I brought up this idea a while ago in this thread:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=285

I didn't get very far though, since I've been concentrating on Japanese keywords.

biene and usis35,
i think people are fooling themself if they need to be motived by a RTKlite becouse they are not up to rtk.
learning japanese is long term thing and the first part in motivating yourself for any task is realizing what it all involves, if someone feel disturbed and lose motivation simply by the fact he/she need to learn to write 2000 kanji in one go, it simply means he/she does not appriciate the real effort that is required.
in the end you need to learn them all, so instead of inventing a method that only serve to split up what you need to learn anyway, all in order so you " feel motived" you might as well realize that fact and just do it!

something like RTKlite might serve a need for people with a special need, such as finishing for a jlpt test, but i feel a bit sceptical about that too.

It's only natural to break down huge tasks into smaller more manageable tasks. That's why the book has chapters and this website even states that your current goal is to finish the current chapter. That's a proven technique against procrastination when confronted to any long term work.

Now I personally don't think there would be much to be gained with a RTKLite since you would still need to learn the same primitives. Less kanji also means less practice with each primitive. So the question is how much faster would one learn the RTKLite?

I realize that the same argument I'm using here could be used to say that a RTKFull including the kanji from RtK1 and RtK3 mixed together in the normal RtK order would be better than the normal RtK1. obviously the limit has to be drawn at some point.

exactly the chapters serve that purpose of chunking large bits into smaller ones.

Jokes should be funny.

I like the Heisig method, but for different reasons.

I've never been one to visualize stuff in my head or see with one's 'mind's eye' or whatever Heisig was talking about. Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is black. I have a hard time seeing stuff in my head.

However, I very much like how the Heisig method breaks kanji down into manageable pieces. Before Heisig, I basically tried to learn Kanji through repetition. It really didn't work. Now, although Heisig WANTS me to learn via visual memory, it's really more like...mnemonics to me, I suppose. I bet visual memory works better, but mnemonic works fine too.

As far as i read through it, i must say i did not discover the argument of "systematic": by creating such a genuine method heisig did not organise the kanjis after "grades" like Nukemarine said, which would have been even more useful as one could use the book parallely to courses where Kanjis are learnt after grades (starting with 一、二、三、四 etc.). Though it's systmatic, you cover all Jyouyou Kanji and even a few Jinmeiyos (for names, f.e.) and others naturally as well. You will never ever get bothered by any really really new looking Kanji appearing in a text (without furigana, absolutely on its one, strangely) -- you are just prepared by knowing every Jyouyoukanji which is a huge advantage on your journey achieving fluency and proficiency in Japanese, I think.

Coming to RtK2 - which was not discussed so far - I have to say that the first part of the book ("pure groups") is really useful to go through right after having finished the first volume of Heisig as it covers again basics (even if the example vocabulary are something completey different than Basic one must say!). it's working again after a system, whereas the "how to learn japanese readings" section is just poorly short. (I recommend learning the Kuns together with the meanings and writings of Kanjis during rtK1.. i'd have done that, damnd~)


Resurrection!

Dude.. really? 3 Years...

Thread necromancy \o/

Tori-kun Wrote:Thread necromancy \o/

You realize that most people that originally wrote in this thread are probably dead and those that live evolved beyond simple Japanese comprehension to become a part of the language themselves?

Good....

Not dead, but apparently still signed up to receive thread emails!

Ahh the memories... =)

Some insight from someone who completed Heisig 1, was in Japan for another 18 months, and has now been gone from Japan and not speaking ANY Japanese for over two years: Heisig still rocks. I've forgotten tons of Japanese, but ghosts of Heisig linger, and when I happen to see Japanese or Chinese on occasion, I can still fairly easily discern the meaning (as opposed to always and clearly discerning the meaning during Heisig if I didn't already know the Japanese).

Keep up the hard work young grasshoppers! As one of the early members for this website, and one who spent time trying to make the learning easier for others as well as myself, I hope some of my stories and images have stood the test of time! =)

Man, nice animate dead spell. It even smells like a new thread!

So fresh and so clean clean.

I like how this thread was made by someone who was, at the time, only about a third of the way through Heisig, rather than someone who actually knew what they were talking about and could make a complete judgement.


I love most of the Heisig method, but I actually somewhat regret doing RTK. I feel like all those hours writing out kanji, were, ultimately, a waste.

I think I would have been better off just incorperating Heisig's method into a more regular study pattern.

If I could do it again, it would be more like this:

1) Study Japanese--vocab, grammar, sentences, whatever
2) Learn a couple new kanji primitives per day
3) All the while ignore the characters I don't yet know the primitives for
4) When I come across a character for which I know the primitives, make two cards in Anki for that character: a heisig-style recognition card complete with story, and a vocab card
5) Only write out characters when they are forgotten or a mistake is made with them


I don't really understand the discussion about "stroke order" here. Stroke order (for the majority of characters, I know there are some tricky ones) couldn't be easier.

I theorize that if I had done this from the beginning, I would now know more Japanese and probably be able to write just as many characters as I can now.

Of course, I will never know for sure.

dingomick Wrote:Not dead, but apparently still signed up to receive thread emails!

