This relates more to Chinese than Japanese, I think: I have come across several characters for Chinese (I'm using a book called Cracking the Chinese Puzzles to get my hanzi) and some such as 于 have meanings like "at, in, to, from, by" according to several dictionaries I've checked. Other difficult ones to nail are 乃 and 奚.

My question is, how do you deal with keywords for hanzi/kanji which have no single meaning, but employ a range of different uses? The only thing I can think of is to have a range of keywords per character (which I've been doing), but I'm beginning to think this is a bad idea, as I probably won't really remember much.

For example I have "still; yet" as my keyword for 仍 and "expressing interrogation/surmise/surprise/admiration" for 乎 which, now that I think about it, is kind of hopeless.

I am learning Chinese too, and I tackle the problem, by limmiting to one keyword plus the reading. It is more in the Heisig-spirit, to be able to seperate all Hanzi, than to have exact universial keywords for all word, I guess. (that way it works for me at least)
So for your second example I would use something like "仍, expressing interrogation - reng2"
(admiration, etc. are likely to be chosen by another keyword)

于 was the character expression interrogation, but you could also say the same for 嗎, couldn't you?

oh yea - misread your post, I do not have 仍 in my deck yet.

Anyhow, when including the reading things should be cleared up for the expression interrogation.

Another tricky one is 著 which has so many meanings, I have no clue which to use as the core keyword. I might try using the reading to differentiate between them, but if one thing's for certain, a single keyword wouldn't work.

Take a look at the meanings for the character 著:

write
book
(indicating continuing progress/state, often paired with final 'ne')
touch; come in contact with
put on (clothes)
send
add; put in

How could I use just one keyword for that hanzi? I feel I should have named this thread something like "multiple keywords instead".

The point of doing Heisig is not necessarily to have keywords that fit for all occasions but much more to just have the ability to distinguish with close to 100% certainty all characters - so probably the overall review method of the both of us differs.

Look here for your new example.
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/index.php?...=%E8%91%97

I use the reading as a hint for keywords that are very close together (example 遥 and 远)

ChristopherB Wrote:My question is, how do you deal with keywords for hanzi/kanji which have no single meaning, but employ a range of different uses?

You mean like pretty much every single kanji/hanzi in existance? You pick one keyword which you find easy to memorize and hasn't already been used for another kanji.

Again: The keywords aren't what you're trying to learn. You're trying to go from something, ANYTHING, to the kanji to see if you can bring it out onto a paper from your mind. In theory, you could use pictures instead of keywords.

You will learn what the kanji/hanzi actually means when you start using it later.

Getting back to the fundamental idea of Rembering the Hanzi, foreign speakers who have a name for the character, and thereby can recognize it and know how to write it, have the advantage in learning the language specific meaning and reading of the character. So, we make-up a language maybe,that has this one keyword for that character, and learn that. As we explore the target language, it becomes easier to branch out to all the depth and width that the target language uses for that. This is why it is still helpful even if the keyword has nothing at all to do with the meaning of the character. Obviously, if it does have one of the meanings close to the target language meaning, that can be a tremendous advantage, so we do that when we can. But don't assume that a word in a target language "maps" neatly to a single word in our starting language.

Well that pretty much clears that up. Thanks for the answers. Guess I'll have to go through my cards and cut down the keywords to make it less confusing.

Just curious: You do not use Heisig right? What does the Cracking the Chinese Puzzles book recommend on reviewing stuff/what keywords are provided?

I'd like to get those books too, but they're too expensive. If I understand correctly, they group the hanzi by phonetic markers, and they go right to Chinese words.

HerrPetersen Wrote:Just curious: You do not use Heisig right? What does the Cracking the Chinese Puzzles book recommend on reviewing stuff/what keywords are provided?

I'm using the abridged version, which includes around 5800 characters, but only explains 3650.

An example of an explanation:

Quote:紡 fǎng 'to spin' (yarn). When two threads are twisted side by side, it is 'spin'.

The author, T.K Ann never really explains how to memorise them (despite a fairly length chapter entitled "how to use this book" which mainly discusses how the book is arranged), so I just go through each chapter making a list of new characters in Wenlin and then inputting them into Anki gradually, often in groups of 25.

The thing I like about CTCP is that the hanzi are arranged thematically or according to their function; for instance there is a chapter devoted to analysing and explaining common (and not so common) characters that deal with water. Sometimes, as in the case of the example I posted, a suggested etymology can help as a mnemonic, but it's the order in which the characters are presented that is the strength and purpose of this book. However, I'm not sure whether I would have chosen Heisig's book or not had it been available when I ordered CTCP. In some ways, I'd rather have gone for something like Remembering the Hanzi.

Christopher,

How much of the actual language have you learnt so far? Both 于 and 著 are so common that it shouldn't be a problem learning them through sheer exposure. 奚 is only encountered in Classics - that might be enough info to remember at present and you can deal with it in more detail when you start regularly seeing it in texts.

I have my doubts about learning the 'original' 2000+ of Heisig characters AJATT-style, i.e. prior to any exposure to the actual language. I feel that doing so for 6,000 Chinese characters from Ann's books is even less efficient. At no point does Ann advocate this approach, actually. His full 5-volume edition suggests different learning paths with sub-sets of characters grouped by frequency that can be learned at different stages. Also, the full edition includes texts for practice that actually do a good job at illistrating some obscure usages.

For anything else - http://www.zdic.net is the best source of examples.

I don't know much yet, as my Chinese studies are basically exclusively focused on recognizing and writing the characters. This is convenient, because I'm also trying to maintain and improve a number of European languages and I don't want to increase the load too much. I'm still very much open to any suggestions though, because I do really want to get started on sentences and building listening comprehension, and it will take a while yet (I know around 600 characters so far). What other method would you suggest?

Learning Chinese without 'increasing the load' is a novel concept... :-) But you're most certainly entitled to doing things your way to suit your unique set of goals.

My advice will sound like heresy on this forum of SRS, kanji and sentence-method supporters... But I would suggest that you go and learn some Chinese Language first, before you even consider committing to memory long lists of context-devoid characters. There is no better way to do it that going through ChinesePod's Newbie and Elementary level podcasts - they have a total of just under 600 COMPLETE DIALOGUES there, highly relevant, fully transcribed, with massive (-ly redundant) explanations.

Forget the SRS for now. Play the dialogues in loop until you know them by heart - not literally from start to finish, but you should be able to reproduce large lexical chunks from what is being said. This will give you a very sound base for tone production and recognition, as well as a feeling for basic grammar constructions and some very relevant vocabulary.

Forget the active study of lists of characters for a while. It looks like you already have a good base in characters and that you understand the concepts of radicals and phonetic components, etc. Use this to study dialogue transcripts and the characters that you see in them. This will allow you to gain very solid ground in 'obsure grammatical characters' as you will keep seeing them again and again. You will also notice that characters with confusing multiple meanings are actually among the most frequent ones and will learn how to deal with them.

Then, once you have the grasp of the basics and you feel that you desperately need more exposure through reading of authentic texts and you desperately need more vocabulary, etc., then you may consider studying lists of characters. If Classical Chinese is not part of your set of goals, you may want to follow Ann's alternative courses where he suggests learning only the most frequent 3,000-4,000 or so.

When you are ready to learn from the lists, I strongly recommend learning shape AND the readings + tones AT THE SAME TIME. There is a lot of synergy in this for Chinese. I have some very detailed posts here and on other forums where I argue this in great detail.

Learning thousands of characters from a list as a First Step in Chinese studies, in my opinion, is highly inefficient. To say the least.