positive feedback effect is drastically reduced. i.e. cases where you've got a kanji with a new primitive in it and no other kanji use that primitive. We all know that some of the hardest kanji in RTK are ones like 暇 whose primitives don't appear in many other kanji.
I am currently updating my list using my own experiences reading and writing in Japan and input received from samesong and woelpad. I'll publish it soon. I think it's going to be an improvement over the previous JRTK deck. As part of my work in doing this update, I'm going to label the words that I believe are uncommon. This won't be half of them, as it is with RTK Lite. It probably will be less than 100. I'll only be labeling the kanji/words where I really think you can forget about them. Since this is only a small number, the beneficial effect of Heisig's ordering should remain.
Japanese keywords - nest0r - 2009-08-19
Sounds cool! I'm sure afterwards if people want they can experiment with how much they can remove while keeping the effects of the Heisig groupings.
Japanese keywords - kyeenak - 2009-09-02
wrightak Wrote:I'll publish it soon. I think it's going to be an improvement over the previous JRTK deck.I'm looking forward to it! Thank you very much for all the effort! I do have a question though, will your new deck contain all 2042 kanji?
I've pulled many of your cards out of your deck whenever I fail a card on my English RtK. I rushed through RtK in a couple weeks (knowing over half the kanji already, so I never really "did" RtK), and have a mix of English, photos, Japanese words I knew, and cards from your deck. It's probably a contender for the most unorganized and ugly deck, so I think I'll give going full Japanese-keywords a try very soon.
Slightly off-topic, but how many people have converted over to a completely JRtK? Do most people, or only a few?
Thanks again!
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-09-02
kyeenak Wrote:I'm looking forward to it! Thank you very much for all the effort! I do have a question though, will your new deck contain all 2042 kanji?Thanks!
I think there may be a few kanji not in the deck. This is because words associated with them are rare/obscure. Some of them are common in names only. I'm not a fan of putting names in your deck unless you know someone with that name.
I'm working on it and hope to have it done in a couple of weeks.
Japanese keywords - kyeenak - 2009-09-25
I just had a horrible time reviewing with English keywords. I just can't remember lots kanji from English keywords, even though I often know at least one use of the kanji, and can remember the stroke order. So I have a few questions!
Japanese level is basically impossible to measure, but I get the feeling most people who are going to Japanese prompts don't know 100% of the words/kanji use in the deck. Are you all just learning the new words as they come up? It seems nice for learning vocab, and bad for speed, which brings me up to the next question.
During the transition, is completely stopping all reviews on the English deck best? Or suspending the kanji in the English deck while activating the kanji in the Japanese deck? Current reviews are really torture for me, so I'm thinking about just killing the deck. 10 times.
It seems the Japanese deck has changed over the years. How has the transition process been when reviewing? Are you all starting the card as if it's new, continuing normal reviewing, or not even updating it? I'd imagine most people's decks slowly shift into a customized deck through editing, so is this even an issue?
wrightak, where is the best place to get your most up to date deck?
Sorry if any of these questions have been covered earlier in this thread, but it's very hard to read through this thread because of its length and subjects discussed have evolved over almost 2 years.
Thanks for all the great work done by everybody! I really wish I knew about all this before...!
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-09-27
kyeenak Wrote:Are you all just learning the new words as they come up? It seems nice for learning vocab, and bad for speed, which brings me up to the next question.Indeed, it's good for learning vocab but not as fast as using an English word. However, you're going to have to replace the English word with Japanese at some point so in the long run...
Quote:During the transition, is completely stopping all reviews on the English deck best? Or suspending the kanji in the English deck while activating the kanji in the Japanese deck? Current reviews are really torture for me, so I'm thinking about just killing the deck. 10 times.I completely stopped. I felt similar to you. I was really bored with the English words which seemed to be in their own little compartment in my mind and didn't interact with the rest of my Japanese knowledge. I completely stopped, it worked for me, but I can't say whether it was the "best" approach or not. Sounds like it would work for you though.
Quote:It seems the Japanese deck has changed over the years. How has the transition process been when reviewing? Are you all starting the card as if it's new, continuing normal reviewing, or not even updating it? I'd imagine most people's decks slowly shift into a customized deck through editing, so is this even an issue?Yep, my deck has slowly customized over the years so that I don't want to share it as it is because it contains example phrases and sentences that only mean something to me. In the original deck, I included example sentences from the book I was reading at the time: Brave Story. This resulted in inquiries from people wondering who the hell Wataru is etc.
Quote:wrightak, where is the best place to get your most up to date deck?As I said before, I'm working on a new version to release to everyone. If you can't wait, there are two things you can do:
1. Go to the google spreadsheet, download it and manipulate the data into a format you like. Import that into Anki. I'd recommend taking the word from column Word 1, and if this is blank inserting the word from column Word 2. You can do this by inputting a formula like =IF(D1="", E1, D1). I'd also use the example sentences on the sentences sheet.
