I have been interested in Japanese language and culture for a long time now and finally decided to get serious. I soon got sent to AJATT site and then onto the Heisig "Remebering The Kanji" book. I have a few questions though and it would be really good if someone in the community here could answer them to the best of their knowledge, they may seem simple to you but I find them confusing.

1) I can work with RTK and can memorise the Kanji themselves but I feel this isn't helping because I cannot physically hear them. How will I know what is being said in if I can only recognise the kanji when I see them? For example when AJATT recommends I listen to anime or dubbed movie how will I understand what is being said? I cannot associate what I am hearing with my knowledge of kanji/kana because I do not know the sounds they make. This leads onto my next question:

2) Are kanji used in combination with the kana in writing and speaking in japanese? For example if I pick up a manga or anime will it be in kana alone, kanji or both?

3)When I finish reviewing a portion of Heisig's book do I immediately review these in my Anki tool straight after I have read the kanji?

4) Last question - How do I input the kanji and kana into the compter? Is there a plugin for japanese characters, is it easier to buy a japanese keyboard?

Also, any other tips would be appreciated! I know these questions may seem silly and I quite could possibly be completely wrong with some of these things but I feel the community here to the best to answer them and help me out. Be nice please I am still a newbie with this! Thanks

1) http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1864

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji

3) Whatever feels best to you

4) http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/...fault.mspx

I want to assure you I'm not trying to seem like an ass by just posting a bunch of links, it's just that all the information is in those links, so there's not much else I need to say unless you have follow-up questions. Good luck!

Thanks for the fast response, I don't mean any offence but other people ideas are welcome too. Those links were very helpful , apart from question 1. I don't feel the thread answers my question. I understand the reasoning behind RTK but I am still stumped as to how you know the sounds the kanji make? If that makes sense

Artem Wrote:I understand the reasoning behind RTK but I am still stumped as to how you know the sounds the kanji make? If that makes sense

Learning the (English)meaning, writing, and how to say/read/sound kanji turns your brain into mush and leads to major frustration and giving up on kanji(This is what happened to me before I found RTK 1).

It's better to focus on writing and meaning first. Then you can make an educated guess eventually when you encounter compounds.

As for listening to anime, that's to get use to the sounds of Japanese and eventually words, etc.

Take it one step at a time.

Artem Wrote:I understand the reasoning behind RTK but I am still stumped as to how you know the sounds the kanji make? If that makes sense

The answer is simple. You don't learn the sound the Kanji makes using Heisig. You first learn how to recognize and write all the characters and then once you've done that you start building your actual spoken vocabulary by learning Kanji compounds. Being able to recognize the individual Kanji of a compound, instead of just looking at each compound as a random string of squiggly lines, is what allows you to remember them.

Most people on this site aren't really concerned with learning the sounds of the individual Kanji because that is not how they are used. Most are in agreement that it is much more valuable to learn them in the context of the actual whole words (aka compounds) they are used in.

For example the Kanji for SUN and the Kanji for BOOK/ORIGIN make the word "Nihon", which is the Japanese word for Japan (land of the rising sun, aka the "sun's origin"). Now you could have tried to learn it by knowing the individual sound for the sun Kanji and the book/origin Kanji and then combining them but since Kanji are used as compounds most people simply elect to learn the compound and the entire word together.

Hope that makes some sense.

Yes thank you for explaining it, this clears everything up for me. So what is the next step after learning the general kanji? When is it necessary to learn the sounds of the kanji if ever? What methods do you use to associate the sounds with the kanji/kana when you reach that level?

@active - You mention the Kanji for SUN and the Kanji for BOOK/ORIGIN make the word "Nihon". At what stage do I learn the romanised letters for the kanji so I actually know what is being said. From your post what I think your saying is that you recognise the kanji in groups/compounds then attempt to understand them depending on the context that they are in?

By the way, there are actually several reasons why you are not learning the sound at the same time, but perhaps the most convincing is, for one Kanji, there are usually many sounds in Japanese. In Mandarin (Chinese), there is one sound per character.

