To me it seems like this method might work; initially learning 2000 words (Japanese -> L1 pair) and then making up stories in your L1.

When reviewing you would first have to remember Japanese -> L1 keyword and then remember the story & write the kanji. You would be reviewing the vocab & the kanji at the same time, and you might make a direct link between Japanese & the story after a while.

I'd say go for it, if you're good at learning vocab - and tell us how you get on.

I think beginners can use learn kanji with Japanese prompts using the primitives, stories and the RTK order, but I agree that it becomes something different than RTK. (I crammed a system meant for Japanese children based on components and repetition. The repetition cemented the vocab, but the desks were really small).

FutureBlues Wrote:So your story ends up something like this mess: ひと used to かりる things, back in むかし.

haha This reminds me of friends in Tokyo who would pepper their English with Japanese vocab ...when talking with each other! Seemed a bit odd to me, but they simply enjoyed being able to communicate using another language (even unconnected words).

You could look at it as an opportunity to use words right away which will repeat and build up gradually. RTK is a slog. After a few months of it, many are anxious to start learning 'real Japanese'. Using Japanese words, they would have the satisfaction of being able to actually use stuff. It might be fun. 煩 "Whenever I feel わずらう, it feels like there's ひ　burning in my あたま.

On the other hand, it might not be necessary to produce the Japanese words when writing the kanji. You still have the mental image or understanding of the primitives regardless of the language you name it with. (When I think about an umbrella, I can't say whether I name it in English, French, Japanese or Icelandic.) It'd be interesting to know if this causes problems for non-native English speakers using RTK.

I would encourage anyone doing RTK to use images or scenes in their stories as much as possible. As Wrightak mentioned somewhere, it smooths the transition to Japanese later. (But some wordplay is unavoidable - like "stop spooning turkeys!" Loved that one.)

It might be worth trying on a case by case basis. ie. go through RTK, checking the japanese words as you go. If you know it well, use the japanese keyword, otherwise use your native language. It would be great if this site allowed for custom keywords. I just thought about this now, but if you're trying to avoid using english, using anki or something, the prompt doesn't even have to be a word. It could be a picture or some other hint.

Btw, are you planning on using some mnemonic trick to learn the vocab in the first place? If so i'm interested in knowing what it is.

FutureBlues Wrote:So you're going to make stories in English that connect Japanese kanji to Japanese words? How do you go about doing that, exactly? If one was doing Japanese keywords, it would be far more useful to create stories in Japanese, but then you run into a situation where you can't because, oh yeah, you're not fluent yet.

I mean, have you really thought this through?

Believe me, I've been thinking about this for a while.

I've been doing it for a while too. I got an email recently from a forum member asking me about whether I thought it was a good idea to write out all of the stories in Japanese. I don't. Writing stories in Japanese might improve your written composition skills but not much else.

I'll give an example. My story for 涙 goes like this:

Quote:When my dog (who was about as big as a *St. Bernard*) got quite old, he had to be put down. The last thing that I saw was him lying on the table staring at me before the vet shut the *door*. The way he looked at me, I swear he knew that his time was over. Dogs don't shed tears but if he could have I think he would have at that time.

When I recall this story, I can picture the scene very clearly in my mind. I can remember the smell of the veterinary surgery. I can remember the sound of the door slamming. I can remember the phenomenal sadness in my dog's eyes which came from his knowledge that his time with the pack was over. I can remember being 12 years old and feeling small balloons expanding in my temples as the tears welled up. None of these sounds, none of these smells, none of these emotions are English or Japanese. They're not affiliated with any language. When I see the character 戸, I think of a door. When I see the character 大, thanks to Heisig, I think of a big dog. When I see the three drops, I think of water. I don't think of the word "door", the words "big dog" or the word "water". I could describe these images, emotions, smells or sounds in any language I want. They wouldn't change in my memory/imagination.

Therefore, by having Japanese keywords, you're not altering the story making process. You gave 人 as an example. Don't think of the word ひと when you look at the left hand side of 借. Think of Mr. T instead. Or whatever works for you.

Quote:What happens if you forget one of those words? The entire hierarchy begins to crumble and fall apart.

Nothing will crumble because the foundations you've built in your mind should be much stronger than any linguistic label. Each of the primitives should mean something to you. It should have an image, a personality, a *character*. (Excuse the pun)

There is of course an exception. If you use word-play, as Thora mentioned, then this will be language specific. I tend to avoid it but a few of my stories use it.

I agree with wrightak, just wanted to add that if a wordplay is good enough, it's more or less impossible to forget a part of it. It plays on the words, so each word is important to it working. Therefor, as long as you remember one part, it will always be easy to remember all other parts. The wordplay has to be really good and short though.

I've been thinking about making the change to Japenese keywords several times and I am not sure how much I can gain from it. Still, I agree with wrightak that if your story is a strong image/situation it should be fine. I also tend to think those stories work better. So, even if it's a little more effort, I think people who already know some Japanese should profit from using JRTK straight away.

I find it interesting that as we make improvements to some 'newer' study methods, we end up approaching the more traditional ways. :-) For eg, programs to extract vocab lists from text and dialogue from video, pre-assembled sentences, JRTK. The difference is that technology now allows us to do it ourselves.

Many people learned kanji by creating stories using the traditional radicals which already have names and meanings. Whether English or Japanese labels for the radicals were used didn't seem to cause any problems. JRTK is essentially this, but with only one keyword (instead of a selection of vocab for each kanji) and taken at a much faster pace. Having done it both ways, I share Wrightak's opinion that the advantages of Japanese keywords are considerable. It doesn't require extra time overall and it avoids the pitfalls of non-Japanese associations.

nadiatims Wrote:It would be great if this site allowed for custom keywords.

In case you aren't already aware, you can customize your keywords here with a greasemonkey script for Firefox call Substitute Keywords.

Necromancing this thread to remind people that someone already compiled a list of Japanese keywords for RTK 4th edition.

[url=http://wrightak.googlepages.com/afterrtk1][/url]

I think this thread is a perfect candidate for becoming a "sticky", though it belongs to the RTK 1 subforum rather than to "General discussion".

Also, now it's possible to add a list of custom keywords and update them all at once here in Reviewing the Kanji, so you can take Wrightak's list and use it to update your all your RTK1 cards here without much effort.

Personally, when I add Japanese "keywords" here for kanji that are used in compounds, I use this format:

Quote:Pardon ようシャ

Where the kanji for this card is "赦", which appears in the word "容赦" (ようしゃ), which means "pardon, forgiveness, mercy" according to Edict.

That way I can clearly identify the word where the kanji I'm studying is used and also which part of the word to said kanji, and in case of doubt I can use Rikaisama to lookup the word, since it does recognize words even if they are written using an arbitrary combination of hiragana and katakana.