I was just wondering since my Japanese wife is so amazed at my kanji progress, whether the Heisig method could be used by Japanese kids when they learn kanji. They could learn the direct kun yomi (assuming they know what the word means) rather than an english keyword. Has anyone proposed this? I think Heisig could write a Japanese version of the book, book 3 could be especially popular.

Such a thing would never be used for children within Japan. I can think of a few reasons why it's probably not a workable idea fundamentally, but aside from that it would never happen for the simple reason that practically every teacher in the country adheres slavishly to monbusho's guidelines, meaning they learn a specific set of kanji for the first 6 years, and then use a government approved series of textbooks (which include kanji) for the next 6.

Might be an interesting idea for adults looking to remember how to write "difficult kanji" but it would have to be significantly different from the ones for non-Japanese speakers.

Besides that they wouldn't do it for administrative reasons, they couldn't do it 'cause I don't think they understand enough of their own language. I'm not a stupid person and yet I still find myself having to clarify a few keyword meanings...

This is a good system for educated adults to take on.

the heisig method is great for learners of japanese as a second language, because we dont have the time (12years) to learn them the old fashioned japanese way, AND we are usually adults who already have a huge conceptual world in which to place the new bits of japanese language we learn. basically, we already know these concepts, and we have developed the higher order skills to apply these concepts in an imaginative way to learn new symbols for those concepts.

japanese children DO have 12years to learn kanji. and they DONT have the fully developed conceptual world or the highly developed higher order skills to do what we are doing with the heisig method.

part of the reason the kanji appear in the order they do in the japanese grading system is their order of conceptual complexity. the grade 1 kanji have a lot of everyday objects that children of that age would be familiar with. and so on.

the heisig order is governed primarily by the primitives. learn some primitives, and make all the kanji you can by combining them. learn a few more primitives and add the kanji that include them...

if you went by the heisig order with japanese children, for the most part they wouldnt understand what the hell you were talking about anyway, because the concepts will be too advanced. but if you dont follow the heisig order, the heisig method starts to fall apart.

it wouldnt do for japanese children to grow up trying to use the heisig method systematically. however, later in high school, or as adults, when they have the higher order conceptual abilities to really handle thinking about kanji in a new way, it would help them to be introduced to the basic idea contained in the heisig method to get them thinking about kanji and seeing kanji in a new way, which would help them tackle the kanji they find difficult to remember. that would give them a valuable edge in their further studies and written abilities.

to put this in perspective, think about the way native speakers of english learn how to write in english. the approach is not all that different from the way japanese students learn kanji. there is still a lot of learning by rote and study-by-writing-it-ten-times method. but for those of you who studied for college entrance exams, you probably picked up a method of learning and spelling new vocabulary through the use of latinate affixes. but that probably wasnt until high school or later! and though it is an invaluable study tool, it may be too conceptually difficult to start in 1st grade. and, the latinate words you pick up in such a manner are usually beyond the repertoire of primary school students. so even though it can give you an edge in studying for the SAT, the method has limited use before junior high/high school.

NB: some japanese students do later and unsystematically learn how to think about how primitives build up the meaning of a kanji. but this comes only to those really interested in writing or literature or linguistics or something, and it really does give them an edge.

Ah, another thought building off of decamer0n. That same thing happens when teaching elementary aged kids English in Japan. You can't teach them verbs, adjectives, etc by saying "here's a verb, here's an adjective" etc. You just teach them phrases and nouns. They don't understand, in their own language, what those concepts are. Kanji is the same, I'd imagine. Teach them a symbol that means something they understand. Kids soak things up like sponges anyway.

I can see how smth like Vol.3 could be useful, but it would probably need to be completely rewritten and also made self-contained...

Jawful Wrote:Ah, another thought building off of decamer0n. That same thing happens when teaching elementary aged kids English in Japan. You can't teach them verbs, adjectives, etc by saying "here's a verb, here's an adjective" etc. You just teach them phrases and nouns.

