ariariari Wrote:Eminem2 Wrote:But hey, this thread is for people who have finished RTK1 to share their experiences with those who are considering starting with RTK1. If you choose to ignore those experiences, then that's your prerogative.
I am the original poster and I am interested in hearing more about your experience. For example, can you share with me a) your level of Japanese at the time you did RtK and b) your current level of Japanese?
Of course, I'd be happy to.
To start with the two questions you list:
a) When I started with RTK1, I had already worked through one rather basic book on the Kanji (Len Walsh's "Read Japanese Today", which works from the rather hopeful assumption that reading about the historical background of about 400 Kanji will make you automatically remember them, including their pronunciation. Nonetheless, this book gave me some interesting background stories on primitives that Heisig would later give names that I found a lot less helpful than Walsh's real background information) and I had made it about halfway through a very accessible grammar book (Lammers' "Japanese the Manga Way") when I somehow got the idea (misconception actually, as it later turned out) that I really needed to study the Kanji in isolation before I could continue with grammar.
b) My current level of Japanese is still that of a beginner (I only finished RTK1 some 5.5 months ago), so I can't claim to have reached N5, N4 or N3 level already. Sorry if that disappoints!
Still, in the meantime I have worked through "Japanese the Manga Way" in its entirety, summarized it and converted many if not most of its grammar points and vocab into Anki sets. And then I started going through it again for some repetition (the book sadly has no exercises with which to really come to grips with using what you've learned) and I am about halway through it once again. Parallel to that, I decided to subscribe to one of the web courses advertised on this website that provides both exercises, some much-needed audio material plus a focus on practical Japanese. It's far from perfect, in my opinion, so I won't say which one it is because Fabrice would probably not appreciate one of his sponsors being criticized. But all in all, from these various sources I may well have managed to cobble together enough material for a solid start in learning Japanese.
As to my experiences with RTK1, I would summarize them as follows:
#1. It's not necessary (or even advisable) to halt or postpone working on grammar (which is much more useful and fun than it may sound), practical phrases or listening exercises while doing RTK1. Even though it may look like Heisig does recommend doing just that in his introduction when he talks about whether or not his method can be used alongside other study methods.
#2. Heisig only reveals his complete method on page 102 of RTK1 (6th edition, or right before lesson 11 for older editions, I suppose). So you might want to skip ahead to get to the full 6-step method he advocates and then use that from the very beginning on. That being said, I have personally found his "visualization" method not to be very effective. Nor his recommendation to "shock the mind's eye, to disgust it, to enchant it, to tease it, to entertain it in any way possible" (page 5 of the introduction). Well, perhaps with one exception: comedy has worked for me with a limited number of Kanji. (E.g. the contribution by another poster by the name of Tomusan for "fish" cracks me up every time, but since humour is very subjective what works for me may not work for others.)
#3. On the whole, if you make use of the stories on this website, you will probably notice that those that somehow manage to forge a clever link between the primitives (i.e. the components of which all but the most basic Kanji consist) and the key word Heisig gave to the Kanji are among the most popular. I have personally found that such "clever" or logical stories are an absolute breeze to remember. But, of course, a large number of Kanji seem to defy all attempts to make clever stories out of them that link to the key word. Another method to learn Kanji that I have found to be effective is what I call the "illustrative" kind: the Kanji reminds me of a scene from a movie or TV-series I like. So basically I make use of an image that is already part of my "mental library" and simply use that to memorize the Kanji.
(So the practical guidelines I use when encountering a new Kanji are more or less as follows:
A. Look for some sort of logical link between the Kanji's image and Heisig's key word. Don't assume too quickly that you won't able to find one. E.g. 恥 "shame" (#823) shows "ears" and a "heart". Since our ears may well turn red because of all the blood the heart pumps into them when we feel ashamed, this works as a logical Kanji for me. A slightly more difficult example: 願 "petition" (#135) consists of "cliff", "white" and "little" on the left and "page" or "head" on the right. Now, if we tweak the idea of a "cliff" just a little to mean "to cover/ be on top of something" then a "petition" suddenly becomes "to cover a bit of white on a page". And isn't that exactly what you do when you put your signature on a petition: cover a "little bit" of the "whiteness" of the "page" with your signature? (Unfortunately, there is a slight problem with the use of "petition" as a key word that I will come to in a moment).
