What do you think of my method: primarily, I use Heisig in German, but recently Ive started checking an online dictionary (http://www.docoja.com) and see if I find a difference in meaning, since I dont want to learn wrong keywords for a kanji, and the other meanings might help me. Additionally, I might check the English keywords here. I think its easier when you have more than one option for Kanjis that are hard for you to learn, maybe because they are too abstract, and besides, I suspect the translations of Heisig to be a bit inaccurate sometimes.
Maybe this isnt new to you at all, but anyway =)

Nah, Heisig sorta depends on the keywords he picked later so I didn't dare to mess it up. I do however add additional Japanese keywords for keywords I might mix up. I wouldn't worry about Heisig picking the wrong keyword, he pretty much founded the idea of English keywords for the kanji, his words are included in kanjidic etc. I don't know about the translated versions though.

hm, I just came to Nr: 349, f.e.: tune (same in ger) - my dictionary says: ordnen, mildern, Lied, Melodie. I see why he didnt take "song" or "order", they come later, but isnt this a change of meaning to say "tune" or is my dictionary just too small to have all meanings? Besides, Im concerned if Im only learning unimportant meanings of kanji, instead of learning the most common ones. Maybe its all silly, but I cant help but doubt since some ppl in their stories seem to misinterpret as well, or warn of only using Heisig.

Tobberoth Wrote:Nah, Heisig sorta depends on the keywords he picked later so I didn't dare to mess it up.

I've changed a lot of keywords. No problems so far.
I'm currently at frame 2300 (RTK3).

I see a lot of people saying that many keywords don't match their relative kanji. I am using modified, PDA versions of EDICT and KANJIDIC dictionaries to check the majority of the kanji meanings and their common uses (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/j_edict.html). Both the dictionaries are based on Jim Breen's stuff, so they should be accurate.

In terms of raw kanji meanings, I find that about 99% of the keywords match the first meaning, in case of multiple meaning most are first and second meanings. In terms of meaning, (not-raw kanji meanings) some use keywords that do not show up in common usage. For those I try to incorporate the more common meanings into my stories. I do this for abstract and difficult words as well.

for example, frame 878 - junior:
the junior #disciple# #gang# member is always GOING RUNNING

I think I might have mentioned this before, but I just do whatever it takes to learn the things.

If Heisig's keyword doesn't work for me, I'll substitute another one, whether it's because it's a word I don't understand, it's too similar to another one, or I just can't find a memorable story for Heisig's keyword. If I'm having trouble, I'll look up the kanji in a dictionary and try to find a different word for which I can come up with a story.

My goal is to learn the kanji, not to learn Heisig's keywords. They're just a means to an end.

[Katsuo]

oregum Wrote:In terms of raw kanji meanings, I find that about 99% of the keywords match the first meaning

You can see why this is so by reading the history of KANJIDIC

(Jim Breen, author of KANJIDIC) Wrote:The first file was compiled initially from the file "kinfo.dat" supplied by Stephen Chung, who in turn compiled his file from a file prepared by Mike Erickson. I originally added about 1900 "meanings" by James Heisig keyed in by Kevin Moore from the book "Remembering The Kanji". I later added the meanings from Rik Smoody's files, compiled when he was working for Sony in Japan. These appear to have been based on Nelson.

I don't know, I've completed RtK1 and only ONCE have I found reason to change the keywords: Heisig messed up village and town, they should be exchanged. Other than that, I consider them right on the spot.

Raichu Wrote:My goal is to learn the kanji, not to learn Heisig's keywords. They're just a means to an end.

Personally, I view them as a bit of an end in and of themselves. RTK1 doesn't teach you the readings of the kanji, only the keywords and how to write them, so you're not going to be able to fluently read Japanese after you're done with it; you're still going to have to look up kanji and compounds often to determine their reading and meaning. The Heisig keywords greatly facilitate this process, since you can search a dictionary by keyword rather than radical search or handwriting recognition.

You'll probably run into more compounds than single-kanji words anyway, so some lookup will be required. And for determining the meaning of single-kanji words, what better way to do it than to recall the Heisig keyword?

Captain_Thunder Wrote:

Raichu Wrote:My goal is to learn the kanji, not to learn Heisig's keywords. They're just a means to an end.

