The new page for the books on the Nanzen Institute's website: http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/..._Hanzi.htm

I'm currently at around frame 800 - 900 and have near 500 reviews to do (that's what I get for slacking off for a month -_-). If by the time I make up my review debt and finish all 1500 frames there is not a single peep about Book 2, I'm going to continue my studies using the Zhongwen.com-directed way. Remembering the Hanzi/Kanji isn't about sticking fastidiously to keywords and stories someone else gives you; it's about building upon a basic format and then using your own imagination to help yourself learn Chinese characters!

Anyone heard anything?

Pathawi Wrote:Anyone heard anything?

Curious myself, I'd send him an e-mail but didn't see it listed anywhere obvious on the site.

His email is: heisig@nanzan-u.ac.jp

I've emailed him about this in the past and he said he would put me on a list to notify when he has news of a release date, but it couldn't hurt to ask again.

I heard from one of the members that new book will come very soon.So you don't have to wait so much now.

I emailed Heisig several days ago about RTH and received this reply from him:

"Thanks for the kind note. I am glad you are finding the book useful.
Tim Richardson has had some unforeseen complications in his work schedule
which, combined with the recent birth of a child, has slowed us down from
our original schedule. As soon as we have a date of publication I will drop
you an e-mail to let you know.

All the best in your studies,

Jim Heisig"

What a great guy to take time out of his schedule to reply personally reply to my question :-). I am taking courses in Chinese and Japanese now and recommend Heisig to everyone I meet in my classes.

I just hope the second book is released before February. It's funny how giddy I am about a new book -- it's like Harry potter to kids only it's a textbook. I guess that makes me a nerd. Meh.

-- It turns out that while on a Mac, I can't paste symplified hanzi. I can paste traditional and I can do symplified on pages but not in word. How strange. Does anyone experience something similar? -- I didn't want to make a whole thread just for this. :\

gyuujuice: I've never had a problem pasting Simplified Hanzi on my Mac. (Then again, I don't have that much experience doing it, either, as I study Traditional Hanzi.) How are you trying to do it? If you tell me exactly what you're doing, I'll see if I can duplicate it.

Actually, I just tried pasting some simplified Chinese in Word, and I experienced some problems as well with characters appearing as boxes or disappearing completely. This is because of the font selected: some fonts are intended specifically for Japanese, Traditional Chinese, or Simplified Chinese, so if you have a font that doesn't fully support Simplified Chinese, you won't be able to paste things into Word and have all your characters appear. Try playing around with the font and see if it helps.

Seeing as we are now almost to March I was thinking about emailing him once again, but I figured I'd first ask here if anyone has heard any news recently (I'd like to avoid annoying him any more than I already have with all my past emails).

Given that previous estimates have been so off, I'm inclined to recommend we just let them get on with the book, and it'll be published when it's published :-)

rcloud Wrote:Seeing as we are now almost to March I was thinking about emailing him once again, but I figured I'd first ask here if anyone has heard any news recently (I'd like to avoid annoying him any more than I already have with all my past emails).

I emailed him about 1 1/2 weeks ago and received a message similar to what you got in November. He said it got put on hold due to Richardson being overworked the past year and is about 80% finished at the moment. He also said that he hopes to have it published by this summer.

Any updates on this?

Interesting to note that there are messages back from 2009 — not only here, but around the web — that say Heisig told them the second book was almost ready, and messages from 2011 saying the exact same thing. I wonder what people who were asking the question back then ended up doing.

Tobberoth Wrote:What mafried means is, you don't need any more books. You can learn hanzi (and kanji) just fine on your own once you know how it's done. Learn meaning (from where you came upon the hanzi), split into radicals or primitives, create story, put in SRS.

It's definitely possible, though one thing I noticed when doing this is that, the more characters you add, the harder and more tiring it is to find unique and relevant keywords for every new character. So, someone else doing the work for an additional 1500+ characters would make it one less mentally-draining thing to do during the initial stages of studying the language, if one were to follow Heisig's method.