In Japanese, the different sounds are categorized as Kunyomi and Onyomi. Onyomi is usually based on the original Chinese reading. There are various methodologies to learn the readings, including Heisig's 2nd volume. Their degree of effectiveness depend on how organized Japanese reading is, compared to how chaotic it is.

I tend to lean toward believing that Japanese reading is more chaotic, than it is organized, so after RevTK, I decided NOT to learn the readings methodically. Like many people, you may be rather burnt out after finishing RevTK - you may want to really learn Japanese. If you decide to do RevTK, I suggest that, while studying, you search the forums in this website - there are many threads discussing how you can learn reading.

Also one warning: to finish RevTK takes a lot of effort and persistence. If you work really hard (several hours a day), you may finish in 2-3 months. I still review about an hour a day, a couple months after finishing. It is hard, but it is probably the most efficient way to learn all the Kanji.

I learn many readings through textbooks and through reading actual magazines and books (looking them up in a dictionary). So I don't use a system: I learn through experience.

Good luck.

It's necessary to learn the sound of the kanji to read. So the 'when' is 'when you want to be able to read'. The idea behind this specific methodology is that any dictionary will tell you the word 日本 is read にほん (nihon) and that the に is from the 日 and the ほん is from the 本. So now you know (one of) the reading(s) of 日 and (one of the) reading(s) of 本, as well as the word 日本. You theoretically keep learning this way until you know 'everything'. This particular methodology also usually disregards using any sort of mnemonic or similar to learn the readings, and instead focuses on simply remembering them by their roles in the various words they're used in.

As for the question about learning romanized letters... you need to learn to represent Japanese words in a sound system other than the kanji, but while that will likely involve exposure to romanized forms, more important is to learn the kana as they're the native script and more useful for the task. No one (no one) and nothing (nothing) serious about Japanese will use romaji. The kana are very easy to learn, so, learn them. There are books, but they're easy enough to learn to recognize after a few days of flashcarding on any number of sites online. Some wait until they're finished with all of Heisig, others learn them concurrently and use them and whatever kanji they pick up to do other studies on the side. Either way, you should learn them before you attempt to do any real reading in Japanese, as 'good romaji resources' is an oxymoron. (Some will disagree!)

Good luck!

I am very anti-romaji for learning Japanese - unless you are very careful, there is a high probability you may pick up bad pronunciation habits.

Instead, you should learn hiragana and katakana before you start to learn readings. There is, however, one important use for romaji - typing on the computer is easier using romaji, if you already know how to type in English.

ok so I should proceed at the moment with Heisig then once that is finished I should start kana and finally onto pronunciation and readings? Thanks for the advice guys/gals its very helpful and reassuring knowing your doing a method that works

I'm going to be shot down by everyone here completely, but since you are a complete beginner to this my advice would be a bit different:

1) Learn the Kana first and get a text book that uses it
2) Do Pimsleur or another listening based course

Millions of people have at one point thought "I know, I want to learn Japanese" then ended up giving up early due to how much time it takes. I'd suggest that at the very beginning you should spend a bit more time studying the language itself to see if you actually enjoy it, and if you really believe you want to continue.

Heisig takes a lot of time, and is completely useless in the beginning. Its not uncommon for people to start out with Heisig, and get despondent months in when they realise they still cannot communicate in any Japanese (I appreciate these people may have given up anyway, but it doesnt help)

IF you have the basics down, understand how the characters are put together and still enjoy the language as it is - then I definitely wouldnt advise you against trying out Heisig if thats the method you choose.

Good luck either way

That would be a reasonable approach (what Artem posted) - you can learn Kana while doing RevTK if you burn out on Kanji.

I know nothing about Pimsleur, so I won't say anything about it.
However, what NightSky has posted here is also very reasonable:

NightSky Wrote:Millions of people have at one point thought "I know, I want to learn Japanese" then ended up giving up early due to how much time it takes. I'd suggest that at the very beginning you should spend a bit more time studying the language itself to see if you actually enjoy it, and if you really believe you want to continue.

Japanese is not an easy language to learn, whatever you choose to do to streamline your studies.

