I just found this book. Apparently it's based on Dr.Heisig's work which the author credits in his preface among others. A few differences I found between this book and RSH was that this book starts from the simplest characters and ends with the most complex, the keyword for each character is its actual meaning and the story is built around it to support that meaning, and it includes the reading/pronunciation of each character beside it. Not to mention the fact that it includes 678 more characters than Dr.Heisig's book until RSH2 comes along which god knows when that'll be. It also includes the frequency rank of each character underneath it.

The author also provides flash cards on his site, an Anki deck, and some end-of-unit review material.

I have no affiliation with this author nor the product, but I see a lot of value here, and I like the layout of his book. I think the Simple to Complex character ordering could be helpful to beginners. I really like the fact that he uses the actual character meanings instead of made up keywords.

The full name of the book is Chinese Characters: Learn and Remember 2178 characters and their meanings, and the author is Alan Hoenig, PH.D. ISBN is 978-0-9822324-0-8. and you can find the website at http://www.ezchinesey.com, and you can find the ebook through 'other' means.

I'd love to hear some of your comments on this book if you flip through the excerpt.

Cheers

deathtrap Wrote:I really like the fact that he uses the actual character meanings

Really? How many characters does it list for "begin", "use" etc?

deathtrap Wrote:instead of made up keywords.

Very few (if any) characters in Heisig's book just use "made up keywords instead of actual character meanings". Could you give some examples of those (characters, not primitives)

Seems like a quality resource. Has anyone here tried it? or vouch for it being error free?

If I would be starting out right now I would give it try. That was unless Fabrice puts up the Reviewing the Hanzi website.

Characters don't have "actual meanings", at least not ones that can represented by one word or phrase.

Also, if the book is in order of difficulty instead of grouped by what primitives the reader knows by that point, then it can't be based on Heisig in any significant way, since the ordering IS the Heisig system.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Characters don't have "actual meanings", at least not ones that can represented by one word or phrase.

Many do, or at least there's a word close enough for a good memory hook.

Jarvik7 Wrote:the ordering IS the Heisig system.

although his ordering is one trait of the system, I think most would rank his mnemonic technique as the number 1 trait.

The new book sounds like a good concept, although it's a little disappointing he didn't go to 3000. As in Japanese there are many characters that have very similar meanings. I hope he just uses the most common english word, and distinguishes them by the different readings.

In the supplied anki-deck the template goes as follows:

Q: keyword
A: pinyin, hanzi

which the average user would probably change to

Q: pinyin, keyword
A: hanzi.

Alan Hoenig, Ph. D. Wrote:I review a units-worth of entries in two ways. From the
definition (that is, I cover the left-hand, ‘character’ side of the cards), I try
to recreate its form in my mind (actually, I tend to ‘draw’ it on the palm of
one hand with the index finger of the other). Then, (after shuffling the pack
of cards) while looking at the characters (this time covering the right side), I
identify its definition.

It looks like they distinguish characters with like meanings by using multi-words. Readings aren't used in the stories, which makes sense in a way. But if you used Heisig to learn Japanese, I don't think you'll need to go through such an exercise as this book or heisig's book for Mandarin. As others have stated, it's pretty easy to do without, and just occasionally use heisig's mnemonic technique on an unknown character.

Hm, I am using this book at the moment, but I don't know how qualified I am to comment on it. I'm about 560 hanzi into it. I think the hanzi could have been ordered better, but it's still useful. The "primitives" are introduced before the hanzi that use them.

Quote:But if you used Heisig to learn Japanese, I don't think you'll need to go through such an exercise as this book or heisig's book for Mandarin. As others have stated, it's pretty easy to do without, and just occasionally use heisig's mnemonic technique on an unknown character.

Unfortunately, Chinese has a lot of commonly used characters that aren't used (commonly) in Japanese. Simplified or even traditional hanzi can vary a lot from kanji too. I've tried to just jump into learning to read Chinese, but all those new characters are in the way. It's not that I need someone to walk me through the method again, I just need a component based resource with pinyin references.

leosmith Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Characters don't have "actual meanings", at least not ones that can represented by one word or phrase.

Many do, or at least there's a word close enough for a good memory hook..

And? When there's a simple clear-cut one-word meaning (that has to be usable as mnemonic!) Heisig uses it. But it does not make it meaningful to praise another book on using "actual meanings" as opposed to Heisig's allegedly "made up keywords". (It actually sounds somewhat insulting IMO).

It wasn't intended in the spirit of an insult. Let me rephrase it as being a keyword loosely based on the common meaning of the character. Better? When I think of the difference between a keyword and the actual meaning, I'm thinking "Would this be an acceptable answer to 'What does this character mean' on the HSK test?".

Also many individual characters do have meaning on their. In fact if you take a look through zhongwen.com you'll see that every character has a meaning. Some words may be made up of characters whose individual meanings make no sense in that word but they still have their individual meanings.

@Jarvik7, The primitives are taught before the characters that use them.

I sense some hostility from a few people at suggesting this book and comparing it with Heisig. I don't understand why. I compared it with Heisig because that's what the author himself describes as being one of the bases of the book, the other was Michael Rowley's work. I also thought this book, having 678 more characters than Dr.Heisig's book would be a good supplement(if you already had RSH1) until the second R(S/T)H book comes out.

I'm just asking you take a look through the excerpt and give your opinion since we're all looking for more resources to learn from.

deathtrap Wrote:the other was Michael Rowley's work

ROFLMAO

JimmySeal Wrote:

deathtrap Wrote:the other was Michael Rowley's work

ROFLMAO

Care to expound on this poetic piece of linguistic illumination and bequeath your gift of knowledge as to what makes that statement funny enough to be worthy of a "ROFLMAO"?

