Although I'm currently in the 'input only'-phase without any reading, I do plan on learning the first 3000 characters with Heisig's book a.s.a.p. But now I see only the first book is out so far.

I've searched this forum and the web, but I didn't see any date when we can expect the second volume. Anyone that has more info on this?

Someone on this forum emailed Heisig about it, and I think the answer was later this year. You can search for it. But really, once you do the first book you don't need the second.

Well, my ultimate goal is learning ~6000 characters (my goal is fluency, not just learning bits and pieces of Mandarin). I do have a book called Cracking the Chinese Puzzles which covers around 6000 characters, but it's quite complex to use. That's why I want to use Heisig as much as possible.

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.

Ok thank you. That's actually good news as I'll be getting more out of my other book ;-).

I think Heisig originally said "end of summer" when asked earlier this year, although it looks like he and Richardson going to miss that deadline. Book 1 was also late, so not really a big surprise although a bit disappointing. I finished Book 1 (Simplified) a while ago, just going to wait on Book 2 rather than designing my own curriculum. I've been working through the rest of RtK1 in the meantime, may do RtK3 if Book 2 isn't done by the time I am.

ethics_gradient Wrote:I think Heisig originally said "end of summer" when asked earlier this year, although it looks like he and Richardson going to miss that deadline.

He and Richardson met in Japan a few weeks ago to compare notes and finalize things, so I wouldn't look for it much before the end of the year.

From an e-mail I sent him the other day:

"Tim Richardson was here in Japan for 3 hard weeks of work last month and we made considerable progress. But the selection of the characters and the arrangement proved a bigger chore than we had imagined. In addition, the finishing touches on Book 1 of the Spanish edition had to be made. Still, we remain hopeful that the completed work can be in the hands of the publishers this fall, which would mean a mid-winter publication."

Ah man, I'd love to have that Spanish books in my hands :-(. But if the second book arrives this winter in English I'm happy as well :-)

Emailed Heisig yesterday about this topic and recieved this answer, after three hours (!):

"As for Book 2, it is still in progress. I would say we are over 50% done and are working to complete it within the time available to us after other academic duties. Please keep an eye on the internet page (http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publ...zi%201.htm) for information about when it will be available. You might start looking from around mid-winter. "

Stop emailing the poor guy, how can he make any progress if he answers emails all day!

I've been informed that, unfortunately, Tim Richardson will meet up with James Heisig in JUNE 2010 to give the final push to book 2. Yep, about 6 months. And then presumably another month or so until it actually gets published.

ChristopherB Wrote:I've been informed that, unfortunately, Tim Richardson will meet up with James Heisig in JUNE 2010 to give the final push to book 2. Yep, about 6 months. And then presumably another month or so until it actually gets published.

I check back here every couple weeks hoping to hear something new. Not what I was hoping to find, but thanks for posting!

I hope RtH2 isn't going to turn in to the Duke Nukem Forever of Chinese textbooks :p

I think really the best thing to do, instead of waiting, would be to use Rick Harbaugh's dictionary, also online as http://www.zhongwen.com. There are about 2750 characters that aren't covered in book 1 of Heisig and they are all arranged by structure and derivative. I can imagine myself having finished that and learned 4280 characters total by the time book 2 gets sent to press.

Might be an idea.

Indeed. Same as with RTK, once you learn the system and a good dose of characters you can do it on your own. It would be easier if the RTH system was up and going here though.

I wonder if using google alert would work, as in set a google alert:

inauthor:"James W. Heisig"

Anyone know if that would send the email when James W. Heisig publishes book2?

I had considered - at one stage - choosing a list of what would probably be the next 1500 characters, and learning them myself. I figured I would at least get a head-start on book 2 - but the reality is that would probably interfere with studying book 2.

* Firstly, Heisig & Richardson have come up with really good images, even replacing the abstract ones (using a 'dove' instead of just 'white') - so I still trust them to do a better job of that than me.

* Secondly, I might actually come up with images that, for example, are used to represent different primitives by Heisig, and then I end up just confusing myself.

So no, I'm just going to wait patiently until book 2 comes out. In the meantime, I'm working through book 1 again and trying to learn all the pinyin pronunciations.

ChristopherB Wrote:I've been informed that, unfortunately, Tim Richardson will meet up with James Heisig in JUNE 2010 to give the final push to book 2. Yep, about 6 months. And then presumably another month or so until it actually gets published.

Well, June is over .
Did they meet? Are there any news?..

That was a typo, he meant 3010.

HEISIIIIIIIIIG!

For those who are eagerly awaiting Book 2, I would be curious to hear from you how good your knowledge is on book 1.

* Do you know Book 1 flawlessly, and therefore are ready for Book 2?
* Maybe you only know it 50%, but you know you would work through Book 2 the first time more diligently than you'd work through Book 1 the 3rd time?
* Perhaps you don't want to start Book 1 until you at least own Book 2?
* Other?

Thanks!

Greg, many use Anki so it's not about knowing book 1 perfectly, it's about continuing study uninterrupted.

Though it seems that those with experience with RTK could easily create their own version of RTH with a couple of spreadsheet mergers.

I'm now done with book 1, it's in Anki, but I often let the reviews get late, as I focus first on learning words and sentences now (from text book, chinesepod, etc.)
I don't try to master perfectly Book 1, just refreshing from time to time.

When I encounter a character that wasn't in Book 1, I add it to Anki, with a keyword and story. Sometimes (extremely rarely, then I usually don't bother learning it) I need to add a few more characters to build up this one.
For these new characters, I don't do specific reviews yet. Anyway they reappear when the word or sentence they're used for comes up.

Definitively not waiting for Book 2. This idea sounds crazy to me! Who knows how long we would have to wait? And anyway we got most primitives with book 1 (and a few more on this website)

GregSegments Wrote:For those who are eagerly awaiting Book 2, I would be curious to hear from you how good your knowledge is on book 1.

* Do you know Book 1 flawlessly, and therefore are ready for Book 2?
* Maybe you only know it 50%, but you know you would work through Book 2 the first time more diligently than you'd work through Book 1 the 3rd time?
* Perhaps you don't want to start Book 1 until you at least own Book 2?
* Other?

Thanks!

I doubt anyone can sit down and go through 1500 keywords and write each character perfectly. My reviews are generally around 30 cards per day at this point, I miss 2-3 on average (depends more on how tired/patient I am than how difficult the card is, generally). I'm sure I could improve faster if I put more effort into it, especially if I had exposure to Chinese in some other context, but for right now I'm happy with the incremental gains I make in less than ten minutes per day of studying.

I'm not actively studying Chinese (or living in China) at this point, so I'm content to wait for Book 2 rather than go through the hassle of designing my own curriculum.

Has anyone e-mailed him yet? I would, but I don't want to pester him if someone else has (afraid he might pull a George R R Martin or something).

Thanks for your replies. I also do not have Book 1 perfectly, so I'm happy to continue working on that until Book 2 comes out. I certainly have no intention of "anticipating" it by coming up with more stories of my own on the next 1500 chararacters ... I sometimes got ahead of myself in Book 1, and ended up coming up with conflicting images relative to Heisig's.

So I'll wait ...