I've been working recently on a "Master List" for 漢字. I used Heisig's books as a starting point since (IMO) it's the best method of learning characters out there. I made separate lists for people who want to learn Chinese, Japanese, and both. I posted it as part of my recent "Heisig Files" series of blog posts. Here are the contents of the lists:

Chinese

RTH 1 - 1500
Remaining from "Taiwan All Grades" list - 4070
Simplified characters from both lists - 1709

That's a total of 7279 characters. Most people just learn to write one set and read the other, but I included all of them just in case. For the RTH characters, you're given the keyword as a prompt, for the Taiwan list there's nothing. I leave it up to you to choose keywords, or use definitions in English or Chinese. Whichever you like. Once RTH 2 comes out there won't be as much work to do.

Japanese

RTK 1 - 2042
RTK 3 - 965
Remaining from Jōyō Kanji - 21
Remaining from Jinmeiyō Kanji - 80
Remaining from Kanji Kentei Level 1 - 3266

That's a total of 6374 kanji. Again, non-Heisig kanji have no prompt. Katsuo has a great spreadsheet with Japanese readings if that comes in handy for making Japanese keywords.

Both (aka, Are You Nuts?)

RTK 1
RTK 3
Remaining from Jōyō Kanji
Remaining from Jinmeiyō Kanji
旧字体 - Kanji that were simplified in 1947
Remaining from RTH - 293
Remaining from Taiwan List - 2824
Remaining from Kentei List - 1280
Simplified versions of any above - 1852

That's a total of 9514 characters. At this point, you've either been checked into a mental hospital or you're a 漢字 superstar. Same as above, any non-Heisig characters have no prompt, unless they are 旧字体 or simplified characters. For the 旧字体 you're given the kanji and (trad.) as a prompt. For the simplified hanzi, you're given the traditional hanzi as a prompt.

I hope this comes in handy! It's been really informative and educational putting this list together.

Here's the link to the blog post.

Is there an equivalent to the Kanji Kentei for Chinese? I'm sure there are more characters of interest than just the Taiwan List...

mafried Wrote:Is there an equivalent to the Kanji Kentei for Chinese? I'm sure there are more characters of interest than just the Taiwan List...

Not that I know of, but I'm sure there probably is. There are a few lists of most frequently used characters here. For modern Chinese, it's 9933 characters, and for classical it's 11,115 characters. The two combined make up 12,041.

Congradulations on the list. ( n_n)//
When is RTH2 coming out anyways?

Later this year/early next year according to Heisig.

I would be interested in seeing the modern Chinese and classical Chinese frequency lists added in, if you have the time. I wonder how many truly new characters they add. Are the lists simplified or traditional?

mafried Wrote:Later this year/early next year according to Heisig.

I would be interested in seeing the modern Chinese and classical Chinese frequency lists added in, if you have the time. I wonder how many truly new characters they add. Are the lists simplified or traditional?

The MTSU lists are simplified. I may add those in at some point but for the moment I've got too much schoolwork.

I'd like to make an appointment for the mental hospital, please!

Thanks very much for the hard work, I will find it very useful. Good work!

What no oracle bone script?

philiphoward123 Wrote:I'd like to make an appointment for the mental hospital, please!

Thanks very much for the hard work, I will find it very useful. Good work!

What no oracle bone script?

I'm sure we could somehow make each card in the Anki decks link to that character's page at chineseetymology.org so we could see the oracle bone versions when there is one.

Mafried, thanks for answering my questions!

mafried Wrote:

gyuujuic Wrote:When is RTH2 coming out anyways?

Later this year/early next year according to Heisig.

Rather sometime next year then.
Prof. Richardson told me in an email, that it was his turn to work on the book but since the semester had started he hadn’t really got round to doing so.

He suspiciously avoids estimating the release date and given this vague reply I suppose that he is still in the process of assigning keywords.
Must be a tiresome task to find expressions that cover a range of meanings and reflect semantic nuances for each of the 3000 characters (plus primitives) without ever using a word twice.

transalpin Wrote:

mafried Wrote:

gyuujuic Wrote:When is RTH2 coming out anyways?

Later this year/early next year according to Heisig.

