Judging from the posted stories here, in order to remember kanji, many people seem to be using wordplay (like a particular word order in a phrase to remember the meaning or the order of primitives), instead of visuals.

But should I rather try to rely on concrete images in my head? English is not my first language (it's Finnish), so I'm afraid that I'll forget the meaning of the Kanji if I forget the actual story. Since I'm no native English speaker, it's hard to keep in my head things like "The moon has a lot of gall sticking around after nightbreak." to learn how "gall bladder" is written, but that was the best I could find.

But would I really forget the kanji if I don't remember the story? I don't mean now (close to when I first learned it), but after a while of reviewing.

Today I was reading someone's blog, and they said that when you've been reviewing your kanji long enough, you eventually won't even remember the mnemonic story anymore, you'll just directly recognize the Kanji.

What's your experience regarding remembering the kanji vs remembering the story for it?

My main question is: will I be forever relying on the story when I learn Kanji this way (which would mean I'd better try to form concrete visuals in my head) or can I go ahead and use sayings, phrases, a particular word order, to learn it?

Also, I'd love to hear about the pace at which everyone is learning kanji, or how long it takes for you to learn a certain amount of them.

I am finding that kanji I learned images for are sticking much better than ones I used silly wordplay for.
Eventually the story does go away, but don't worry about that bit; it should come naturally.

Personally, I think it is best to make stories that can be visualized. This is not always easy, especially where a primative is abstract. To get around this, I try to associate the abstract primitive with a concrete image that can appear in my stories. For example, for "state of mind," I've been using the Dali Lama has my image because I associate him with achieving certain spiritual states of mind. I adopted someone else's idea of using the image of Socrates for "words", etc.

Still, the mind is a strange thing, and sometimes the most absurd story, even one that has little imagery, can just stick. If something works in a particular case, I don't fight it.

As howdycowdy says, if a story sticks, it sticks - I wouldn't worry too much about how it's constructed unless you actually find yourself forgetting it.

In terms of puns, I think they have their uses, especially for differentiating conceptually similar keywords. I always try to have a visual story that illustrates the concept behind a keyword, but often for keywords with vague or similar meanings I'll incorporate a pun or play on words in addition. If English puns don't work for you, feel free to try coming up with some in Finnish!

You definitely won't be relying on the stories to remember kanji forever. In fact, outside of RTK reviews, I don't really consciously use the stories unless I have to. The eventual goal is to link a concept, or a related set of words, in Japanese to each kanji. RTK will give you a "hook" to associate these words with while you're learning them, but over time, as you become more and more familiar with the kanji, the bridge between the words and symbols will become more and more direct.

That said, I still remember all the stories for kanji that have become second nature in that way. While I rarely have to think of them while reading, the stories help enormously when writing - I often have a vague mental picture of what a kanji looks like, but have to resort to the story in order to remember the exact primitives and arrangement. Maybe this is just because I spend a lot more time reading than writing.

I for one am not a native English speaker myself but I do not let the many words unknown to me in Remembering the Kanji put me off. In fact, there is no reason to do so since it seems many of the words unknown to me are also unknown to most native speakers, or so it seems, judging from the reactions on some keywords on these forums

Apart from that, try getting both a good story and a good visual image down. Just to be on the safe side.

I think that the fact that English is not my native language is helping with RTK.

At the moment (because I'm very much busy with RTK) when I hear certain words I'll think of the story or at times even kanji that goes with the keyword. It would most likely get annoying if I had used Dutch for RTK. But that's not really the point, I'm even learning a few new English words which isn't a bad thing.

With certain words it's probably a bit harder to make the distinction between similar keywords because it's in English. But once again, what this does is just increase my understanding of English.

I can understand how it would be a problem when your English isn't at a certain level, though.

More on topic, when I started RTK I had a real problem with the visual part of it - I tend to be a very non-visual thinker. My thoughts were 99 % just words before I started RTK. Now the stories *and* visuals are becoming easier to create, and on top of that it's easier to remember other visual-related things like... Ehm where I last saw a CD or game that I'm looking for Or where I left my shoes hehe. So it's helping me with other things as well!

In my experience, word play should be avoided. I used it a lot and when I tried to write in Japanese it slowed me down. Imagery is language neutral and can be recalled much more easily when you're thinking in Japanese.