While you are cranking RevTK, you can read these forums for ideas on what to do when you are done: there are a ton of great ideas buried in these forums. Some people go to AJATT (All Japanese All The Time), others go after JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Tests), etc... Look around for ideas and do what fits best for you. Good luck!

Agreed. If you're absolutely sure you want to learn Japanese to fluency, then I'm positive doing Heisig up front is the most efficient and overall easiest way. The problem is it requires a big up front investment with no payoff for a long time if you don't know any Japanese already. Even though it's probably less efficient overall you should really learn the basics of the language first to be sure you really want to take it up. Also learn the kana so you can pick up a manga every so often to motivate yourself. Learning kana after kanji is one of only two things on that website I think are totally stupid.

I don't think you should use Pimsleur at all. It might be a quick introduction into Japanese, but it isn't a good course and it isn't how you're going to study it later anyway so there's nothing to gain from gettnig used to Pimsleurs easy and repetive way of learning Japanese.

1. Learn hiragana and katakana.
2. Go to thejapanesepage.com and try their basic lessons.
3. Go to guidetojapanese.com and do some of the basic grammar lessons there.

Once you've done that, you will have a good idea how Japanese works in a very basic sense and you will see the grammar you will have to study IF you want to actively study grammar, some people do not. You will know whether Japanese is something for you or not. If it is, finish RtK then continue your studies. If not, give up so you don't waste precious time.

I also agree pretty much with what others are saying.

1. You're listening to Japanese to get used to listening to Japanese. It sounds odd and ass backwards, but it seems to work (there's a thread on this). The reason he says watch dubbed shows that you liked in English is that you have an enjoyment factor to go with hearing the Japanese.

2. If you want to learn some Japanese while you are studying, there's Pimleur, Japanese Pod 101, and Guide to Japanese. I recommend going with the audio (Pimslear and or Japanese Pod 101) as you don't have to worry too much about the written language. The side effect is it might make listening to real Japanese more enjoyable.

There's no hard and fast rule here. Many of us will offer different advice. You're going to have to find out which will work for you. Then, don't be afraid to change it up if it's not working.

Example: During RTK, you learn kana. You learn to type kana on your English keyboard using a IME. Also during this time you try out Pimsleur or Jpod101.

After RTK, you continue doing reviews. Now you want to put these kanji to use. Look at GuidetoJapanese.org and gather the example sentences (available on this forum somewhere as a download). Use those in the AJATT sentence method as your 'review' of what you learn from Tae Kim. Since the words are repetetive, it makes it easier to concentrate on the grammar being taught.

After Grammar, move onto learning basic vocabulary. iKnow is a good site for this, as are the KO2001 books.

Each of these steps have more detailed advice to get the most out of it. Again, people will offer different advice and you find what works for you.

Sorry that we're not able to provide a definite blue print. Truth is, there's no one right way to learn Japanese. There does seem to be a lot of bad ways, and most of those involve paying a lot of money. Advice though is here and other forums from people at all steps of learning Japanese.

I think what I'm about to say is probably a terrible suggestion, but I've been thinking it would be really cool to go straight from RTK to literary Chinese because it is not pronounced aloud, has simple grammar compared to any modern Asian language, and was a big part of Japanese until the twentieth century. Plus you can get a literary Chinese textbook in English with the kanji readings in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, so it really wouldn't matter where you started with the characters or where you are planning to go with them. . . . maybe. I haven't tried this, and I don't know anyone who has. Plus it wouldn't help with anime.

I think you're taking a great step starting with RTK, and you're getting great advice from everyone else. Maybe you could try turning on Japanese subtitles with the anime or movies.

I came to RTK after having already studied Japanese for a long time, so my experience of the site and book is different. I did RTK because I could recognize a lot of characters, but I couldn't write them. I'm not quite done with the first book yet, but I'm already reading much more quickly and accurately. I think this will save you a lot of work and time in the long run.

KristinHolly, you should start a new thread for this, but what you are talking about is essentially Remembering Simplified Hanzi and Remembering Traditional Hanzi. If you already did RTK, you already have a leg-up, because there is a lot of overlap between RTK and RSH/RTH.

