amtrack Wrote:To put it simply, a deep understanding of 500 kanji will get you much farther than a shallow understanding of 2000+ kanji.

Agreed. Although, based on my experience, I think even 2000-3000 kanji can be learnt fairly quickly while still developing accurate semantic associations with them.

Having used jisho.org parallel to about 70-80% of the kanji I learnt on Anki (most of which I'd add more keywords to), I expect to find related vocabulary easier to make sense of as I do more reading and listening than if I'd just accepted their original keywords. The other 20-30% had fairly rigid keywords (colours, animals, objects, etc. so in most cases I won't bother with these until I see them in context).

The point I'm making is that RTK isn't something that ought to be studied in-depth (or slowly), but rather to finish as quickly as possible, afterwhich learners can focus most of their energies on grammar, reading, writing, listening and speaking, which is where the real learning happens.

uisukii Wrote:^To be slightly critical, but would it be really fair to consider RtK as providing a "deep" understanding of the kanji? Wouldn't such a description entail a familiarity of readings and in which context they are generally used?

Well yes, it would. So to be fair I probably shouldn't use "deep understanding". I guess what I meant is that the mind needs time to marinate new information. Even if its as simple as a "general meaning", these things need time to stick.

One flaw in RTK's design is that people feel the need to rush through it as fast as possible, because it doesn't give them readings/context.

Also because the kanji aren't ordered in frequency order so you have to do the whole book to get some very common characters. Heisig's introduction doesn't help; it's a little muddled but it's easy to read (misread, maybe?) his introduction as saying you must finish RTK 1 before doing any other Japanese study.

As someone who went through a lot of trial and error before getting it right;

I'd say go for it, why not. One of the best ways to learn is to learn "how to learn".
The process of learning, the specific method which suits you the best may be different from other people. Most people would not try to learn the entire RTK1 in a month but then again most people give up on learning Japanese (or scuba diving, or French or whatever) whenever it gets "too tough".

Even if you fail this one attempt atleast you know what methodics to avoid the next time you try. It's all about experimentation anyway.

Just don't get discouraged easily. And remain honest to yourself.

uisukii Wrote:^To be slightly critical, but would it be really fair to consider RtK as providing a "deep" understanding of the kanji? Wouldn't such a description entail a familiarity of readings and in which context they are generally used?

What? The Kanji are a set of Chinese characters. Are you arguing that someone who uses the Kanji to write Chinese doesn't fully understand them?

"Understanding" the Kanji means recognizing and knowing how to write the individual characters (and maybe some idea of their origin, in ancient China), not their use in any of the languages it's used in (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, old Vietnamese, etc.). RtK teaches you that, using a specific method. Completing that process takes at least six weeks of full time work, according to the person who came up with the method.

As an aside, the very reason for the existence of RtK is to give English speakers the same leg up with Japanese that the Chinese have. Heisig noticed that Chinese students learn Japanese far more easily than westerners (by orders of magnitude more easily), despite the fact that China's languages have nothing in common with Japanese. He concluded that the only explanation is their familiarity with the Kanji (how to recognize and write them, NOT readings and Japanese words), and devised a relatively quick way for English speakers to gain that same advantage. Relatively quick, again, doesn't mean two weeks. You can't learn 2000 Chinese characters in two weeks.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Also because the kanji aren't ordered in frequency order so you have to do the whole book to get some very common characters. Heisig's introduction doesn't help; it's a little muddled but it's easy to read (misread, maybe?) his introduction as saying you must finish RTK 1 before doing any other Japanese study.

Well, there's no "must", it's just that RtK has a specific purpose, which is to lend English speakers (and, with translations, the speakers of some other European languages) an ability Chinese students of Japanese have been able to greatly benefit from.

Before you can benefit from an ability, you have to gain it. Starting to study Japanese before you have this ability, that gives you an advantage (that has been verified by looking at the disparity between Chinese and western students of Japanese), would be counter-productive (correction: would be less efficient; counter productive suggests that studying Japanese before RtK somehow makes you regress - it doesn't, it just doesn't help you progress as fast as if you finished RtK first).

Well, I suppose there are many people who've finished RTK in a >6-week timeframe and successfully maintained high recognition rates by steadily reviewing and moving on to comprehensible reading/production material. I agree it takes more time than this to recognise kanji as autonomically as a native (much longer), and that is what reading does after RTK. Whatever it means to understand kanji, I don't know what else could possibly matter beyond this.

I'm sure if more SRS users tried going a few consecutive days adding 50-100 new cards to their reviews, finishing RTK suddenly appears much easier, and more rewarding. Time availability really is important, though.

