Today, I read this article: http://qjphotos.wordpress.com/2009/03/25...the-kanji/

It is so sad. 17 years? How can you study kanji so long without maybe hearing of Heisig and giving it a try. And then when he goes on to talk about how amazing the site is for remembering your failures... it's just... painful. Almost as painful as reading this: http://poppupot.blogspot.com/2009/03/kan...tress.html

What are you talking about? I've been trying to use Heisig to learn the kanji for 20 years now and I still don't know if I'm actually learning any of the Kanji Language.

sethg Wrote:http://poppupot.blogspot.com/2009/03/kan...tress.html

:o
I've never seen Dan Brown as anything more than a hack, though I'll admit his stories have an appeal in a cheap, hack-ish kinda way.

After 17 years.. I suppose you would be a Kanji beast using any method.

JimmySeal Wrote:I've never seen Dan Brown as anything more than a hack, though I'll admit his stories have an appeal in a cheap, hack-ish kinda way.

Whenever someone actually acknowledges this, my heart gives a little fluttter. Thank you.

Especially in light of the new movie. God damn.

[ファブリス]

sethg Wrote:And then when he goes on to talk about how amazing the site is for remembering your failures

I really don't see what's negative about his post, he just pointed out that site helps to repeat the ones you don't know well. Aren't you a bit negative ?

He just said he's been struggling with kanji, not that he didn't know any. Anyway, I find this gives a bad image of this community when the guy feels obliged to comment to people coming from this topic...

Quote:Just a note to all of the people who are coming from the Heisig site

I would guess he used Heisig incorrectly if he found it didn't work for him... maybe he didn't use an SRS system like this site or Anki, lots of things which can go wrong. However, he's entitled to his opinion. He didn't like Heisig and he likes this method he's introducing and that's the important thing when learning a language: Find techniques which work for you and use them. When you find something works, there's no harm in telling the world.

I would still find it slightly odd though.. studying kanji for 17 years and still having trouble with them... Many people on this site used Heisig for 3-4 months and has had no problems since, except for readings obviously. Then again, maybe he actually uses kanji fine and the whole "still a problem" thing is just to emphasize the difficulty kanji usually present to beginners.

I was talking with my friend the other day and he brought up a good point. He said that you can not measure someone's skill on a language based on the time they spent on it. There is always room for improvement. Hell, I learn new words in English almost everyday and I have been speaking it since I have been born.

For example, I have been studying Japanese for 5 years and a guy in my class said to me, "You are falling behind Mike, I could have been fluent in that amount of time you spent".

That was the most arrogant response I have ever heard in my life. How can you possibly measure someone's skill based on a SET time limit? Since when was there a "due date" on learning a foreign language? Of course over time one can practice and review to make themselves better but there is no exact date to when the reviewing will end. Like I said before I am still learning words in English.

I didn't mean to necessarily insult the guy... my real point was that I see so many people struggling with kanji here at my university and in other language forums and yet they don't know about Heisig. And I generally find that if they're introduced to Heisig, they'll dismiss it quickly (same with the idea of an SRS, or the AJATT method). The root excuse (not saying this is so in this guy's case) is generally that there's too much effort and not enough result. Then, this site... which is just an online SRS with a nice Web 2.0 interface, comes along...

I don't know. I guess I'm rambling. I've actually got a terrible sinus infection at the moment. But bottom line, I didn't mean to make fun of the guy or reflect negatively on the community... my point was that I *wish* everyone could take advantage of this site and the Heisig method and become successful in their language endeavors. Apologies if any offence was taken... not truly my intention.

LegionOfDeicide Wrote:I was talking with my friend the other day and he brought up a good point. He said that you can not measure someone's skill on a language based on the time they spent on it. There is always room for improvement. Hell, I learn new words in English almost everyday and I have been speaking it since I have been born.

For example, I have been studying Japanese for 5 years and a guy in my class said to me, "You are falling behind Mike, I could have been fluent in that amount of time you spent".

That was the most arrogant response I have ever heard in my life. How can you possibly measure someone's skill based on a SET time limit? Since when was there a "due date" on learning a foreign language? Of course over time one can practice and review to make themselves better but there is no exact date to when the reviewing will end. Like I said before I am still learning words in English.

It's not so much about finishing, it's about progressing. If it takes me 5 years to become good enough to pass JLPT2, I'm going to be pissed off if someone else passes it in 1 year. That means they were more effective. Maybe they studied a lot more every day, maybe they had better techniques. The reasons aren't so very important.

I'm not saying people should feel bad about learning a language slowly, there's nothing inherently good or bad about it taking a certain time to learn something. It's just that most people who study a language want to become as good as possible as fast as possible which is why techniques like Heisig, SRS and such were invented.

