Maybe I'm not the first to make this discovery, but I didn't find any trace of in on those forums. I've noticed that, when you've finished RTK1, you have learned 2043 kanji, not 2042 ! There's a hidden kanji in RTK1.

This kanji is 戌 (sign of the dog). It is described as the "march" primitive in page 141 of the 5th edition, and said to mean "sign of the dog" in a little note on the bottom of page 404, but has no Heisig index at all, not even, apparently, in RTK3. I wonder whether it is just something Mr. Heisig overlooked, or whether it is intentional. I also wonder whether there are other super-secret hidden kanji in the book :-)

I have the impression that there are many more!

Good find!

mentat_kgs Wrote:I have the impression that there are many more!

I think there are at least some primitives that he doesn't say are kanji but can be.

Aye, in fact, in RTK3 he gives quite a few kanji that were primitives in RTK1.

I just recently found out that 彳 is actually a kanji!

たたず・む【?佇む／?彳む】
「たたずむ」を大辞林でも検索する

［動マ五（四）］

１ しばらく立ち止まっている。じっとその場所にいる。「花の下に―・む」

２ そのあたりをうろつく。

Yeah, a lot of primitives also exist as kanji, albeit obscure ones. It's useful to read the beginning of RTK3 (frames 2090 to 2105), and look up the kanji using jisho.org or the IME Pad to find alternative ?real? meanings for primitives that aren't clicking for you.

(eg. ?dog tag? had no resonance for me at all, I wish I'd just learned it as ?offspring?.)

Don't forget 卜, our little divining rod, which was mentioned in the book to be a rare kanji but not given a number.

- Kef

wow, that is pretty cool, did not know that! thanks for pointing those out!

There are dozens of kanji from RTK3 that are primitives or can be used as building blocks in RTK1. 尤采或也尭巴疋曼巾云卜喬莫 are just a few around frame #2100

there are crap loads more "sign of the --"
壬 = 9th sign of the Chinese calender;
and is used in 妊, coincidence much?

If you look up every single character in an edict, (both Chinese and Japanese, and an etymology edict like Henshall) there are so many other 'hidden meanings' that Heisig most likely overlooked since there are way too many crappy keywords.

Hahaha that's an interesting Chinese coincidence!

There's also some stuff like 斬　and 扁, which I find good for stories. Kanji used as components in other kanji, but they aren't recognized in RTK.

A lot of people have pointed out these "hidden kanji" in their stories. It's helped me quite a bit since I might otherwise have not realized this. I try to use them in my stories if I can, so that when I eventually get to them in RTK3, I'll already know them.

Two that come to mind are:

酋 - chieftain (2906) It's first encountered in furthermore/waver 猶 (1438). I was able to use it in my story. Even though #2909 is far away in RTK3 land, why not learn that kanji now as long as you're learning it as a primitive?

卯 - sign of the hare (2041 - okay, technically in RTK1, but I've not gotten there yet.) It's first encountered in willow 柳 (1421). Now that I've learned it, hopefully, #2041 will be easy.

[Katsuo]

@Murjab. I made a list of potentially useful things like that in this thread. But I missed "chieftain" (I've now added it, thanks).

Whoa, that's an awesome list. That's gonna help a bunch! Thanks!

That is a wonderful list Katsuo. It would be nice if those just starting out out on frame #1 could see that list somehow plus those kanji in RTK3 that are primitives from RTK1 so they could create stories for them first.

Murjab Wrote:酋 - chieftain (2906) It's first encountered in furthermore/waver 猶 (1438). I was able to use it in my story. Even though #2909 is far away in RTK3 land, why not learn that kanji now as long as you're learning it as a primitive?

Are you sure these are the same? 猶 has horns, while 酋 has the top part of 分 or 谷.

Although if Katsuo says they're the same...I'm much less experienced at 漢字 and thus can not recognize variants very well.