Personally, I view them as a bit of an end in and of themselves. RTK1 doesn't teach you the readings of the kanji, only the keywords and how to write them, so you're not going to be able to fluently read Japanese after you're done with it; you're still going to have to look up kanji and compounds often to determine their reading and meaning. The Heisig keywords greatly facilitate this process, since you can search a dictionary by keyword rather than radical search or handwriting recognition.

You'll probably run into more compounds than single-kanji words anyway, so some lookup will be required. And for determining the meaning of single-kanji words, what better way to do it than to recall the Heisig keyword?

Very true, there is a period after RtK1 where you're connecting kanji to japanese words and during this the keywords help a LOT when looking things up. How long this period is depends of course on how much Japanese you knew before you started with RtK... but it will certainly take a while.

Tobberoth Wrote:I don't know, I've completed RtK1 and only ONCE have I found reason to change the keywords: Heisig messed up village and town, they should be exchanged. Other than that, I consider them right on the spot.

Whoa. I've been so engrossed in keywords, I can't believe I missed that one. Even though I knew 町 is town, I must have associated 田 with village. I was thinking, rural 田舎（いなか）.

Katsuo Wrote:

(Jim Breen, author of KANJIDIC) Wrote:I originally added about 1900 "meanings" by James Heisig keyed in by Kevin Moore from the book "Remembering The Kanji".

Small world. Kevin and I went through RTK together.

So Jim Breen is the one responsible for Heisig's keywords in Kanjidic. That's one of the reasons I avoid relying on Kanjidic, since it doesn't tell you whether or not the keyword is a real meaning or an artificial one assigned by Heisig.

Raichu Wrote:

Katsuo Wrote:

(Jim Breen, author of KANJIDIC) Wrote:I originally added about 1900 "meanings" by James Heisig keyed in by Kevin Moore from the book "Remembering The Kanji".

Small world. Kevin and I went through RTK together.

So Jim Breen is the one responsible for Heisig's keywords in Kanjidic. That's one of the reasons I avoid relying on Kanjidic, since it doesn't tell you whether or not the keyword is a real meaning or an artificial one assigned by Heisig.

What do you mean by "real" meaning? There are no meanings more real than Heisigs ones. All you can do is check the words the kanji is used in and deduct a meaning, there's no official standard what a kanji means.

Yes many kanji don't have a specific sense, but I'd say more do than don't. Some have more than one (like 本). I know I have been annoyed more than once at kanjidic for giving me some sense for a kanji that later turned out to be spurious meaning assigned by Heisig.

I think kanjidic should have had a separate field for the RTK keyword, even if it's a repeat of the kanji's meaning.

I've gotten pretty sick of this confusion. Well over half of my failed cards older than two reviews are caused by synonymous keywords. I just got department wrong for the fifth/sixth time because I think of bureau's kanji! (The FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation is the governmental department in charge of federal crimes...　Also my EX-word shows 局 as きょく a bureau; a department) I'm sure if I could get them together at the same time I could put a bunch of extra effort into crafting stories that distinguish between all the different kinds of similar keywords... but I'm much to lazy for that!

Yesterday I installed GreaseMonkey and the keyword replacement script. Now I've started editing any confusing keywords as they come up. I leave the actual keyword, but after it I add something distinguishing in parentheses - either a common reading in hiragana, or "not whatever" where whatever is the word I get this keyword confused with (e.g. not bureau).

I haven't had time to see how effective this is (or if it even shows up in reviews), but I thought I would post it anyway. I can't see how adding disambiguating information could harm the learning process (you still need to remember the kanji, their story and how they are put together). Also adding readings you already know not only disambiguate, adding them also starts the transition to real Japanese without sacrificing English keywords (there have been a number of words I already knew, but that I only discovered the kanji while going through Heisig: 懐かしい).

With keywords that are very close in meaning I've started making stories with both keywords in them, close to their primitives. Example: excel / excellent: Mr. T was garlanded with ivy because of his excellent performance in the wheat-hauling competition. He excelled at hauling wheat in his fist.

I feel as though a large part of my time in Heisig was spent on creating ways to distinguish similar keywords. I wonder if that is justified; if RTK is meant to give you a general idea of each kanji, and given that many kanji have rather close meanings, does it make sense to try and distinguish them by giving them keywords with different nuances? Shouldn't overlap be ok?

