Hey guys! I tried the Heisig method a couple of years ago but I just felt there was something missing with it...and I think i've come up with a new method of learning Kanji incorporating Heisig's method. My problem (which I see is a recurring one) is that Heisig's stories were generally a bit too abstract and didn't always relate to the "primitives" or the bushyu. I think a better method of learning the Kanji would be to learn all the Bushyu as listed on the wikipedia page (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96) in stroke order. The stories should relate to the names of the Bushyu/their meaning as often the Bushyu has a huge influence on the definition of the Kanji. Some Bushyu also have an influence on the pronunciation of the Kanji and perhaps these Bushyu should be noted.
Anyway, this is just an idea that i've had and I was hoping for some feedback from you guys, obviously if you're new to Kanji you probably don't know what i'm talking about so this is a post directed to the more advanced japanese learner.

I'm thinking about starting Anki cards with my method in mind, which will understandably take a few days as I am quite rusty on my Kanji. Shall I? At the moment i'm just banking on rote memorisation which is not all that fun/systematic.

BTW, the normal name for 部首 is radical. Also they normally romanize as 'bushu' when you're writing in English, although when you're simply transliterating Japanese into roomaji there are systems that would give you 'busyu'. 'bushyu' is a strange hybrid. Just had to say that first.

Anyway, Heisig's primitives differ from 部首 in several ways - firstly that there are primitives that are commonly repeating character elements but have no 部首 classification. So if you try to go strictly on 部首 you'll have character elements that are unnamed. You can name them, but then you're imitating Heisig.

Secondly, Heisig felt that many 部首 nicknames were difficult to make good stories with, or were to similar to each other to make distinct stories with, or depending on knowing antiquated units of Japanese measurements, etc. So, he chose primitive names for some of the bushu that are at odds with the standard nickname for that bushu. You could use something other than a strict translation of the Japanese radical name, but then you're imitating Heisig.

All that said, if you memorize the radicals and then learn the kanji using the radicals as mnemonic aids, while making up your own nicknames for non-radical components of kanji ... you'll probably do fine.

Or you could just do Heisig and rename any primitives that bother you being named the way he named them and be at the same place in the end, along with a convenient ordering for learning characters as you learn the radicals and other common components.

Post scriptum: Ah, perhaps I should explicitly point out - you don't need to use any of Heisig's stories. You can make up your own stories from the first character. As I recall, by 200 characters he's encouraging this and somewhere around 500 characters he doesn't even provide you with stories, insisting that you make up your own. Much of the point of this site is to share stories, in case you don't want to or are having trouble creating your own story while also not wanting to use Heisig's story (if he provided one.)

Haha, thank you for the heads-up. I'm not sure why I typed 'bushu' like that. I don't really pay attention to romanji as long as the Japanese words which come out from my typing are what i'm after.

I think what I shall go for is your second option as it will save me a lot of time!

Thanks and have a great week!

lasttry Wrote:I don't really pay attention to romanji

Indeed.



About your idea, I think it's a great idea, but RTK is basically the same, just more complete and improved in so many ways that it would be hard to improve on it even more.

Opkors, you can add Japanese words to complement or replace the English keywords.

Something that would be a revolutionary improvement, though, would be having an algorithm to sort any given set of kanji into a sort of RTK-like order.

well that's basically what the morph-man tool is if I understand it right...

I don't see why not, lasttry. A fair few people have used 部首 as a short-cut to learning how to write and recognise kanji. It is miles more efficient than learn singular kanji as though they are islands floating around the ether, rowing the paddles towards Rote.

Using Anki, or any SRS will make it even more efficient than it already is. If RTK is not your cup of cake, and this is something you're pretty keen on, I say get a start on it from yesterday.

It if works, it will probably pay it's dividends in no time at all.