Ahh the memories... =)

Some insight from someone who completed Heisig 1, was in Japan for another 18 months, and has now been gone from Japan and not speaking ANY Japanese for over two years: Heisig still rocks. I've forgotten tons of Japanese, but ghosts of Heisig linger, and when I happen to see Japanese or Chinese on occasion, I can still fairly easily discern the meaning (as opposed to always and clearly discerning the meaning during Heisig if I didn't already know the Japanese).

Keep up the hard work young grasshoppers! As one of the early members for this website, and one who spent time trying to make the learning easier for others as well as myself, I hope some of my stories and images have stood the test of time! =)

Look everyone, it's dingomick... dingomick! *awed whispers*. Dingomick is Legend.

I blasted through in a couple of months so I do not share the hours of waste feeling.

What you have is called "a the a buyas remorse" or the "if I'd have invested in that one company when I was six I'd be a millionaire" phenomenon.

I'm sorry for your wasted time feeling hereticalrants, but Heisig is probably the less time-consuming method to learn kanji (it's maths really). Because you learn the kanji set as a system, learning them together, they all uphold each other.

The method you describe hereticalrants could have easily taken you twice as much time. You might want to ignore the feeling if there is results. If not well, we all learn differently after all...

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Iryoku Wrote:When learning kanji, grasping the meaning itself is the easiest part of them all. Especially if it's only the beginning (say the first 500). Learning the appropriate 音読み and 訓読み, however, is not.

I think most would agree that remembering the writing is hardest. Readings can be picked up through vocabulary without much effort. I can read kanji I've never learnt the meaning of, let alone writing.

Iryoku Wrote:The only critical difference is that you read some other person's thoughts. I prefer my own ideas, but it differs depending on one's personal taste, I guess.

The first few lessons merely guide you through the process, and then you have no choice but to make up your own stories.

Iryoku Wrote:What you can review is -> kanji's writing, meaning.

It's actually the other way around. The point is to remember how to write the kanji from memory.

Iryoku Wrote:I will review the following -> kanji's writing, 音読み, 訓読み, and the meaning.

You try to remember three or four pieces of information per flashcard? That's far from recommended when using SRS. It could also be argued that learning abstract readings is a waste of time when you can just learn how to read words in context. I've never once learned a reading outside of a word.

Iryoku Wrote:I find it a somewhat waste of time. Why? He's going to learn them anyways, why not do so at first? He (and everyone who studies through Heisig's method) wastes some chances to review the readings.

We don't. We prepare ourselves with a nice little "mental index" of 2042 characters to begin learning vocabulary with. As I already said, learning an individual reading is fairly trivial if you're using something like KO2001. You shouldn't be spending more than a few seconds per review, so I don't see how it can be inefficient.

Iryoku Wrote:It's not that I'm trying to criticize all you people's work, but I (like some person before me) think that arguing over something and having an education worth only a couple of months is called inexperience.

I've been studying for more than three years, so I hope you'll take my comments a bit more seriously. It shouldn't take any longer than that for somebody to be reading to a decent level after using Heisig.

EratiK Wrote:The method you describe hereticalrants could have easily taken you twice as much time.

How do you figure?

I'd have twice as many reivews on the same things(at least initially), but they would be testing different aspects of the same thing. I'd get more contextual information and would waste less time writing.
The cards increase to longer intervals faster, too.

It took me an average of 20-30 seconds per review doing Heisig(I know, I was extremely slow). I now average more like 5 seconds per review in my "learn this character now" deck (including the few cards that I actually write a bunch of stuff out for, as well as the frequent times I just leave in the middle of a review and let the timer go to a full minute).

I've been using this method for all of the non-heisig stuff I've had to deal with, and I find it much faster, despite many of the non-heisig characters being "more complex." Perhaps I just learn faster when there are fewer things of the same nature to learn at once, though.

The fact that you personally spent loads of time writing (20-30 seconds per review) is not really a valid criticism of the relative time efficiency of the Heisig method. My average time per answer is 11.1 seconds, compared to 10.3 seconds in my vocab deck.

Yeah? Well my dad is stronger than your dad, guys.

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Apparently this is an e-peen comparing contest and we need a full set of credentials to comment on RTK. Ok...
I've been reading Japanese at an adult level for 4 years now, and I'll be passing Kanji Kentei level 2 next month. I think RTK is a godsend. Even 5 years after using it, the stories are still there to boost me up when a character's writing slips my mind or I need to distinguish two similar characters. And the solid foundation of primitives I built up by going through the book in one shot helps me get a grip on characters that the book didn't cover. I think it would be a different story if I picked stuff up in dribs and drabs like Hereticalrants is suggesting.

Maybe some of you are smarter than me and have no problem juggling 5-7 pieces of disconnected information at once, but I tried that for a long time and it didn't work. For an average joe like me, RTK is the only way to go.

iryoku Wrote:I already stated that you write in both, didn't I? Try to actually read what I've written next time. ... Already explained why I think it's a waste of time. And again, you are speaking about something else, aren't you? ... Not going to repeat myself a third time. ... Did I actually wrote that I use flashcards? No, I don't. ... I'm not even aware of what KO2001 is, nor do I care. ... Can't follow. To tell you the truth, I can't take someone who spends a few seconds per review seriously enough

oh my... flashback

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