Perhaps the edition of RTK may matter, but in mine (3rd ed.) the writing of 402 distant differs with that in the standard Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese (Tuttle). Would anyone care to confirm or disconfirm this as an RTK error?

Some sporadic discussion has been made about errors in RTK. Couldn't there be something here at this site to collect all of them?

There are links to 4th edition errata at the bottom of this page
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publ...anji_1.htm

Your right, leosmith! That's heads up ball, buddy. Thank you.

The DISTANT error, however, is not listed. Anybody have any ideas?

Also, I wonder why WAREHOUSE--in red--is listed. A misspelling in the 4th edition?

The book shows storehouse as the keyword for that character, which doesn't work because another character has that keyword.

4th edition doesn't show the writing in detail for 402, but the stroke order for the scarf primitive never changes, if that's what you're asking about.

Not stroke order or number of strokes but the writing itself. RTK (3rd ed.) and a standard writing guide differ about DISTANT. The guide has a hook at the end of the vertical bottom stroke but RTK omits it. In other words, the primitive for scarf goes without its bottom hook in this instance in RTK.

RTK tells us for a previous kanji that the presence of a hook can be critical, as with SURPASS. For this reason the discrepancy about DISTANT may not be a mere stylistic difference.

Please disregard my previous post. An RTK discrepancy does exist but not as previously described. It has me dizzy. *****, no wonder many Japanese need eyeglasses! This stuff will do a number to the eyes if not the brain! The RTK indexed kanji for DISTANT is the same as that in the guidebook I mentioned.

However, RTK 3rd. ed.makes a mistake in the stroke order display by keeping the bottom hook when presumably it should be omitted. I naturally took RTK at its word.

Sorry for the false alarm for people using RTK 4th ed., which does not have the discrepancy. This case shows me however that the stroke order displays could have errors. It is worthwhile to double check for accuracy.

I'm writing all the errata into my book. Though I think with a 3rd edition you will have a lot to write. Even with 4th edition, 5th printing there is quite a lot.

KANJI Wrote:Not stroke order or number of strokes but the writing itself. RTK (3rd ed.) and a standard writing guide differ about DISTANT. The guide has a hook at the end of the vertical bottom stroke but RTK omits it. In other words, the primitive for scarf goes without its bottom hook in this instance in RTK.

RTK tells us for a previous kanji that the presence of a hook can be critical, as with SURPASS. For this reason the discrepancy about DISTANT may not be a mere stylistic difference.

It is not critical in this case, it seems. The omission of the hook is correct in Japanese, most conventional fonts omit it, however it does appear in some Japanese fonts.

It is much more common in non-Japanese hanzi fonts, but even in some of those the hook is not present.

This seems to suggest that both variants are acceptable, but from my research the omitted hook is more conventional in Japanese and that's how I intend to write it.

KANJI Wrote:Your right, leosmith! That's heads up ball, buddy. Thank you.

The DISTANT error, however, is not listed. Anybody have any ideas?

And another thing, all these tiny characters are killing my eyes too. I squint so often; I wonder if that's good for a carbon based life form.

Pangolin Wrote:It is not critical in this case, it seems. The omission of the hook is correct in Japanese, most conventional fonts omit it, however it does appear in some Japanese fonts.

How about SURPASS? Should we hook or not hook?

colonel32 Wrote:I'm writing all the errata into my book. Though I think with a 3rd edition you will have a lot to write. Even with 4th edition, 5th printing there is quite a lot.

You inspired me to do the dreded work of the errata pages. But surprisingly, most of the errors required no changes in RTK3 (not counting page number changes). Judging from this, future generations may consider RTK3 the gold standard, ha, ha.

leosmith Wrote:all these tiny characters are killing my eyes too. I squint so often; I wonder if that's good for a carbon based life form.

Don't worry, just convert to MAC, ha, ha.

Surpass should have a hook. I think no-hook is the standard way to write distant, and if you put a hook on it, it might be considered wrong, for instance on the kanji kentei.

[ファブリス]

KANJI Wrote:the primitive for scarf goes without its bottom hook in this instance in RTK.

The "un-hooked" scarf is the compressed version, see end of frame #396 in the book. It is easy to remember because the number of strokes is the same. Also the second stroke of "scarf" does not only loose its hook in compressed form, it also moves to the center of the primitive. In non-compressed form the second stroke hangs from the first one, and is not at the center of the primitive.

KANJI Wrote:How about SURPASS? Should we hook or not hook?

We should hook. Where have you seen it without that hook? I can only find one style variation that doesn't hook that stroke, a gyousho (semi-cursive) style that appears in a Japanese set of 8 typefaces by the same foundry, in which all the others have the hook. But notice how it hooks the next to last stroke instead. Here it is:



Clearly though, the hook is conventional in Chinese character using world, and it would be eccentric not to use it.