B. Look in your mental library for an image or a scene from a movie or TV-series you like (or perhaps even some lyrics from a favourite song of yours) that combines the meanings of the primitives and the key word. If you find one, then all you need to do is add a little mental footnote that it's relevant for that particular Kanji. An example that works for me: 兼 "concurrently" (#1597) reminds me of that scene from the third "Lord of the Rings" movie during the assault on Minas Tirith where some trolls are trying to bash in a barred wooden gate while some soldiers of Gondor try to keep it closed at the sime time (i.e. "concurrently"). You can even see the horns of one of the trolls stick out on top.
C. Try comedy. Example 髄 "marrow" (#1290) shows a "skeleton", "possess" and "road". I turned that into a stand-up comedian's joke about a "road" full of "possessed skeletons" being a "marroad". (marrow + road --> marroad). Not exactly a brilliant joke, but it does work for me.
Even if A, B and C don't yield a good story they will still help you remember the Kanji in question, due to all the mental effort you expended on trying to make the primitives somehow come together.)
#4. Not all key words Heisig chose are very helpful, even though they are often theoretically correct in the sense that they can be found listed first in a Kanji dictionary. (Even fairly renowned ones, such as the "Oxford Beginners Japanese Dictionary"). For me, this has made using RTK1 very much a "hit and miss" affair: some key words are very accurate and practical, while others are either inaccurate or extremely obscure. Each time I encounter such an inaccurate or obscure usage where a more practical one is in use, I come back to this website and list it as a publicly accessible note in the stories section with the relevant Kanji.
Examples are:
- "petition": although correct, you will much more often see this used as "please" or "request" (as in "onegai" or お願い)
- "place on the head" is more commonly known as 頂きます or "itadakimasu" (politely thanking for food, among other things)
- "thong": although correct, you will probably encounter this one as part of the meaning "together" or 一緒 (いっしょ or "issho") long before you will ever see it used as "thong".
#5. Going key word --> Kanji as Heisig recommends may intensify your study efforts when trying to come up with a good story or mnemonic, which will very likely yield its own results. However, being able to come up with Kanji based on key words *before* you have actually done work with their actual use in sentences (for which you need grammar) really isn't all that useful, in my experience. Being able to recognize the Kanji and reproduce the key word (assuming it is an accurate and practical one) is the first step when learning practical Japanese, after which reproducing the Kanji itself when starting from the key word comes quite naturally (again, in my experience). This leads me to my final point for now, because the length of this post is getting rather out of hand.
#6. Don't sweat the statistics of reviewing the Kanji using just the Heisig key words too much. Some people get so serious with RTK1 that they strive for a 90% or higher recall rate when reviewing the RTK1 Kanji that they seem to get stuck on it. Don't fall into that trap! After having reviewed each card for perhaps 5 or 10 times over a period of perhaps a few months (after first paying your dues by really trying to come up with a good story or mnemonic) it's probably time to concentrate on more complete language learning (sentences, grammar, listening exercises) instead of focusing on getting near-perfect recall rates for Kanji based on Heisig key words. It's enough if you recognize and feel comfortable with most of the Kanji you encounter during your non-Heisig studies, even if the translation given may not always match the key word which Heisig used.
(#7. A more general tip that stands apart from RTK1: if you haven't already invested time in the kana, i.e. the hiragana and katakana that are used to write Japanese syllables, then don't put this off too long. These are literally the ABCs for learning Japanese and going on with "romaji" for too long can really hurt your learning process. Since many Kanji are used in conjunction with kana, not knowing the latter will hurt how much benefit you can derive from knowing the former. I have posted some mnemonics in the "learning materials" section if you should want some.)
Phew! Well, I hope I didn't bore you too much with all that.
Most important of all, I hope that you will be able to use some or all of what I wrote to your advantage so that you won't invest the ridiculous amount of time in RTK1 that I did.
, in 2009.