Nonetheless, I don't think it's good to be dependent on someone else's work — even more if it's something that was said to be released years ago but still isn't ready. Resourcefulness is necessary.

The eratta for book one was updated two weeks ago and republished on his website.

A few references to book 2 are in there so I think it's getting close.

"If you are not going through the corresponding lessons of Book 2 just yet,
you might be interested in knowing which additional characters you would be
able to learn with the primitive elements already in hand. There are only six of
them now, but the number will increase dramatically:
叭 咕 咱 串 罩 囂
1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506"

From new introduction to lesson 5.

I couldn't wait any longer for an update and e-mailed him. Here's his reply. (He's such a nice guy. We're really very lucky to have someone like him authoring these books for us, IMO.)

thanks for your kind words. Just yesterday Tim and I sent the completed
versions of Book 2 of both the simplified and the traditional to the press.
As soon as we have a schedule for publication, I will be sure to let you
know.

Jim Heisig

vorpal Wrote:I couldn't wait any longer for an update and e-mailed him. Here's his reply. (He's such a nice guy. We're really very lucky to have someone like him authoring these books for us, IMO.)

thanks for your kind words. Just yesterday Tim and I sent the completed
versions of Book 2 of both the simplified and the traditional to the press.
As soon as we have a schedule for publication, I will be sure to let you
know.

Jim Heisig

Any further news, Vorpal? Anyone else hear anything, or know much about how publishing cycles work? Like many people, I've been waiting on this book for years!! Getting fed up and thinking about just getting Harbaugh's book and working through it myself...

Yeh I'm in the tail end of RtH (ive been lazy) and want this damn book!

I'm going to start making up my own keyword for the obvious Hanzi - it's the ordering and breakdown of complex primitives that the books help with so much.

I haven't done RTH yet (and probably won't), but why can't you just go independent after the first book like almost everyone does for RTK?

Book 1 is only 1500 characters. It's minimum 3,000-5,000 characters needed to read Chinese, so book 2 is necessary (unlike RTK3).

Of course it's possible to start making up your own primitive names and keywords, but as I said above Hesig has a good knack for ordering them well and making up keywords. I rather he do the work, so I just have to concentrate on making the stories..

I keep diligently checking my e-mail for some sign that the second book is forthcoming, and nothing yet. I will absolutely update you all ASAP as soon as I get some word.

I am at 1488 in RtH1 and am really hoping for that second book. I have collected a list of hanzi during my Chinese studies that I can clearly and easily make up from the primitives already encountered should I run out of characters to study, and I also have the Harbaugh book as well.

So last night I emailed the publisher, thinking it would be in their hands now, and Heisig himself wrote back to me--what a guy. Here's the reply:

"A few minutes ago I received an e-mail from Tim Richardson informing me that he had just completed his final cross-check of the galleys and would have them back to me later in the day. That means that within 24 hours the Press will have the final files ready for sending to the printer. I do not know what their schedule is, but absolutely within 3 months the book will be out. As soon as I know more, I will post it on the internet site: http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/...4-+ADw-DIV.

Incidentally, we discovered a couple of primitives we needed to change and some typos in Book 1 along the way preparing Book 2. I will have updated the errata files (dated 15 September) there.

All the best in your studies,

Jim Heisig"

So it seems we'll have book 2 by the end of the year, in any case. I might still grab the Harbaugh anyway, seems good to have. Does anyone by any chance know where I could find it in Taipei?

And as for Jarvik's question, I think aphasiac answered it quite well: Heisig's books do all the organizational work for you, allowing you more time to study the stuff that matters.

The website for the books has been updated, and while there is little new information about Book 2, there are now pictures of the covers for the RTH2 and RSH2:

http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/...zi%201.htm

Thanks for the update.

I noticed the site for the two books also now reads:

"Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008, 2012."

So it looks like we won't be seeing the second book this year.