Tobberoth Wrote:I would guess he used Heisig incorrectly if he found it didn't work for him... maybe he didn't use an SRS system like this site or Anki, lots of things which can go wrong. However, he's entitled to his opinion. He didn't like Heisig and he likes this method he's introducing and that's the important thing when learning a language: Find techniques which work for you and use them. When you find something works, there's no harm in telling the world.

I would still find it slightly odd though.. studying kanji for 17 years and still having trouble with them... Many people on this site used Heisig for 3-4 months and has had no problems since, except for readings obviously. Then again, maybe he actually uses kanji fine and the whole "still a problem" thing is just to emphasize the difficulty kanji usually present to beginners.

On this didn't use the method correctly part.
I am on number 930.
I have been at this for what seems like ages.
I thought i was following the method.
I would study a 'lesson' or set and it would all go ok.
I use supermemo each day as my SRS. In the answer field I have the story incase I forget it to re-enforce
Then I started to forget whole chunks.
I couldn't work out why.
I came to two conclusions, that I was not aware of at the time and only found out later on.
As you learn things in groups of primitives its easy to think you know the kanji/story but as they are new you know they are rice + x or tree + x so it gives you a clue. Later on you find that you didn't distinguish rice and wheat primitives enough, and that leave quite a few to redo.
Its fairly easy to remember at the start. The SRS is asking you frequently and the items are grouped together quite tightly so you can guess part of the primitive and also its not yet moved to longer term memory
So you keep adding stuff, then suddenly things start to drop off, you fail quite a few, but your still adding in. You end up redoing and also trying to make sure confusables (pairs like instruction and obey or beguile and emotion don't get mixed up)
It is easy I think to go from getting almost 100% right to overnite getting high failliers and a lot to redo. And you cannot tell if this is going to happen untill a period of time later. Some stories I thought were set in stone I get wrong and others I don't know why I remember them I get each time. Its actually I think a method that is very good but in some ways is quite hard.


LegionOfDecide: what an arrogant idiot. I was talking to a friend from class. I had just quit as the teacher was rushing through the book like getting to the end was more important than studying. Each time we can across great grammar points I could see were really useful and took the Japanese to that next level I would turn round and we had moved on to the next grammar point. He was shocked I stopped as I was 'better than him'. I am, but I have been at this for longer. I asked why he goes to class. He has a Japanese wife. He could learn at home and any problems ask her. But even though he wants to move to Japan he still reads his notes the day before, and gets his wife to do his homework. Even with all the time in the world and someone to help him he would not get that much done. But I love the subject. I have spare time - I am watching anime, pausing it all the time to look up kanji I see. So what if I am not as good as I should be. This is no race for me. It is as much a hobby as reading books are. I enjoy the hobby for its sake not for the point anyone _thinks_ I should be at. In fact when someone asks me how long I have been studying I lie, cos I know I am not as far along as I should be. Each time there has been a set point to be at I have hated it. Maybe its just my procrastination kicking in.

I don't remember exactly when I started, but it's probably been almost 15 years. Off course, for most of that time my only "study method" has been the telepathic transfer of information from books sitting on my bookshelves (surprisingly, it doesn't work that well).

Sure if you never stop since the first day you start studying, that's like forever. But if it's something you do for a few weeks and then stop for a year or two before continuing, you quickly start accumulating an impressive number of "years of study".

I have been studying for over 7 years I would say. But I am a terrible student. I did badly in my degree (back in the late 90's). I have found that each time I realise I am just treading water or falling back that its time to try something new. Like using sentences rather than list lists of vocab. But new things like that take time and effort and for a period you don't really gain untill you get to a certain point. So atm when I look for a sentence with just one thing in I don't know it can take ages sometimes. Thats for each bit of vocab. In the long term it pays off but in the short term the rate of adding new vocab in drops. I have been using supermemo each day since May 2005 so I have in the background been quite consistent.

sethg Wrote:I didn't mean to necessarily insult the guy... my real point was that I see so many people struggling with kanji here at my university and in other language forums and yet they don't know about Heisig. And I generally find that if they're introduced to Heisig, they'll dismiss it quickly (same with the idea of an SRS, or the AJATT method). The root excuse (not saying this is so in this guy's case) is generally that there's too much effort and not enough result. Then, this site... which is just an online SRS with a nice Web 2.0 interface, comes along...

I don't know. I guess I'm rambling. I've actually got a terrible sinus infection at the moment. But bottom line, I didn't mean to make fun of the guy or reflect negatively on the community... my point was that I *wish* everyone could take advantage of this site and the Heisig method and become successful in their language endeavors. Apologies if any offence was taken... not truly my intention.

It's ok I didn't take it as you making fun of him. I was just making some point. This site is badass, along with using an SRS and such.

