So I'm having the problem of not being able to remember the meaning of a character that I know I have learned when I see it in the real world.

It seems to me, that the best solution to the problem would be to review from kanji to keyword, but Heisig seems adamant that that is the wrong way to review. (see pg. 42) Instead he recommends "strengthening the image of the story." Can somebody please explain why this is? If the goal is to be able to read Japanese, it would make sense to me to be reviewing in a way that is most similar to reading Japanese. I guess, it really seems like reviewing both ways would be the only way to go; Keyword > Kanji to get the writing of it, and then Kanji > Keyword to get the meaning.

Thanks,
Benzhi

The way I understand it, reviewing from keyword to kanji rather than the other way around gives you an active command of the character (able to produce it in writing) rather than a passive one (able to recognize, but not necessarily produce as well). Definitely always review keyword to kanji. Eventually you will be able to remember the keyword/meaning for the kanji without even trying just from normal reviews, so I really don't think there's any reason to review from kanji to keyword.

Also, once you finish RTK and start learning the readings for the characters, you want to be able to look at a character and have the Japanese reading for it instantly appear in your head, not the Heisig keyword.

I'm having the same problem of going blank for the meaning when seeing a kanji in real life.

Don't worry, you'll get there. If you blank on a keyword and look it up, you'll probably remember it after that pretty well.

Benzhi Wrote:If the goal is to be able to read Japanese

If you only want to be able to read, I don't think you necessarily need Heisig -- the traditional methods work adequately enough, I think. What Heisig does make easier is writing, in which context reviewing keyword to kanji makes sense.

pm215 Wrote:If you only want to be able to read, I don't think you necessarily need Heisig -- the traditional methods work adequately enough, I think. What Heisig does make easier is writing

I guess I was under the impression that Heisig's method reinforced both reading comprehension and writing ability. While it may not talk about the actual reading (i.e. onyomi and kunyomi) of a character like other methods do, it seems one should be able to comprehend the meaning of a character in context. However, if you only review keyword to kanji, the ability to read a character (i.e. kanji to keyword) is simply a by-product of the ability to write the character.

This seems strange to me, and so far hasn't been the case. I've seen lots of characters that I know I could reproduce easily if I see the keyword first, but have trouble remembering what the keyword is.

According to Arkhe,

Arkhe Wrote:reviewing from keyword to kanji rather than the other way around gives you an active command of the character

But, how does this command of the writing of a character translate to being able to comprehend the meaning of a character in context? It seems to me that the only way to do that would be to review from keyword to kanji, but Heisig seems to say otherwise.

Is there some kind of mental process going on that will eventually make my brain link a kanji to its keyword, rather than just linking keyword to its kanji? Can someone explain this to me? How does this one way reviewing method turn into two-way command of a character?

Thanks,
Benzhi

For most characters I can remember the keyword from the kanji, or actually frequently enough not the keyword but the general feeling of it. However, it really doesn't matter at all. Except while trying to guess at what signs on the street mean or whatever, there is no actual situation in which you need or want to be able to recognize an English keyword from the sight of a kanji. When you learn actual Japanese words that use the kanji, recognition of the keywords is a non-issue. When you see 未来, you just think 'みらい,' not 'not yet come.' Now, you'll (at first) need to remember which kanji, and thus keywords, are used with this word so that you can write it, but this remains an issue of production, which is what you're practicing. Nothing's wrong with the system.

Edit: For the record, though, this process does also make the keyword easier to remember. I'm not sure that's actually a GOOD thing, however.

I just finished RTK 3 weeks ago. And I'm doing sentences for 1week/half now. At first it was scary because I could not remember the keywords at all, but it faded after little time.

So I guess training kanji to keyword is useless, because what you need to know is kanji to meaning, and this meaning you need to know is sometimes far from the keyword meaning.

Keywords are great before having any idea of real usage of a kanji, but after you learn its usage, abandoning the keywords seems good.

When I look through Japanese text, I recognize some of the kanji, but can't remember the meaning. How can I remember the meaning if I don't remember the keyword, or even look it up? Or will just just take care of itself when I start working on sentences?

Yo,

After you finish RTK, you have to focus on recognising the kanji and learn their meanings and readings.

That is, kanjis have many meanings AND readings, depending on the context.

That's a choice you made when you started RTK. You chose to focus on how to write and how to remember them. But that is only part of the work.

It will not take care of itself. You will take care of it, while doing the sentences. That is the meaning of doing the sentences.

[ファブリス]

stshores24 Wrote:Or will just just take care of itself when I start working on sentences?

I guess what Heisig meant by that is that the information is in your memory and it is linked one way (kanji -> keyword). Linking it the other way doesn't happen on its own but as you learn kanji in context afterwards my experience was that it's fairly easy to remember the other side of the connection after that, you're essentially updating a memory link between things you already memorized (kanji writings and meaning).