I disagree that verbs cannot be taught to elementary kids. Of course they might not understand the terminology exactly, but they do know what a verb is in the same sense that Forrest Gump knows what love is. The problem is creating real contextual situations that would give the children a chance to use the verbs in practice. If we did this (or if they let us do this, I should say), the kids would come to understand how these words are used.

I also disagree with the idea just because you have 12 years to learn something one way doesn't mean that you should, especially when you have better methods out there. With Heisig not only do you learn the stuff faster, you'd probably learn it better. (Japanese themselves forget how to write kanji all the time).

But most importantly, you learn other extremely useful skills when you learn to do Heisig. You have to be creative given a set of constraints and then create and visualize a story. This is an extremely useful skill to develop period, not just for kanji. So why not learn the kanji using this method, save yourself a half-decade or so, and use those extra skills and that extra time to help your understanding of basic Newtonian physics for example.

I think an altered version of RTK1 could be very helpful for young learners. For example, say there are 100 kanji to be learned. First, have them learn the primatives for those characters. Then give them stories, or allow them to make up stories, that will help them remember how the primatives make up characters. Just like RTK1, but on a smaller scale. Remember how the bunny story helps kids tie shoes? sorta like that. I dunno, maybe this won't work with kids........but it may be worth a try. It would be good to give kids some relief from so much rote learning.

Maybe. Maybe not. Would little children have the mental capacity to make up these complicated from there few years on Earth? I guess it's possible.

But in a way, it doesn't really matter for small chldren.
I think where it would really help would be for teenagers and older.
Or maybe a gaijin that just moved to japan in their pre-adolescent or
teenage years.

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. But that's my guess.

The elementary teachers could feed their students most of the stories in the early years, just like Heisig does for the first 1/8 of the book, and they would have to be in a less streamlined order, with more kanji that have simple concepts at the beginning (and less ones like 全 and 栓), but I think something much better than the current status quo could be found.

ericshun Wrote:I disagree that verbs cannot be taught to elementary kids. Of course they might not understand the terminology exactly, but they do know what a verb is in the same sense that Forrest Gump knows what love is. The problem is creating real contextual situations that would give the children a chance to use the verbs in practice. If we did this (or if they let us do this, I should say), the kids would come to understand how these words are used.

I agree that they can be taught verbs, but my point is that on a whole, small children don't understand the concept of grammar, so you don't teach them English by breaking it into the grammar points. Heisig teaches kanji based on concepts children aren't familiar with, therefore for it to work it'd have to be "dumbed down". To simplify it into the kanji that are relevant for them and only the ones they can conceptually understand would break the whole system as it's based on order. You'd end up with the order the Japanese educational system has already laid out, starting with simple nouns and working your way up.

I'm not saying the current system is best. I'm also not saying a Heisig-like story method wouldn't work at all. It just wouldn't be AS effective if simplifying it for children. Japanese people have trouble with "difficult" kanji, yeah? Maybe turning their kanji-world upside down when they hit JHS would work. Teach them the story method then. They have a good foundation and can use the meaning they already know. I doubt many Japanese have trouble with the kanji they learned in elementary school.

But then, we're arguing about something that we'll never in our lives see change...

Components and concepts integral to Heisig's method are beneficial to any age group's learning efforts (imaginative memory, progressive composition (directly related to latinate affixes), associative memory paths, etc).

But Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" is for adults only.

By definition, to attempt to apply RTK to those too young to grasp the entirety of the pedagogical methods, and especially the abstract concepts required for retaining ALL the kanji, completely undermines the approach.

i remember reading somthing about this over at kanji clinic...

found it: http://www.kanjiclinic.com/kc23final.htm

I'm still not convinced that it is for adults only. Middle schoolers and 6th graders could do this stuff, too, not just adults. I feel like Heisig's method could be used but just with a little more guidance, especially when kanji become really complex and all you have to rely on is the brute force muscle memory. If you had short video clips which told a story with all of the components, I imagine it would at least be a good supplement to brute force memory. This wouldn't undermine the system if this supplement were available for a few hundred kanji. The only problem I see is confusing the true meaning (the one used in practice) with the meaning they feel when they think of the story. Anyway, I think this is pretty interesting and worth talking about. I think it goes beyond the adults being better at learning than kids thing.