Rather sometime next year then.
Prof. Richardson told me in an email, that it was his turn to work on the book but since the semester had started he hadn’t really got round to doing so.

He suspiciously avoids estimating the release date and given this vague reply I suppose that he is still in the process of assigning keywords.
Must be a tiresome task to find expressions that cover a range of meanings and reflect semantic nuances for each of the 3000 characters (plus primitives) without ever using a word twice.

The last word I heard (through Fu Dawei here) was that they had recently made a visit to the publishers to set the second book for printing. Hmm...

Perhaps he meant second edition..

In any case I haven't even opened my copy of RTH1imp yet.

bflatnine Wrote:

philiphoward123 Wrote:I'd like to make an appointment for the mental hospital, please!

Thanks very much for the hard work, I will find it very useful. Good work!

What no oracle bone script?

I'm sure we could somehow make each card in the Anki decks link to that character's page at chineseetymology.org so we could see the oracle bone versions when there is one.

I recently published a plugin for Anki called RTH-review which could be tailored for this very easy, just by changing the link code. By default it links to this site, and when the RTH-site is released it will link there, since I'm learning the Hanzi from RTH 1. But it's easy for anyone to link wherever and do lookups to the sidewindow.

Thanks for the lists as well, a fine (and hard) work indeed! I'll reserve a spot at the mental hospital for sometime in springtime I think...

bflatnine Wrote:The last word I heard (through Fu Dawei here) was that they had recently made a visit to the publishers to set the second book for printing. Hmm...

Jarvik7 Wrote:Perhaps he meant second edition..

This is how false rumour is spread. He said, Richardson visited Heisig in Japan and their initial schedule was to have it ready to give it to the publishers by September:

On August 26, FuDaWei Wrote:

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.

On August 27, ChristopherB Wrote: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."

That was almost two months ago. Since then, according to Richardson’s own words, he’s got too much administrative stuff on his plate to work much on the book.

Strangely, Heisig lists the traditional form of "not have" as 没, while the traditional form listed in a dictionary appears to be 沒. Is this just a typo?

ChristopherB Wrote:Strangely, Heisig lists the traditional form of "not have" as 没, while the traditional form listed in a dictionary appears to be 沒. Is this just a typo?

It's just a variant. I'm sure he chose it for convenience since the 殳 radical appears in so many other characters, but it is kind of irritating when there is a "correct" modern standard in use in Taiwan, the same way there is on the mainland for simplified and in Japan for kanji. He also uses 别 instead of 別. Etc.

Just keep in mind that there are variants and you'll be fine. You'll see some weird ones if you start reading any older material. If you use a Mac, this program is awesome for looking up variants, but I don't know of anything similar for Windows.

I had posted a bunch of variants but they seems to make the site freak out and cut off the rest of the post. Oh well.

Thanks for pointing out 別. It's annoying, because Wenlin lists 别 and 没 as also being the simplified forms. I hope there aren't too many like that in RTH...

If it's possible, this is the list I would like to see:
Kanji/hanzi outside of RTK1 + 3 that are in Kanji Kentei level 1, Taiwan's Grade List and simplified hanzi without any repeats.
Seeings as I've finished RTK1 + 3, I'd just like to a see big list of all the characters from those other 3 lists that are still remaining. I don't really care about RTH1 until RTH2 comes out, I'd rather just make my own keywords.

thecite Wrote:If it's possible, this is the list I would like to see:
Kanji/hanzi outside of RTK1 + 3 that are in Kanji Kentei level 1, Taiwan's Grade List and simplified hanzi without any repeats.
Seeings as I've finished RTK1 + 3, I'd just like to a see big list of all the characters from those other 3 lists that are still remaining. I don't really care about RTH1 until RTH2 comes out, I'd rather just make my own keywords.

It's easy enough to do. The spreadsheets in that blog post contain the full lists, so you can import them into Anki. Just check the "prevent duplicates" box. Import RTK 1 and 3 first, then all the others, and then delete the RTK cards.

The only thing that would be different is that it would be missing RTH and the kanji->traditional hanzi cards, and I'm not sure why you wouldn't want the kanji->hanzi cards. Most of the conversions are really simple and easy to learn.

Anyway, all the spreadsheets are there if you want to build your own deck. I hope it's helpful for you!