By the way, are there more mistakes than the village and town confusion? Is there a list somewhere? I havent found one so far.
Its starting to get confusing for me too. Even with words that have no relation, but because the stories kind of link. Currently I hate this "state of mind" primitive. So damn abstract. It gets extra hard to make distinctions in stories who all have some abstract component...

zodiac Wrote:I feel as though a large part of my time in Heisig was spent on creating ways to distinguish similar keywords. I wonder if that is justified; if RTK is meant to give you a general idea of each kanji, and given that many kanji have rather close meanings, does it make sense to try and distinguish them by giving them keywords with different nuances? Shouldn't overlap be ok?

Well, you still need to know how to differentiate between them, just because two kanji have extremely similar meanings doesn't mean they are in any way interchangeable. If you have Japanese vocabulary to back you up, you should be fine with just assigning one Japanese word each simply to know which one is which. As for the underlying concept, I'd say it's fine if they share the same one.

lanval Wrote:By the way, are there more mistakes than the village and town confusion? Is there a list somewhere? I havent found one so far.
Its starting to get confusing for me too. Even with words that have no relation, but because the stories kind of link. Currently I hate this "state of mind" primitive. So damn abstract. It gets extra hard to make distinctions in stories who all have some abstract component...

Give the state of mind primitive a personality like Einstein or Freud. Primitives in their abbreviated form (of heart in this case) that never stand alone as a kanji can be called anything without confusion to deal with later.

lanval Wrote:By the way, are there more mistakes than the village and town confusion? Is there a list somewhere? I havent found one so far.
Its starting to get confusing for me too. Even with words that have no relation, but because the stories kind of link. Currently I hate this "state of mind" primitive. So damn abstract. It gets extra hard to make distinctions in stories who all have some abstract component...

Even if there was such a list, nobody would agree on it completely. Nearly every time that somebody complains about a keyword being "incorrect", it usually stems from the ignorance of that particular learner. The problem is that you can't make a good choice as far as an alternative keyword unless you know all or most of the compounds that a particular kanji is used in.

From the limited examples that people have provided from the German translation, it seems that the translator preferred keywords that represented the most common specific usage of the character, whereas Heisig himself seemed to prefer more ambiguous keywords that blanketed the often multi-faceted nature of kanji. Therefore, neither route is technically wrong, but instead it is usually opinion-based as to what it is better.

And so to answer your question, the town/village confusion is the only compelling evidence of an actual mistake I have seen so far.

I found by knowing the keywords, it's a great help when looking up the definitions of Japanese words in Japanese-Japanese dictionaries.　I usually look up words I don't understand in whatever manga I'm reading.

Here's a great example from Deathnote:

これからはより慎重に詰めていきます。

「慎重」definition had the keywords "deep", "go move", "attention" and in the manga an investigation's going on so I guessed "carefully" and I was right. Plus 「詰める」had 12 definitions, but this phrase came from near the end of the book, and one of those definitions had the keywords "go", "last" , "utmost" so it meant "go to the last place".

Putting all that together the above means "From now on we need to be careful until we solve this case".

I didn't know how to read all the kanji compounds in the definitions and I didn't bother looking them up but I got complete understanding. That's why I love the keywords

Raichu Wrote:Yes many kanji don't have a specific sense, but I'd say more do than don't. Some have more than one (like 本). I know I have been annoyed more than once at kanjidic for giving me some sense for a kanji that later turned out to be spurious meaning assigned by Heisig.

I think kanjidic should have had a separate field for the RTK keyword, even if it's a repeat of the kanji's meaning.

More "spurious" than the meanings assigned by Nelson or the like? There are no standard meanings for any given character and even among Japanese dictionaries meaning-related clauses differ wildly.

Dragg Wrote:From the limited examples that people have provided from the German translation, it seems that the translator preferred keywords that represented the most common specific usage of the character, whereas Heisig himself seemed to prefer more ambiguous keywords that blanketed the often multi-faceted nature of kanji. Therefore, neither route is technically wrong, but instead it is usually opinion-based as to what it is better.

And so to answer your question, the town/village confusion is the only compelling evidence of an actual mistake I have seen so far.

The German version would seem to be a positive evolution to the system. I hope someone does that with the English version one day.

I never considered the town/village thing a problem. There isn't a universally agreed upon definition as to what each is in English anyways. I recieve my mail via PO box. I have no idea if the room I rent is on a street or a road. Location describers can be tricky.

There are quite a few keywords that are poorly/incorrectly chosen in my opinion. I posted in the thread I made about it.