Something I'm genuinely confused about that I can't find an explanation on anywhere...

Using heisigs method to learn Kanji via mnemonic devices is great. But the issue that I run into time and time again are the radicals that people are using.

On every kanji people will vote up the most popular story, however some of the stories use Kanji radicals that seem to just come out of nowhere and aren't explained anywhere else that I can find. I've searched everywhere for some sort of Kanji radical chart that people here might be using, but I don't see one anywhere!

ALl I can find is this: http://www.tofugu.com/wp-content/uploads...tsheet.pdf

And while it does decode a good bit of the radicals that people are using... many of them are still left out, such as "task master" and a host of others.

Am I missing something here? If so, where are people getting these radicals from?

bryanwillis7 Wrote:And while it does decode a good bit of the radicals that people are using... many of them are still left out, such as "task master" and a host of others.

Am I missing something here? If so, where are people getting these radicals from?

...you uh, do own the book, right?

Ah.. that must be the problem.

Honestly, I didn't even realize there WAS a book. I just downloaded the Anki app and loaded up some Heisig's kanji cards and began studying.

bryanwillis7 Wrote:Ah.. that must be the problem.

Honestly, I didn't even realize there WAS a book. I just downloaded the Anki app and loaded up some Heisig's kanji cards and began studying.

Did you have a link to the book that everyone is reading? or is it available online? I just want to be one the same page.

One last thing... The other thing I'm not getting is that the flashcards only seem to teach you the meaning, leaving their pronunciation completely obscured.. Is there a good supplemental way that I am supposed to study that?

bryanwillis7 Wrote:One last thing... The other thing I'm not getting is that the flashcards only seem to teach you the meaning, leaving their pronunciation completely obscured.. Is there a good supplemental way that I am supposed to study that?

That's the point of RTK...
It's only used to learn the kanji and how to write them. RTK2 goes into readings somewhat, but is generally regarded as useless, since you can just learn vocab after doing RTK and pick up readings that way.

A simple google search of "Heisig Remembering the Kanji" will take you straight to the books. The current edition is the 6th. The idea is that you learn the readings later on and focus on the meanings first. It's a big undertaking, and usually takes people 3 months to a year to finish.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your goal is less than fluency and you don't have concrete reasons for pursuing fluency, the book and the Heisig method is probably an inefficient use of study time. You would see much faster short-term gains using more traditional methods.

If you do want fluency and have what it takes to get there, though, Heisig provides an amazing foundation to build from.

Thanks for the help everyone! That helps a lot! Glad I could clear up the confusion.

[ファブリス]

bryanwillis7 Wrote:Ah.. that must be the problem.

Honestly, I didn't even realize there WAS a book. I just downloaded the Anki app and loaded up some Heisig's kanji cards and began studying.

Did you register on Reviewing the Kanji to see the Study pages? It seems that's what you're referring to.

If that's the case did you miss the book prominently shown on the homepage?

Some words of wisdom from the excellent Anki User Manual:

"Most shared decks are created by people who are learning material outside of Anki - from textbooks, classes, TV, etc. They select the interesting points from what they learn and put them into Anki. They make no effort to add background information or explanations to the cards, because they already understand the material. So when someone else downloads their deck and tries to use it, they’ll find it very difficult as the background information and explanations are missing.

That is not to say shared decks are useless - simply that for complex subjects, they should be used as a supplement to external material, not as a replacement for it. If you’re studying textbook ABC and someone has shared a deck of ideas from ABC, that’s a great way to save some time. And for simple subjects that are basically a list of facts, such as capital city names or pub quiz trivia, you probably don’t need external material. But if you attempt to study complex subjects without external material, you will probably meet with disappointing results."

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...0#pid11360 has a list of RTK primitive names for the 214 traditional radicals, but it's missing some primitives that are not radicals.

135 out of the 214 traditional radicals also appear as kanji with keywords in the sixth edition of RTK1, and 8 more in the third edition of RTK3.

I never read the RTK books or learned the RTK primitive names. I associated radicals that don't have RTK keywords with the names used in the kangxi radicals Unicode block, or for example I call 攴 "rap" instead of "taskmaster". If a character has both a keyword and a primitive name in RTK, I use the keyword for it, or for example I call 自 "self" instead of "nose".