Hi, I just started using rtk1 and am having some difficulties with the stories. Often I am just trying to remember the sentence through repetition or the kanji itself and not through images.

On page 102 (6th edition), Heisig goes through the steps for remembering each of the kanji. The second step involve establishing the picture and the third involves focusing on the images of the aspects of the story (primitives) to form the picture.

Are we meant to be able to visualise in our minds, an image, the kanji or just the sentence itself? If we are meant to imagine an image (which is what I suspect), how do we imagine abstract concepts such as prosperous?

For example, when remembering the kanji, 吾, using the story of 'I have 5 senses,' how do we use our imaginative memory to visualise this story? Or for the kanji for speciality, how do you visualise speciality?

The first step is to not be anxious, that always tripped me up when I first started out with kanji.

Your focus to is create an image and a story that gives the kanji meaning.
The image brings meaning to the kanji, while connecting all its radicals together.


For the abstract kanji that you have difficulty with, use your resources.

Koohii has a database of user-made stories. (Search a keyword such as 'specialty')
http://kanji.koohii.com/study

If you're having issues visualizing certain stories, search for more examples. See how other people visualized a certain kanji. Mnemonics are best used for physical features such as color, texture, shape, etc.

For the story 'I have five senses' you can create more detail.
The "self" is defined by five senses. I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell.



If you're really having trouble you can:
1.)Use google.co.jp and search up images with the kanji
2.)Use a dictionary such as jisho.org to see kanji details, and read the other keywords for the kanji.
2.)Use a dictionary such as jisho.org to see words with kanji, understand its "feel"
3.)Search google, twitter, and google for context.


Kanji with good visual stories are usually the most memorable.
For many kanji though, its difficult to create a memorable story. For these kinds of kanji, I just read through the koohii stories, look it up in context, and focus on the meaning and how it's written.



Something I like to do is write out the kanji as if it were art. (The romaji equivalent is graffiti--if you've watched Samurai Champloo, you know what I mean).
While you draw out the kanji, you focus on the meaning and the kanji itself. You analyze its curves and strokes, you see how it all connects.

This approach gives every character beauty and authenticity.

The most important lesson I've learned through heisig:
You're goal is not to "finish" learning kanji. Your goal is to make every single character yours. Focus on the kanji you're learning, and don't get dragged down by "progress".

movietiger Wrote:For example, when remembering the kanji, 吾, using the story of 'I have 5 senses,' how do we use our imaginative memory to visualise this story? Or for the kanji for speciality, how do you visualise speciality?

The easiest way to visualize the 'I have five senses' 'story' is simply to imagine yourself (seen from the outside) with a kind of halo around your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingertips (sight/sound/smell/taste/touch, 5 senses). The mouth is a representative of how senses are received.

Honestly, it's a terrible story, but it's a simple character as well so I guess it slides by okayish. If it had more than 2 components, such a weak and hard to visualize story would never help.

Specialty is another terrible story, but, if we go with the original (which I think is) 'ten fields stuck together = specialty' then visualize someone in academic clothing with a stack of ten heavy books of differing shapes and colors (representing the differing content). If you like, you can make it a little more memorable by having him actually gluing the books together to create one book that sums up his specialized field.

I don't think I used quite the original story... I vaguely remember visualizing scientists standing in fields but I forget how I got 'ten+field+glued/stuck to' into it.


If you have a terrible story, that's what this site is for.
Poke around and see http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/46 ...

If you use 'brains' for 田's component keyword, you can get the much more visually memorable 'ten brains glued together' like the top story.

And http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/%E5%90%BE 'I eat 5 times a day' is -way- easier, just visualize yourself eating and a clock in the background zipping around to 5 different times of day. (If you have trouble with the number going fuzzy, make sure you finish the image with 5 empty plates arranged pentagon-like on the table in front of you so you can have a simple '5' image. '5 senses' did have an advantage in fixing the number anyway.)

movietiger Wrote:For example, when remembering the kanji, 吾, using the story of 'I have 5 senses,' how do we use our imaginative memory to visualise this story?

That's not a story, that's a four word statement. Not only that, but the keyword (I) is actually the word that has the least emphasis, in that whole statement. The statement is about human senses, not the self. It doesn't even attempt to link senses to the self, it just throws out a pretty much unrelated statement, as if that's supposed to do something. I don't think there's a worse "story" than that on the whole site. It's like someone asking about the history of science, and someone replying "I like turtles".

Heisig does a little better than that on this one, he provides an image of a face, with five openings: two ear-holes, two nostrils and a mouth, and points out that the face is what identifies the self to the world (or something to that effect). That's an image. By visualizing your own face, focusing on your earholes, nostrils and mouth, you have created a mental image clearly associated with the meaning of the Kanji, that's gonna stick with you forever.

You really should ignore the popular "stories" that are this plain and short. Remember, Justin Bieber is popular too, doesn't make him any good. Pick a story that comes with concrete, unique visuals. Obviously, even Heisig's story fails to be unique or interesting, but at this stage it's fine. Later on, the stories on this site are gonna get a lot better.

Ok. Thank You for replying and helping me comprehend. I'm fairly sure I understand now.

Yeah the abstract ones are quite tough to imagine sometimes. I actually just brute forced some of the hardest ones into my head without really imagining any story, works for some of them as long as you don't do it too much.

But if you spend some time you can often get a good image after a while. What I found to be the most important thing for me was to simply have some kind distinctive image inside my head. It doesn't have to be super fancy. Even pretty simple and short stories could be very well remembered as long as I just spent enough time imagining them and getting a clear, distinct image in my head. Whatever you do though, do not focus on just learning the words in the story.