There is no Finnish translation of the book that I'm aware of. I have tried to change the keywords in to Finnish ones but in my experience it only adds another unnecessary twist to the plot, not to mention the huge extra effort when you try to find a fitting one!. If I come across an English keyword that I don't know, I just check it up and continue with one new English word in my vocabulary. It doesn't really differ so much from trying to figure out things like what the heck is a "Pawlownia" anyway so if your English is good enough that you feel conffident tackling the book, I dont really see any sense in substituding the non-japanese keywords with other non-japanese keywords..

My experiense with the images and wordplays is that there are appropriate times for both although the images most of the time are better. Which ever you choose, the order is an important thing. Othervise you will start getting the primitives in wrong places.

The story I use for the gall bladders has always been simpy: "always remember to get rid of the bad gal before the daybreak" and I have never had any trouble with the character because somehow I have associated the "bad gal" corrupting you (or your "flesh") otherwise.

So even a bad wordplay or story will propably work marvelously if there is some deeper thought or concept behind it and its all connected but just trying to make a quick wordplay on the spot and going on wont get you anywhere. If possible always try to connect it to your thinking, values, and experiences. It is not always easy but those stories stick the best.

Personally I use word-based stories a lot. Even the ones which aren't puns I remember as a story told in words, not images. But that's because the way my brain works is very strongly verbal. My guess from reading Heisig's introduction is that he tended to think a lot more in terms of images. People vary a lot in this, so I think you should just go with whatever seems to work, whatever kind of memory your brain is best at.

Hmm, I see I never made my gall-bladder story public (goes back and ticks box). Wikipedia says it's the *part of the body* which stores gall until you need it to digest fatty foods; say, at *nightbreak* (after a fatty full English breakfast). That's not a pun-based story, but it's not exactly an image, either. But it seems to have stuck for me, perhaps simply because I went to the effort of going and looking up the gall bladder to find out what it actually did...

tokyostyle Wrote:RTK has been translated into many languages.

It's not that many, only three: French, German and Spanish.

Plus; notice how all three are closely related with English.

I really don't know what would become of an attempt to translate it to a completely unrelated language. I bet they had a hard time just with those versions!

[ファブリス]

Depends what kind of wordplay you mean.

There is one kind of word-play where you manipulate the keyword so that it sounds like something else easier to remember, which could have a completely different meaning. I would use that as last resort, I have often found those mnemonics to take longer to recall as the route to the character's meaning is indirect. As I was trying to recall the first meaning that came to mind was not the one for the character, which makes the process of trying to recall compounds you've learned recently more difficult.

But if you mean word-play as in arranging your story in a way that's more like a mnemonic than a story, using sound similarities etc. That can be very helpful. Some people remember very well with short phrases and say they don't use images (some people also have a good memory of sounds, or smells, or colors, .. whichever "imagined" sense works well they can help you remember too).

Most of the time I tend to use catchphrases or some play on words to remember certain Kanji. This doesn't make a difference really.

The whole "must use an image" point is a bit shallow anyway. If it sticks, it sticks and that's what really matters. Although I'm not yet finished with RtK1, I don't use complete images or stories or whatever for reviewing Kanji. Some compounds just come by heart now - even more so, if I already met them out of the strict Heisig context, means in written form in a real text or something like that.

In the end it comes down to this: Use stories, puns or images as long as you need them. I'm pretty fast in neglecting that kind of mnemonic, if I don't need it any longer. If I know the Kanji the instant I see the keyword, I won't try to recall the story again, just for the sake of doing so. At least I'm not letting it slow me down in the long run and if I know a Kanji without having to focus on the image before recalling, it's faster and therefore better that way.

If it's any consolation to anyone, I'm a native English speaker and I find myself having to look up quite a few of the key words

I use a fair combination of both wordplay and images... it just depends on the keyword/kanji.

howdycowdy Wrote:For example, for "state of mind," I've been using the Dali Lama has my image because I associate him with achieving certain spiritual states of mind. I adopted someone else's idea of using the image of Socrates for "words", etc.

Ooo, personalizing a character! That's a good idea, I will surely take advantage of it. I am reminded now, that someone (maybe it was Heisig in his book) used the Addams Family as a "mascot" for (I think) graveyard.

shaydwyrm Wrote:You definitely won't be relying on the stories to remember kanji forever. In fact, outside of RTK reviews, I don't really consciously use the stories unless I have to. The eventual goal is to link a concept, or a related set of words, in Japanese to each kanji.