That's very interesting, Pangolin, very interesting. Let me clarify though: Isn't the presence of hook(s) in this kanji a matter of calligraphy style? And aren't we talking about an elongated hook, not just the final clipping force of the calligraphy brush (that I take these hooks for here)?

ファブリス Wrote:

KANJI Wrote:the primitive for scarf goes without its bottom hook in this instance in RTK.

The "un-hooked" scarf is the compressed version, see end of frame #396 in the book. It is easy to remember because the number of strokes is the same. Also the second stroke of "scarf" does not only loose its hook in compressed form, it also moves to the center of the primitive. In non-compressed form the second stroke hangs from the first one, and is not at the center of the primitive.

I don't think this is the issue--distinguishing between the full vs. compressed versions. The issue is when each version is correctly employed.

Clearly from a teaching/learning point of view, when minute particle-differences can greatly matter, a book should not indiscriminately switch a version unannounced. RTK3, which so far appears to have fewer typos than later editions, makes such a mistake in this instance with the kanji distant. Even if the hook is not in error, the RTK presentation contradicts itself when it should not.

Fabrice, would you mind adding a pictorial here illustrating the point you were making about the movement of the hook in the primitive?

KANJI Wrote:That's very interesting, Pangolin, very interesting. Let me clarify though: Isn't the presence of hook(s) in this kanji a matter of calligraphy style? And aren't we talking about an elongated hook, not just the final clipping force of the calligraphy brush (that I take these hooks for here)?

Yes, I think you are right, in the case of that last but one stroke, it is a result of penmanship rather than being of any significance. This is a semi-cursive style: cursive literally meaning that that strokes run on from one to the next leaving "ligatures" of ink between them; and as this is "semi-cursive" all the strokes are not joined, but there are often traces of those connections at the ends of stokes.

The hook at issue in 越 however is not one of these traces but the use of a different kind of stroke altogether. In the version I posted the picture of, the stroke is a "tate sen" (straight line) stroke and the hooked version is a "nanamekage" (sharp angle) stroke. The hook is deliberately formed and not a mere stroke ending "jump".

The primitive 戊 ("parade") plus hook is actually an obscure kanji in it's own right 戉 meaning warrior or arms.

I think that pretty much wraps up the question about hooks, ha, ha. Let me, though, reiterate: the discrepency found in RTK3 regarding the kanji for distant has yet to be cleaned up in the errata.

The lesson from this is: Error may still be hidden in RTK (4, 5, 6 whatever edition). In the case of distant--it is at least a teaching error: the target kanji is substituted unwittingly by a variant in the teaching of its writing.* Even those merit our attention.

よろしくおねがいします。
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*note: Yes, the distant error pertains to RTK3 but as I have found out, this edition has fewer typos than do the later editions. So it would be a mistake to think your later edition must necessarily be safer from error.

Sumimasen doumo. You probably could understand from context, but excuse me for writing RTK3 when I meant RTK 3rd edition and so on. I forgot that RTK includes at least 3 volumes.

[ファブリス]

Quote:the discrepency found in RTK3 regarding the kanji for distant has yet to be cleaned up in the errata.

If you found errors that are not covered by the errata on this page, then feel free to email James Heisig about it.

Sure, but my point is that even he may be unaware of a particular error, as seems with "distant." (No book on earth is completely free of error; nothing can be so perfect. So no reflection on the author; and indeed he has been particularly conscientious.) On this website by collectively recording such information, we can avoid a lot of trouble. Already this collective has helped me by becoming aware of the errata pages.

I am not the only one who has raised the issue of error to the membership. During my short time of participation here, other members have pointed out error; for example stroke numbers given for kanji. I don't remember those members being directed to the errata pages. Perhaps they were but found the error(s) missing.

I don't know if the errata pages covers all that may have been discovered by this membership. It would be nice to have a link or a thread on this website that has collected these discoveries and where questions could be asked by members.

is there any way to merge the errata pdf into the original RTK1 pdf and simultaneously overwrite the appropriate pages?

Adding one more here that's not in errata: stroke counts for 叫 and 糾 are wrong, because Heisig counts the right side element as 2 strokes, but it's really 3. On the left it's 2. I looked up the stroke counts from one Japanese kanji dictionary and kanjidic (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html), and they are 6 and 9 respectively.

The difference between the element on the left and on the right can be seen in these stroke order movies:

http://gahoh.marinebat.com/movie/jouyouk...ou362B.mov
http://gahoh.marinebat.com/movie/kanji/0...uu3C7D.mov