Abajour Wrote:Even if you fail this one attempt atleast you know what methodics to avoid the next time you try. It's all about experimentation anyway.

Just don't get discouraged easily. And remain honest to yourself.

Absolutely. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's continually adjusting their study methods, and there never seems to be a shortage of worthwhile online material.

Stansfield123 Wrote:

uisukii Wrote:^To be slightly critical, but would it be really fair to consider RtK as providing a "deep" understanding of the kanji? Wouldn't such a description entail a familiarity of readings and in which context they are generally used?

What? The Kanji are a set of Chinese characters. Are you arguing that someone who uses the Kanji to write Chinese doesn't fully understand them?

Not entirely sure where that came from, but... well, yes? Are they using traditional or simplified hanzi? If they are writing "Chinese" it probably wouldn't be referred to as "Kanji". I'm not really sure exactly what the argument is. Sorry.

Quote:"Understanding" the Kanji means recognizing and knowing how to write the individual characters (and maybe some idea of their origin, in ancient China), not their use in any of the languages it's used in (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, old Vietnamese, etc.). RtK teaches you that, using a specific method. Completing that process takes at least six weeks of full time work, according to the person who came up with the method.

I don't mean to sound rude, but are you trolling? Being able to recognize and write kanji is not the same as understanding them. Would you call being able to write and recognize the letters used in a book, but not able to understand what is written, "understanding" the script used? RtK is "Remember", not "Understand". Sorry, I'm not entirely sure how this relates to RtK.

Quote:As an aside, the very reason for the existence of RtK is to give English speakers the same leg up with Japanese that the Chinese have. Heisig noticed that Chinese students learn Japanese far more easily than westerners (by orders of magnitude more easily), despite the fact that China's languages have nothing in common with Japanese. He concluded that the only explanation is their familiarity with the Kanji (how to recognize and write them, NOT readings and Japanese words), and devised a relatively quick way for English speakers to gain that same advantage. Relatively quick, again, doesn't mean two weeks. You can't learn 2000 Chinese characters in two weeks.

Wait, so this is all about how I completed RtK in two weeks and it somehow offended you? Serious? The author and creator of the method completed the course himself in six weeks, without modern technology; the internet, a dedicated forum, an archive of prepared mnemonics, Anki, etc. Please, can we not turn this thread into a boring argument stemming from personal incredulity? No one else wants to read that. If you must, please just use my email address and save everyone else the reading.

uisukii Wrote:If they are writing "Chinese" it probably wouldn't be referred to as "Kanji".

I'm still learning Japanese, but I'm quite confident that, in Japanese, the traditional Chinese character set is called 漢字, and read "kanji".

As far as I know, in traditional Chinese the word for the Chinese character set is written the same way, and in Cantonese it is read something like "hanzi".

uisukii Wrote:I don't mean to sound rude, but are you trolling? Being able to recognize and write kanji is not the same as understanding them. Would you call being able to write and recognize the letters used in a book, but not able to understand what is written, "understanding" the script used?

The only reason I can think of for this misunderstanding is that you're using the terms Kanji and Japanese writing system interchangeably.

Kanji is not the Japanese writing system. Kanji is the Japanese name for the Chinese character set adopted into Japanese.

Kanji does not refer to anything except the Chinese character set. It does not refer to any readings, it does not refer to any words it is used in, and it most certainly does not refer to Japanese writing, anymore than the term 'Latin alphabet' refers to English spelling rules.

Would you say that to understand the Latin alphabet, one must first know how to spell 'upholstery'?

uisukii Wrote:Wait, so this is all about how I completed RtK in two weeks and it somehow offended you? Serious? The author and creator of the method completed the course himself in six weeks, without modern technology; the internet, a dedicated forum, an archive of prepared mnemonics, Anki, etc. Please, can we not turn this thread into a boring argument stemming from personal incredulity? No one else wants to read that. If you must, please just use my email address and save everyone else the reading.

This is about communicating in a civil manner about the Japanese language. Everything I wrote, I believe to be true and relevant to this thread. None of it is directed to you personally, it is all directed to whoever is interested in my opinion on the subject of learning the Kanji.

Kanji, which, again, is the Japanese name of the traditional Chinese character set, not the name of the Japanese writing system, or any part thereof.

Stansfield123 Wrote:He concluded that the only explanation is their familiarity with the Kanji (how to recognize and write them, NOT readings and Japanese words), and devised a relatively quick way for English speakers to gain that same advantage.

Mmmm but this isn't entirely true.

After all, Japan borrowed quite a few readings from China for most kanji. So really, the only thing a Chinese speaker has to learn are kunyoumi readings, which are usually only used when a kanji is in isolation. And quite frankly, that is easy as cake. Learning kunyoumi is basically learning Japanese vocab.

