I've found it's nearly impossible to concisely explain the Heisig system to someone who doesn't know about it, even if the other person is interested. The last person I tried to explain it to was completely confused after fifteen long minutes. Maybe my explanatory powers aren't up to snuff.

So how do you explain the Heisig method efficiently and quickly? Say, in 5 or 6 sentences?

Kanji are made up of a building blocks. Memory works best when using your imagination. You imagine funny stories by making kanji building blocks into funny things.

Draw a complicated kanji.
Tell them your story.
Wait 30 minutes.
Ask them the story.
Draw the kanji.
Done.

Wheeew, 6 sentences. I barely made it.

A method to help remember how to write 2000+ kanji by breaking them all down into their constituent parts, ordering them in accordance with those constituent parts and using imaginative memory to form story-based links between the constituent parts in such a way as to facilitate easy & efficient memorization.

phew

Yeah, I just use an example, and draw it. I say, 'there are lots of Kanji <i>but</i> they're only made up of a couple of hundred or so different parts. So, there are the parts 'umbrella' *draws it*, 'flower' *draws it* and 'wooden pole' *draws it*. You have to come up with a mnemonic story to remember which parts are in a Kanji. If we take the Kanji 'tea' the story can be, 'tea flowers *draws* are delicate, so have to be protected by umbrellas *draws* on wooden poles *draws*'. See 茶?'

Unfortunately, I've mostly found that even those people who are learning Japanese I've explained it to don't go as far as actually trying it.

I work at the airport where 男 is next to the men's restroom. Can you see the four rice fields? (then make a muscle with your arm). The men's muscles are in the rice field.

禁煙　is also posted everywhere.
See those trees? It is PROHIBITED禁 to cut them down because they are two small.
To the top right is a western style rolling suitcase (West actually looks like the picture of baggage claim you see at airports) See the flame next to it flickering? The suitcase caught on fire and nothing is left but a SMOKING煙 pile of dirt. = Smoking Prohibited!

People light up with enthusiasm when they see what I am describing and repeat it to me.

I simply say that being able to recognize the characters is a -huge- aid to learning everything else.

I use examples as well, preferably a decently hard kanji with a good story.

Cute stuff bodhisamaya.

wccrawford Wrote:I simply say that being able to recognize the characters is a -huge- aid to learning everything else.

I could hardly agree more. When you convert a couple of thousand abstracted ideographs from little knots of cognitive impenetrability into recognizable and even familiar objects that convey meaning, you have really accomplished something. It's only a beginning, but beginning without it is the difference between climbing Mt. Fuji from the very bottom, or taking the bus up to the fifth station and climbing from there.

wccrawford Wrote:I simply say that being able to recognize the characters is a -huge- aid to learning everything else.

The best explanation ever!

The last time I tried describing the Heisig method to someone, he decided to continue using his current method, which was some gigantic hiragana book, with lots of room to practice writing them over and over.

He said that he's about halfway through the hiragana after using that book for 4 months.

vgambit Wrote:The last time I tried describing the Heisig method to someone, he decided to continue using his current method, which was some gigantic hiragana book, with lots of room to practice writing them over and over.

He said that he's about halfway through the hiragana after using that book for 4 months.

That guy must have some error in his brain... I learned hiragana by ancient traditional technique (basically, I did just that. Write them over and over.) and I learned hiragana in less than 2 weeks.

vgambit Wrote:The last time I tried describing the Heisig method to someone, he decided to continue using his current method, which was some gigantic hiragana book, with lots of room to practice writing them over and over.

He said that he's about halfway through the hiragana after using that book for 4 months.

Geez... Sometimes, Japanese learners outside of Heisig just seem so primitive... :/

I use an example too. Introduce it with something that is easy where the story makes itself. "This one means woman. This one means child. This one means fond...the woman is fond of the child." If they are interested I go into more depth. I have a few Japanese pen pals I have explained it to. After doing it a few times I saved it in Word, so if I ever want to explain it to someone I'm exchanging emails with, I can just use it again.

Tobberoth Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:The last time I tried describing the Heisig method to someone, he decided to continue using his current method, which was some gigantic hiragana book, with lots of room to practice writing them over and over.