2. Samesong created his own customized spreadsheet of data. This is complete and ready to import into Anki with minimal manipulation needed. I've been using it as a reference when making the new version of the Japanese keywords deck. Send me an email and I can put you in touch with him (he's on these forums) or I can send you the spreadsheet itself.
Woelpad also did a lot of work on the google spreadsheet filling in the gaps. As part of my life here in Japan over the years, I've seen the Japanese keywords in action and I've realized which ones were good and which were crap. I'm also planning on getting some input from natives on the trickier kanji. All of this is going to go into this new deck I'm working on. I've done about 1200 kanji now so not long to go. On good days, I get through 250, but I've been busy with work and other things.
When the it's done, I'll do a write up and probably start a new thread.
Japanese keywords - slivir - 2009-09-27
wio_dude Wrote:No SINGLE Japanese word echos every 'nuance' of a kanji anyway, so the 'problem' with English keywords applies even to Japanese key words. The fact is that you WON'T know the meaning of kanji down to the last nuance very well until you've gotten considerably good at Japanese.I think so too.
Japanese keywords - welldone101 - 2009-09-27
wrightak Wrote:Woelpad also did a lot of work on the google spreadsheet filling in the gaps. As part of my life here in Japan over the years, I've seen the Japanese keywords in action and I've realized which ones were good and which were crap. I'm also planning on getting some input from natives on the trickier kanji. All of this is going to go into this new deck I'm working on. I've done about 1200 kanji now so not long to go. On good days, I get through 250, but I've been busy with work and other things./drool, is it possible to get an early copy of the part you have done so far? I'd love to take a look at it and maybe drop English, sounds amazing.
When the it's done, I'll do a write up and probably start a new thread.
Japanese keywords - kyeenak - 2009-09-27
wrightak Wrote:If you can't waitIt sounds like it'll be worth the wait. I can't wait (as in I don't want to wait, but it's just too good not to wait!)
welldone101 Wrote:/droolMy drool exactly... I mean thought.
wrightak Wrote:When the it's done, I'll do a write up and probably start a new thread.I think a new thread would be a good idea. This thread is very hard to read through because the topics have changed, and it's really long. Also thanks so much for the work!
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-09-27
slivir Wrote:So do I.wio_dude Wrote:No SINGLE Japanese word echos every 'nuance' of a kanji anyway, so the 'problem' with English keywords applies even to Japanese key words. The fact is that you WON'T know the meaning of kanji down to the last nuance very well until you've gotten considerably good at Japanese.I think so too.
Well, in general. You're absolutely right that switching to Japanese keywords will not give you a better insight into the "true" meaning of the kanji. (Whatever that is anyway)
Getting rid of the English keywords and using Japanese instead is sensible and you're going to do it anyway at some point if you continue your Japanese studies. This project just aims to do it in an efficient way that maximizes the benefit of the skills and knowledge you gain in RTK.
Japanese keywords - wrightak - 2009-09-27
welldone101 Wrote:/drool, is it possible to get an early copy of the part you have done so far? I'd love to take a look at it and maybe drop English, sounds amazing.The raw data is freely available on the google spreadsheet. You can watch me working through it. Just click on File->Save As to download. Then create your own model in Anki, manipulate the spreadsheet such that each field in the model represents each column, then highlight the data, copy, paste into notepad, save as UTF-8 txt and import to Anki.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgUgyCHX3qnJcFNWR1lIS2R2T2hQeE5USHE1YVVITlE&hl=en
One of the important differences this time is that I only ever ask for one kanji. This is why there is a new "prompt 1" column. So before the card was:
Q:
かぞく
A:
族
家族
Now it will look like this:
Q:
かぞく（家ぞく）
A:
族
家族
Japanese keywords - hknamida - 2009-09-28
wrightak Wrote:I do something quite similar:welldone101 Wrote:/drool, is it possible to get an early copy of the part you have done so far? I'd love to take a look at it and maybe drop English, sounds amazing.The raw data is freely available on the google spreadsheet. You can watch me working through it. Just click on File->Save As to download. Then create your own model in Anki, manipulate the spreadsheet such that each field in the model represents each column, then highlight the data, copy, paste into notepad, save as UTF-8 txt and import to Anki.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgUgyCHX3qnJcFNWR1lIS2R2T2hQeE5USHE1YVVITlE&hl=en
One of the important differences this time is that I only ever ask for one kanji. This is why there is a new "prompt 1" column. So before the card was:
Q:
かぞく
A:
族
家族
Now it will look like this:
Q:
かぞく（家ぞく）
A:
族
家族
Q:
くら・べる
＿喩〔ひゆ〕
A:
比