I forever maintain that one's understanding of kanji is greatly limited without knowing its readings and compounds. Chinese speakers know most of a kanji's readings before ever learning Japanese, which is why they learn so fast. This is why Heisig teaches readings in the first place.

Hello, everyone!
I have just finished Part 1 of Remembering the Kanji, and I can now recognize about 300 characters. I have so far been enjoying this course immensely, and have made it much further than I expected. Wish me luck on the next two sections! ^_^

amtrack Wrote:After all, Japan borrowed quite a few readings from China for most kanji. So really, the only thing a Chinese speaker has to learn are kunyoumi readings,

If you study Chinese you'll see that most of the readings in Chinese aren't the same as Japanese, and many aren't even close. The readings were not borrowed into Japanese from modern Mandarin Chinese and they've gone through their own millenia of pronunciation changes. I've never heard a Chinese person say that their knowledge of the Chinese language helped them pronounce Japanese words.

(Incidentally, it is greatly exaggerating to say that Chinese natives learn Japanese "orders of magnitude" more easily/quickly than Westerners. Even one order of magnitude means 10 times as quickly/easily, and I've had experience both learning Japanese and teaching Chinese students Japanese, and I can tell you that they certainly do not learn Japanese 10 times more quickly than Westerners.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:The readings were not borrowed into Japanese from modern Mandarin Chinese and they've gone through their own millenia of pronunciation changes.

ohoho learn something new every day

Quote:(Incidentally, it is greatly exaggerating to say that Chinese natives learn Japanese "orders of magnitude" more easily/quickly than Westerners. Even one order of magnitude means 10 times as quickly/easily, and I've had experience both learning Japanese and teaching Chinese students Japanese, and I can tell you that they certainly do not learn Japanese 10 times more quickly than Westerners.)

Well I wouldn't say that either. I do think they learn kanji much faster, because it is their writing system. All that's left is learning the "japanese" sounds associated with those kanji. That's a pretty huge head start.

Stansfield123 Wrote:"Understanding" the Kanji means recognizing and knowing how to write the individual characters (and maybe some idea of their origin, in ancient China), not their use in any of the languages it's used in (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, old Vietnamese, etc.). RtK teaches you that, using a specific method. Completing that process takes at least six weeks of full time work, according to the person who came up with the method.

Nobody ever gave a precise meaning to what is "understanding the kanji", and this would be as useless as to quarrel for the billionth time about what each individual on this forum means by "fluent".

However, sticking to very common facts, I will just say that over 20% of the world population uses Chinese characters (and their variations) on a daily basis, and that for all those people, the knowledge acquired just after completing RtK is a very shallow and artificial one at best. You would be strongly mislead to think that post-RtK knowledge is "good understanding" in any way. When you're at an advanced stage of either Japanese or Chinese (or you're a native), then yes you can claim to have some sort of understanding. Don't forget that extracting the symbols from their original use and sticking to it a rough meaning is a very isolated practice, essentially restricted to this forum. Not much weight compared to the aforementioned 1,5 billion native speakers.

Stansfield123 Wrote:I'm still learning Japanese, but I'm quite confident that, in Japanese, the traditional Chinese character set is called 漢字, and read "kanji".

As far as I know, in traditional Chinese the word for the Chinese character set is written the same way, and in Cantonese it is read something like "hanzi".

漢字 (かんじ) is the generic Japanese word for Chinese characters as they are used in the Japanese language [correction: as they are used in any language, thanks yudantaiteki]. The traditional character set is called 繁体字.

"Traditional Chinese" doesn't mean anything, and is certainly not a language. Of course we all get your idea, but since you want to be precise on words, you might as well go through it until the end. In Cantonese, Chinese characters may be referred as 唐字 (tong4zi6) as well as 漢字 (hon3zi6), in which case it's certainly not pronounced "hanzi". You're probably referring to Mandarin Chinese.

Stansfield123 Wrote:As an aside, the very reason for the existence of RtK is to give English speakers the same leg up with Japanese that the Chinese have. [...] devised a relatively quick way for English speakers to gain that same advantage.

A non-Chinese learner of Japanese who just finished RtK probably has something like 20% (made-up figure) of the advantage that a Chinese learner would have. The remaining 80% would be the 10+ years (assuming they're students) of everyday use of the characters and the perfect knowledge of the (Mandarin) Chinese pronunciations, which will make learning 音読み 2 or 3 times easier to remember (I know since I did it the other way); the hundreds of 熟語 that are exactly the same in Mandarin and Japanese; the capacity to recognize (read) and produce (write) characters extremely fast.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Would you say that to understand the Latin alphabet, one must first know how to spell 'upholstery'?