I was very anti-heisig for about a year until I started. You can see that I registered 2-26-08, so about a year and a month ago, but I didn't actually start until about a month ago.

I can definitely see why people would say Heisig is crap. For one, you don't learn the readings --- that was a big put off for me, until I actually learned some kanji on my own using nothing but context, and realized how it worked.

Also, Heisig's 'keywords' are often thought to be translations of the words. This really isn't the case, necessarily. They, just like the primitives, are there to help you remember them.

So yeah, I can definitely see why heisig would turn people off.
AJATT kind of turns me off -- it's not really a method. It's just "learn sentences with an SRS." It reminds people that studying doesn't have to be all about grinding vocab.
Sentences might turn people off too because then you are "just learning how to say a sentence" just like in those "travel guides."
すみません、トイレはどこですか？
and things like that. What they don't realize is that it's to get the context of the word(s) that you are learning. (at least that's my take)

edit: got my registration date wrong :/

That Dan Brown thing is an actual excerpt from his book? Even without the ridiculous Kanji Language thing, it's pretty bad...

Asriel Wrote:I was very anti-heisig for about a year until I started. You can see that I registered 2-26-08, so about a year and a month ago, but I didn't actually start until about a month ago.

I can definitely see why people would say Heisig is crap. For one, you don't learn the readings --- that was a big put off for me, until I actually learned some kanji on my own using nothing but context, and realized how it worked.

Also, Heisig's 'keywords' are often thought to be translations of the words. This really isn't the case, necessarily. They, just like the primitives, are there to help you remember them.

So yeah, I can definitely see why heisig would turn people off.
AJATT kind of turns me off -- it's not really a method. It's just "learn sentences with an SRS." It reminds people that studying doesn't have to be all about grinding vocab.
Sentences might turn people off too because then you are "just learning how to say a sentence" just like in those "travel guides."
すみません、トイレはどこですか？
and things like that. What they don't realize is that it's to get the context of the word(s) that you are learning. (at least that's my take)

edit: got my registration date wrong :/

Same here. I think most people dislike Heisig until they clearly understand the point. The point is NOT to learn to write,read and understand kanji perfectly (which is what I assumed before I started), the point is simply to recognize them. To a lot of people, that sounds stupid. Why spend several months to learn to recognize kanji when you can simply study kanji "for real" and learn them. The point of course being that ANY form of japanese reading becomes so much easier and fun after completing Heisig. I think only people who has completed Heisig can fully appreciate what it gives someone... people like me who learned tons of kanji before starting Heisig has an even better idea.

yukamina Wrote:That Dan Brown thing is an actual excerpt from his book? Even without the ridiculous Kanji Language thing, it's pretty bad...

Yes, it's the real thing. I just verified it using that amazon.com thing that allows you to search for a word inside the book.

I enjoyed reading Angels & Demons and Da Vinci Code but this one seems awful.

You mean these symbols have multiple meanings?? Oh my God! Call the cryptographers! NOW!!

Makes me feel like I know some badass language

Speaking of rants, read this article on kanji (pg 92-93) from Making Sense of Japanese:

Article on Google Books

Why did I buy this silly book?

Article on Google Books Wrote:Since this book is intended to help with an understanding of the Japanese language, it will have nothing further to say about kanji.

Since this comment is intended to help with an understanding of how stupid this book is, it will have nothing further to say about this book.

cb4960 Wrote:Speaking of rants, read this article on kanji (pg 92-93) from Making Sense of Japanese:

Article on Google Books

Why did I buy this silly book?

Well, the book has a number of rather useful insights for the beginner, whatever one might think of his opinion on the kanji which, as he stated, have no connection to the purpose of the book.

I think that Making Sense of Japanese is a great book. Most of it is rather inspirational and motivating for beginners so I don't really understand the point of this little rant in the middle of it. (well I kind of do, he wants the beginner to think he can master spoken Japanese even if kanji is complicated because those are two completely different things. But that's just BS).

And by the way, I agree that kanji is an overly complicated way to record the *sounds* of Japanese. But writing is about more than just recording the sounds of a language, it's about recording thoughts. For that, I think that kanji are really awesome!

It is one of the few passages that I remember from the book. I read it when I was just beginning my Japanese studies and it just sounded so negative and discouraging at the time - especially from a Japanese language professor at one of America's most prestigious universities. True or not, I consider the passage to be misplaced and counterproductive. (And the rest of the book uses only romaji - where's the Japanese?!).

cb4960 Wrote:(And the rest of the book uses only romaji - where's the Japanese?!).

It was lost within awesomeness that is the western alphabet. It does that sometimes, the western alphabet. It's so awesome and flawless it just can't help it.