I've been doing RTK for only 2 weeks and am currently only on Lesson 12 (frame 250), but I've already come across some real "pearlers" when it comes to Heisig's description/story for remembering the Kanji. This post is more like a question/poll:

What is your most WTH/WTF moment when reading his suggestions for stories?

Mine so far has to be Frame 241 - "Sort of Thing":

"Reverting to the time when dog was more widely eaten than it is today (see frame 121), we see here a large cauldron boiling over an oven flame with the flesh of a chihuahua being thrown into the whole concoction to make it into a ?hot-diggity, dog-diggity? sort of thing."

I thought that was a pretty damn good one

My biggest WTF moment was around 500 when he stopped giving stories. That just so happened to coincide with a very hard bunch of kanji.

I liked his very discrete treatment of 便:

Quote:This kanji also means that unmentionable material that one disposes of when one goes to the "conveniences".

The story for "briar" 茨 made me go, "Wha???"

Honestly, do you know how incredibly hard it is to come up with stories? Stories for your own use are easy, but making ones other people can understand and use, are very hard. When I work on my manuscript for mnemonics, the hardest part to write is the example section.

The thing that annoyed me the most is how Heisig told us to remember the "flag" primitive as the national flag to keep it separate from the "banner" primitive and then much later you find out there is a "national flag" kanji 旗, which, off course, uses the "banner" primitive. It makes you wonder if Heisig really did any planning at all... v_____v

Codexus Wrote:The thing that annoyed me the most is how Heisig told us to remember the "flag" primitive as the national flag to keep it separate from the "banner" primitive and then much later you find out there is a "national flag" kanji 旗, which, off course, uses the "banner" primitive. It makes you wonder if Heisig really did any planning at all... v_____v

Ouch.. that one is rough. Thanks for the warning.

Yeah, I just used "pee" for the flag primitive. God, did it makes stories easy, haha.

[ファブリス]

I liked Heisig's stories because of the nuggets of insights into Japanese culture that appeared in some stories. When I went 1st time holidays in Japan I saw the famous "tags" ( 札 ) attached to the trees and plants everywhere that he was talking about. Generally I found his stories interesting and enjoyable.

I find it is easier to remember my own stories even if they aren't better than other people's, just because I made them. This is sort of off-topic, but I think that is why Heisig makes some peculiar stories sometimes. I have to go research on wikipedia just to understand what he is talking about sometimes...

haha yeah, didn't any of you learn some new English words while doing your kanji studies? haha I learned quite a few And I've learned to always have a dictionary ready just incase

lazar Wrote:haha yeah, didn't any of you learn some new English words while doing your kanji studies? haha I learned quite a few And I've learned to always have a dictionary ready just incase

That's the major problem with Heisig, having enough English variants to cover the kanji equivalent of synonyms. What was worse, he did not always give the full flavor to the kanji, leaving only to an ambiguous keyword. I've not gone all through RTK3, but I've heard it only gets worse. Thankfully, sites are abound that give better definition or meaning to the kanji.

PS (offtopic): Anyone find Ringo (apple) obscenely easy to write? Seems to be an "impress the natives" kanji if you know it.

How about "wee hours"...

That one was a wt* moment for me.. =P

I've been struggling with the various snares (1241-1247). Which one has a horizontal line through this part, which one has a horizontal line through that part, which has both... I guess there's just no easy way to go about those. It's more of a "What the hell, ancient China...?!" than a "what the hell, James...?!" Similar goes for all those characters like warrior, style, turn into, etc. But those I somehow learned without any trouble

求 - Request. Still have no idea what the heck is going on in that Kanji.

Yo playa. Thats a sumo wrestler hanging to a needle. And he is starting to swet.
He made that to answer the request of the king that sent him to pick up his ball and ended up allmost falling in the cliff.

And wee hours. That I remember by oblivious non determinism.

lazar Wrote:haha yeah, didn't any of you learn some new English words while doing your kanji studies? haha I learned quite a few And I've learned to always have a dictionary ready just incase

Completely agree with that! Decameron?!

Actually my Italian father made me read the Decameron, so that one got well hammered in. It's kind of like the Italian Canterbury Tales. I think it's by Bocaccio.

Primitive for "silage". I had never seen that word in my life. And "godown".

Shibo Wrote:Primitive for "silage". I had never seen that word in my life. And "godown".

Yeah, those two got me too. Also, taking a quick glance forward at RTK3, it looks like there's a lot more waiting.

LOL all the uncommon words, I must have learned at least 50 new English words going through RTK1. I just rushed to dictionary.com to look them up if I didn't understand it... Made remembering those easier as well...

I too have recently used "www.answers.com" a lot.

Lately I have had a hard time studying because I frequently have to check new words and I still have keywords that I have to look up before knowing which kanji to write while reviewing.

It is interesting. Sometimes the kanji and the idea sticks even though the keyword might not.

Yesterday studying was really fun when I mostly hit common keywords for a change.. -lol-

haha yes... it all started with decameron, i agree