Hah, phew! I might mention here that yesterday, for the first time, I remembered a few kanji without recalling the story for them.

tokyostyle Wrote:

NooNoo Wrote:English is not my first language (it's Finnish), so I'm afraid that I'll forget the meaning of the Kanji if I forget the actual story.

RTK has been translated into many languages. It seems like it would work the best if it was in your native language. You will probably have better luck if you follow the same system, but use the meaning of the kanji and the English key word as a guide to chose an appropriate keyword in Finnish.

Otherwise you are trying to learn several things at once, in this case English vocabulary and kanji, which is the exact thing that RTK is trying to prevent.

I did think about translating words into Finnish to remember their concept better, but so far I've ended up doing it only with a couple of words was unfamiliar with (among them, 'decameron' which I would have thought was a movie or something. But when I deal with English, I also think in English for the most part, so there's no constant translating going on anyway.

I don't think a problem really arises from having to <i>learn</i> new English vocabulary. I'd venture to guess that I know around as many words as an average native English speaker.

But that is only for the most part, and with those more unfamiliar words (for the time that they actually are unfamiliar which, wouldn't be long, of course , I guess it'll make the recognizing of a kanji a little slower because of the translating (Kanji->English->Finnish or whatever), but I suppose that's something that'll always get quicker as I learn the English word.

roderik Wrote:I for one am not a native English speaker myself but I do not let the many words unknown to me in Remembering the Kanji put me off. In fact, there is no reason to do so since it seems many of the words unknown to me are also unknown to most native speakers, or so it seems, judging from the reactions on some keywords on these forums

Apart from that, try getting both a good story and a good visual image down. Just to be on the safe side.

Haha, yes, "Decameron, whut?!" That wasn't even in my Eng-Jap dictionary!

And definitely, good story and visual. Since writing this topic in the forum a few days ago, I've started drawing the story as well, which definitely is helping me also. I recommend it to any visual learner types!

Savara Wrote:I think that the fact that English is not my native language is helping with RTK.

At the moment (because I'm very much busy with RTK) when I hear certain words I'll think of the story or at times even kanji that goes with the keyword. It would most likely get annoying if I had used Dutch for RTK. But that's not really the point, I'm even learning a few new English words which isn't a bad thing.

With certain words it's probably a bit harder to make the distinction between similar keywords because it's in English. But once again, what this does is just increase my understanding of English.

I can understand how it would be a problem when your English isn't at a certain level, though.

Yes, now that I've thought about it more, I think I was worried over nothing, when wondering whether doing this in English would hinder the learning. I think my English vocab is more than sufficient.

Quote:More on topic, when I started RTK I had a real problem with the visual part of it - I tend to be a very non-visual thinker. My thoughts were 99 % just words before I started RTK. Now the stories *and* visuals are becoming easier to create, and on top of that it's easier to remember other visual-related things like... Ehm where I last saw a CD or game that I'm looking for Or where I left my shoes hehe. So it's helping me with other things as well!

Now that is interesting! I saw someone say on these forums (maybe it was you, heh) that they have a theory that RtK helps with increasing visual intelligence (one aspect of "the theory of multiple intelligences" or something). That aside, I think doing this can teach you a lot about your brain. I'm trying to do RtK as fast as possible, so I'm guessing I'll be figuring out how much information I can retain, and what kind of information I can retain better when learning kanji (puns, stories, visuals, whatever). The mind is a magnificent thing! heh

For some characters like, 旬 for example, I don't often even bother to study the background of the keyword. Decameron --> ten days and that's it.

This technique truly is wonderful. Due to a killer scedule in school I forgot the whole kanji study for almost half a year and got back just now. Before stopping I hadn't added new cards for weeks but still kept reviewing and I had about 700 cards in my last stacks when I stopped reviewing altogether. Now couple of days ago I cleared all the stacks and added the cards back to the first one. I still rememberd about 80% of them after all this time and with little bit of study of the cards that I had forgotten, I'm now back on track right where I left!
Well.. Now I had 200+ cards expiring today but they all are the ones that I already know by heart so it's just a little nuisance and they will be in the last stacks soon enough.

I definitely have noticed considerable improvement in my "visual memory". Unlike when I was just starting out, I don't anymore need to slowly go through the whole story for a given kanji before I can write it down. Even most of the characters I added yesterday come in a flash so I guess it's a matter of just getting used to them..

An awesome method and an awesome site!