I think you can make a lot of progress real fast if you go from RTK to RSH/RTH. The biggest challenge will be pronunciation and picking up compounds. As for going directly from RTK to reading a text in Traditional Kanji without regard to pronunciation, you will be able to recognize compounds here and there, and perhaps even guess the gist of an article or a page from a book. Pretty much like the way Japanese can guess the meaning of Chinese newspapers.

No, actually, I mean classical Chinese grammar. Confucius, not the newspaper. This is what makes it such a bad idea. But, you wouldn't need to study the traditional characters separately. Edit: The thing is I've already taken two years of literary Chinese. The characters made it hard, but the grammar itself is relatively easy. For someone who'd already gone through RTK3, it would probably be simple.

Why don't you try and see?

My guess is, it's not as simple as you think - it may appear easy (or easier) because you have already taken some classes.

Take a look at this and see how much you understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lette...an1266.jpg

Edit: Chinese grammar does seem extremely simple (almost non-existent) compared to Japanese grammar

Chinese grammar is indeed simple. Not simply because there's a big lack of conjugation etc, but also because the sentence structure is so similar to English. From what I hear, as long as you know chinese words and some basics, you can make your own sentences very easily by taking English sentences and putting Chinese words to em.

Ok I will proceed with Heisig and I am not completely sure about readings still. When I learn kana do I learn the sounds with them? If not how will I pick a up a simple japanese picture book for example and be able to understand the sentences, I might only recognise the characters and therefore will not be able to get a idea of the context.

I think it also migh help if I also enrol in some casual japanese classes to gain some knowledge on the the language itself and some thoery behind it. I think it will also help with my dilemma of the sounds and my confusion

P.S. Newbie question what is RevTK again?

Artem Wrote:Ok I will proceed with Heisig and I am not completely sure about readings still. When I learn kana do I learn the sounds with them? If not how will I pick a up a simple japanese picture book for example and be able to understand the sentences, I might only recognise the characters and therefore will not be able to get a idea of the context.

I think it also migh help if I also enrol in some casual japanese classes to gain some knowledge on the the language itself and some thoery behind it. I think it will also help with my dilemma of the sounds and my confusion

P.S. Newbie question what is RevTK again?

Learning kana, with pronounciations, takes 2 weeks at most. There's no reason (and would be no use) to learn parts of the system at a time.

Just a quick explanation.

Heisig is interesting and useful if you want to quickly gain mastery over all the kanji. Then you can progress to learning how to read and write. If you try reading without Heisig, all the kanji look the same. The difference between even 梅 and 海 start to be meaningless if you don't have grounding. I tried to just learn how to recognize kanji, but that's where it breaks down.

That being said - you can learn how to speak without learning reading and writing, but it stops you from a lot. I know a bunch of people who can speak quite well but can't read kanji at all.

My recommendation - do RTK. Also learn katakana and hiragana just by rote memorization. You can do this while you're doing Heisig. It's just not that many characters. I also recommend Pimsleur - gives you a good idea of speed and pronunciation at the beginning. You'll also start to get some positive feedback, as opposed to waiting until you know 2000 kanji before starting. That's plenty to keep you busy.

I probably should wait 'til I finish RTK to continue Japanese study, but I already know a bit and it's too frustrating to wait however many months it will take me, so I do both. I'm at about 600.

haplology Wrote:I probably should wait 'til I finish RTK to continue Japanese study, but I already know a bit and it's too frustrating to wait however many months it will take me, so I do both. I'm at about 600.

Take the energy you put into japanese studies on the side and put it into RtK instead and you'll be done in a month or two. 50 new kanji a day really isn't a big deal.

Artem Wrote:I think it also migh help if I also enrol in some casual japanese classes to gain some knowledge on the the language itself and some thoery behind it. I think it will also help with my dilemma of the sounds and my confusion

Here you go you can try out some Pronunciations here http://www.thejapanesepage.com/beginners/hiragana

Just realised they say on that site that you can learn the Hiragana in 2-3 weeks! I'm sure many people here including myself would agree you can learn all the Kana in under a week 2 weeks most without much effort although i'll stop here as im sure this has been mentioned 100s of times