You should see the "understanding" of the Latin alphabet that many Japanese people have, you would be surprised. Sure they know how to draw the letters. But it seems extremely hard for them to understand how to combine letters to get common phonemes in English or whatever language.

amtrack Wrote:All that's left is learning the "japanese" sounds associated with those kanji. That's a pretty huge head start.

Well there is some work on 音読み to be done too. As I said above it's much faster when you already know the Mandarin pronunciation of all common characters, but there's still a lot of "sound fixing" to get it right, especially with the long vowels (こ vs こう), which often come from a -ng final in Chinese, so it's quite different. I have a close Chinese friend who has a solid level in Japanese (post JLPT N1, 6 years of learning) but still makes small mistakes here and there with the 音読み as well as the 訓読み.

Warp2243 Wrote:I'm sorry if I'm being a little annoying in this post, but I think it would be nice if you wouldn't be so assertive and would be more nuanced about all this. We are all learning so it's okay, but surely we could reach consensus faster by being more cautious with words.

Hmm? But from what I read you agreed completely, so the assertion clearly isn't an issue. As I said, its a pretty huge head start, since the main thing one has to learn are the Japanese sounds associated with a kanji; you gave a pretty detailed description of that very process did you not? If I'm misunderstanding, by all means let me know.

Assertion makes some people uncomfortable, but I have an assertive personality and will not apologize for it. If I am correct, I am correct; if am incorrect, I am incorrect. It is or it isn't, so there's no need for me to be non-committal in any answer. I'm more than capable of revising my position as new information comes in. I don't see how that makes consensus difficult or slows the process.

Please be aware I am talking about kanji specifically. All other aspects (reading, speaking, etc.) are not relevant to my assertion. Kanji is the chinese writing system, so it only stands to reason they learn it much faster than other foreigners. When it comes to comprehending and speaking Japanese, they start at the same place everyone else does, more or less.

I'm sorry amtrack, I added the quotation of what you said at the wrong place of my post. That line about not being too assertive was addressed to Stansfield123, especially since I had already seen previous posts from him that were a little over the top. Though I'm already thinking I had better refrained from saying anything about the form and just kept to commenting on the contents.

Oh, and I just realized that by "Japanese sounds" you were also considering 音読み. We completely agree indeed.

@Warp2243
i totally agree with your post.

There are some interesting studies about how Chinese characters are processed by natives of Mandarin/ Cantonese.

Most of my knowledge is from
http://darkjapanese.tumblr.com/tagged/kanji

Warp2243 Wrote:I'm sorry amtrack, I added the quotation of what you said at the wrong place of my post.

Aha its all good, I should have known that wasn't meant for me based on the post and the wording. My bad.

@Aspiring: I feel like that guy watching a teaser for a movie with no actual movie footage. It sounds all awesome and interesting, but where are the links bro?!

Clyde1992 Wrote:Hello, everyone!
I have just finished Part 1 of Remembering the Kanji, and I can now recognize about 300 characters. I have so far been enjoying this course immensely, and have made it much further than I expected. Wish me luck on the next two sections! ^_^

Awesome! Eventually, when the kanji mnemonics start dwindling in the book, this forum's website covers the rest, all rated by members so most stories are very good. Some are a little R rated (and you may end up wishing you didn't keep recalling them for relatively innocent kanji lol), but you soon forget the stories anyway. Have fun with the rest

Hello, everyone:
Does anyone have any suggestions for completing Lesson 17? I seem to be having a lot of trouble with it. Most of the other lessons came fairly easily to me, but I cannot seem to remember the vast majority of the characters in Lesson 17.

That seems to be the stage where kanji becomes a bit more complex..

The steps for initial encoding:
Create or find mnemonic,
Write the character out a few times,
look at the kanji and try to get direct meaning,
reproduce kanji,

Place to find new mnemonics
http://kanji.koohii.com/study

information about "phases"
http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Walkthrou...6.92395.5D

Warp2243 Wrote:漢字 (かんじ) is the generic Japanese word for Chinese characters as they are used in the Japanese language.

Actually the word 漢字 applies to Chinese characters no matter what language they're being used to represent. (For instance, Wikipedia's article on 漢字 links to another article called 日本における漢字 that covers the specifics of Kanji usage in Japan.)

I have just finished Part Two of Remembering the Kanji. I now know nearly 550 kanji.
It took a bit longer than I expected (mostly because the past few weeks have been unexpectedly busy), so I do not think that I will be able to finish within my original goal of one month. I am still satisfied by my progress, though, and am looking forward to learning more kanji.

Keep at it at the pace you've been going, you can comfortably finish RTK1 in 3 months.