Kanji Pict-O-Graphix is not a very good book, to put it kindly.

Oh. Well I had no idea what it was all about until I looked it up just now. I was just saying that that was one of the bases of his work. After looking over Kanji Pictographix I don't see it as being "that bad", but I just skimmed the website. What make it so bad? It seems like the idea behind it is just creating some images for each kanji based on a pictographic representation, am I right? Is that why it's so bad because even though it tries to represent every kanji as a pictograph in actuality a small % of kanji are actually pictographs? Am I close?

http://www.amazon.com/review/RT7QJMGAU2V...r_rdp_perm
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3T7944MNIZ...r_rdp_perm
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LEQASOPOS...r_rdp_perm
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3CEAKSUW2I...r_rdp_perm

yukamina Wrote:Unfortunately, Chinese has a lot of commonly used characters that aren't used (commonly) in Japanese. Simplified or even traditional hanzi can vary a lot from kanji too. I've tried to just jump into learning to read Chinese, but all those new characters are in the way. It's not that I need someone to walk me through the method again, I just need a component based resource with pinyin references.

It's hard for me to comment on this because I don't know what your entire study program is. But I find that my knowledge of primitives, entire characters, and mnemonic technique that I got from heisig, combined with the work I've done with pimsleur, language partners and podcasts has allowed me to "jump into" reading graded readers. I still have to throw lots of unknown words and characters into anki, but there is definitely no need to go through a big heisig-like exercise like I did with Japanese. I agree that it's nice to have a resource, but I find online dictionaries to be more convenient. I won't be buying this book or heisig's.

zonius Wrote:And? When there's a simple clear-cut one-word meaning (that has to be usable as mnemonic!) Heisig uses it. But it does not make it meaningful to praise another book on using "actual meanings" as opposed to Heisig's allegedly "made up keywords". (It actually sounds somewhat insulting IMO).

From what I read on the PDF, I like the 2178 book's keywords better. They use simpler english. One of the main problems with heisig's is that he went to more complex keywords in order to distinguish characters with similar meanings.

It often makes sense to use complex english, especially if the kanji is complex and rare, it gives you a sense of when it's used.

leosmith Wrote:One of the main problems with heisig's is that he went to more complex keywords in order to distinguish characters with similar meanings.

Yes, and I'm sure you remember why he does that. His method is a bit more than just "let's use mnemonics", and one of its cornerstones is the principle "unique keyword for every character". This principle has many valid reasons to exist, one of the major ones is that Heisig (rightfully, IMO) insists that you do your reviews "production"-style, i.e. "from keyword to character". This is a very important principle that is very rarely appreciated by the beginners (I know I didn't understand it at first). So some beginners try to "enhance"/"simplify"/"modernize" the method: they do the reviews recognition style, throw out the uniqueness of the keywords etc. This is basically their loss: while they'll surely learn the characters in the end, they'll have to work harder than necessary, since they've had reduced the system's efficiency. The problem is that sometimes those beginners grow up and start writing books on Learning Chinese Characters

And also this isn't the matter of "I studied Heisig first and that's why I think it's superior". I actually did Matthews' 800-character book first, and only later Heisig's Remembering Traditional Hanzi - and I find Heisig's approach superior. Despite the fact that a couple of times I had to look up an English keyword in a dictionary.

And BTW, the 2178 character count includes what Heisig has as unnumbered primitives, so the actual quantitative advantage is not as big as it seems.

Tobberoth Wrote:It often makes sense to use complex english, especially if the kanji is complex and rare, it gives you a sense of when it's used.

I kind of like your line of thought on this, but in the end I disagree with you because complex english makes the process harder. Also, my anal take on your idea has me wanting all less common characters to have harder english, in order to be consistent. Now that would be hard to pull off.

zonius Wrote:one of its cornerstones is the principle "unique keyword for every character". This principle has many valid reasons to exist, one of the major ones is that Heisig (rightfully, IMO) insists that you do your reviews "production"-style, i.e. "from keyword to character". This is a very important principle that is very rarely appreciated by the beginners (I know I didn't understand it at first). So some beginners try to "enhance"/"simplify"/"modernize" the method: they do the reviews recognition style, throw out the uniqueness of the keywords etc. This is basically their loss: while they'll surely learn the characters in the end, they'll have to work harder than necessary, since they've had reduced the system's efficiency.

Bingo. But there's more than one way to keep the keyword unique. I prefer the way this new book does it - a couple of simple words instead of a complex one. I seem to remember heisig using a handful of those too, and they worked well, so no problems.

If you want a Heisig-like system for Chinese, try "Cracking the Chinese Puzzles" by T.K. Ann. Covers 5k+ hanzi as well.

Yes, the more subtle keywordsin heisig are a problem, but not for the reasons mentioned. They're a problem because they are subtle, not because they're complex. This means the distinctions between them and their brethren are harder to make out in a visual mental image.

For example, attire and garments have different usages and connotations, but they're both still clothes when made into an image. This is the problem.

deathtrap Wrote:I'm just asking you take a look through the excerpt and give your opinion since we're all looking for more resources to learn from.

I took a look and found it very interesting. I also added a wiki entry for it listing some differences I found between it and RSH/RTH.

zonius Wrote:And BTW, the 2178 character count includes what Heisig has as unnumbered primitives, so the actual quantitative advantage is not as big as it seems.

Actually that's not true; the primitives are counted in the same sequence but not among the 2,178; if you add them, there are 2280 frames (the last one is '2280 鼠 mouse, rat').