He said that he's about halfway through the hiragana after using that book for 4 months.

That guy must have some error in his brain... I learned hiragana by ancient traditional technique (basically, I did just that. Write them over and over.) and I learned hiragana in less than 2 weeks.

Yeah lol. I learned hiragana + katakana through rote memorisation in my first 2 weeks of Uni. In hindsight, that is probably the only useful thing my Uni course has done for me

You. Read. Do. Nuff said.

Tobberoth Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:He said that he's about halfway through the hiragana after using that book for 4 months.

That guy must have some error in his brain...

Probably not. I could imagine that he just thinks that's a reasonable pace. I can see how you could fall into that trap:

"Hey, I'm starting to learn Japanese, so there are these things called Hiragana that I have to learn. I'll do 5 each lesson among other things, that seems hard enough. Since I already have a busy schedule, I'll study Japanese for 1 hour or two every Sunday afternoon. That's a reasonable pace so it won't be too hard."

That seems perfectly normal to people that are new to language learning or have only experienced it in class. And 4 months later you end up being proud of knowing half the hiragana.

Off course, going that slow doesn't make things easier to remember (quite the contrary actually) and with that level of commitment it's going to take centuries to reach a reasonable proficiency in any language but a lot of people don't realize how much there is to learn at first.

Codexus Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:He said that he's about halfway through the hiragana after using that book for 4 months.

That guy must have some error in his brain...

Probably not. I could imagine that he just thinks that's a reasonable pace. I can see how you could fall into that trap:

Anything worth doing is worth doing at breackneck speed!

As for what I tell non Heisigers:

I break Kanji into their individual components and then remember them as a funny image or story instead of an assortment of squiggles on the page. And then I give an example

Here is the kanji for laundry (I always use this one): 濯

It is made up of water *draws*, and the wings *draws* of a turkey *draws*.

The turkey hates it when he gets wet, because he has to take his feathers to the laundry. Imagine a vivid image of a cranky turkey completely plucked, taking his feathers out of a tumble dryer and you will never forget how to write this.

My Chinese friend was really impressed when I was talking to her about this.

Talk to them with the book open, but show them starting with ten, mouth, day, month, eye, old, risk, companion, bright, chant, sparkle, goods, spine, prosperous, and early. (actually prosperous before chant makes more sense because you can use prosperous in the story of chant.) Once they get the idea from that, just say that you keep going and you have no problems with more complex ones. Jump to the middle of the book and show them a complex one. e.g. First do arrow, then style, then parade, then march, then intimidate, then destroy and dwindle and emotion.

Have you ever tried to explain the method to a Japanese? It's near impossible. I tried to explain a story using the finger primitive to one person and she kept telling me I was wrong and drawing the full kanji for finger instead.

They'll probably also berate you for not rote learning them the same way they did themselves all through their entire school life. Or not being able to read on/kun'yomi...

Interesting.. some Japanese, Taiwanese (especially them) and Chinese I talked to were like "Oh, that's how we do it as well!". Just like with foreigners, there seem to be pro and anti Heisig followers in the kanjisphere as well.
Teachers, for the most part, are probably anti Heisig.

It'd be interesting to structure a university Japanese course around Heisig and mining.

Year 1: RTK1, Tae Kim and core 2000
Year 2: core 6000, intermediate grammar
Year 3: advanced grammar, wrap up remaining readings of jōyō kanji with additional vocab

Each student would have their own SRS deck which would be monitored by their tutor somehow. Classes would basically consist of motivational discussion, general queries and feedback.

Too demanding? Not demanding enough? Terrible idea?

Every time I explained it to Japanese people they thought it was great. Granted all of them are studying English, and have an appreciation for how difficult language study can be. They all saw the value of it, and were impressed at the speed I picked it up (all a credit to the method of course!).

I'm always surprised when I read in this forum peoples stories of Heisig haters out there.......

I always the example of 冒 since it is such an easy one. Then I explain that kanji or combinations of radicals can then become primitives themselves by using 帽.

I made a Japanese speech on the mertis of Heisig and won first place, $200, and a Canon Wordtank G55. All the judges were Japanese. I think they can appreciate it, because that's kind of the process I think most of them go through, consciously or not.