We give children stuff to learn all the time that they don't understand. Give them stuff that forces them to level up for goodness sake.

Anyway, as foreigners the best thing that I think we can do is show by example rather than by raising hell (which would probably have the opposite effect). So onward with your Japanese studies. Let's surprise the heck out of them.

In any way, I think we're fighting a problem that doesn't need to be solved.
Little children do just fine with learning via natural methods. Maybe kanji is
still difficult for native Japanese, but any child can learn things well enough
via absorbing Japanese in a natural environment.

The 2 audiences that I think benefit most from Heisig are:
1)people who entered Japanese school too late to have time to learn Kanji and can't catch up

2)Adults learning Japanese

So basically I'd say that teens to adults would be the main audience for Heisig.
Of course, if you're younger and feel compelled to learn Heisig, by all means do it.

What I think would be cool would be if schools advised the use of Heisig.
It wouldn't be used explicitly in class due to reasons that Heisig mentioned. But they would allow students to proceed at their own pace and assist them along the way.

Afterwards, they would provide a curriculum that focuses on speaking and reading authentic Japanese material for those that finished Heisig. This would be especially great for universities all around the world. You could be fluent in reading Japanese by the end of 4 years. Very doable.

Hi chamcham,

First, I just want to continue to disagree that just because children can absorb stuff naturally doesn't mean we shouldn't phase them out of it. For 99.9% of people, there comes a time when we can't simply memorize stuff through absorption, and it's better to be a little prepared for when that time happens than completely unprepared (and thus ripe for discouragement).

Anyway, I agree that Heisig could at least be advertised a little bit more. (It seems like a lot of people have been talking about Heisig here in Japan. Is it becoming more and more popular or what?) I certainly wish I had studied as much of book 1 as possible before coming to Japan.

Also, where the heck are these authentic Japanese readings? I can't seem to find them anywhere in Japan. I had them in college, but sheesh! You'd think that they'd at least have books on tape but they don't.

Maybe I'll start a separate forum topic about this.

ericshun Wrote:I'm still not convinced that it is for adults only. Middle schoolers and 6th graders could do this stuff, too, not just adults. I feel like Heisig's method could be used but just with a little more guidance, especially when kanji become really complex and all you have to rely on is the brute force muscle memory.

... I think it goes beyond the adults being better at learning than kids thing.

... Anyway, as foreigners the best thing that I think we can do is show by example rather than by raising hell (which would probably have the opposite effect). So onward with your Japanese studies. Let's surprise the heck out of them.

1st, I agree that the middle school aged kids could manage too. The only thing I see is that these kids already have 1000 kanji learned by that point via "the way".

2nd, kids are way better at learning. Adults, if anything, simply have the experience of "how to learn", but it trips us up as much as it helps us. At least, I think so...

3rd, definitely agree. Interesting to discuss but if you really wanted to make a difference, you'd have to get your closest Japanese friend on board and have them raise the stink. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.

When I say authentic readings, I mean reading stuff that is "for Japanese people by Japanese people". Stuff that Japanese people would read out of their own interest. A lot of times the readings from textbooks are obviously dumbed down for foreigners and talk about subjects that no one would ever care about(*cough* JLPT reading section *cough*).

You can try to make it look like there's some dire kanji learning crisis all around Japan, but I doubt most people will buy it. You're just barking up the wrong tree. Even if Kanji is hard, they learn to read and speak just fine like anyone else. And given the Japanese appetite for manga and the necessity of reading textbooks for school, they get enough reading practice as it stands.

Maybe using Heisig for remedial students as an alternative learning method might be possible. But in terms of the general population, I would be hard-pressed to see anyone successfully initiate some kind of kanji learning reform all across Japan, especially with the slow bureaucratic process that would need to take place.

So even with difficulties, the children learn just fine. I think the people that really need help are the ones that seemingly have no hope of EVER learning kanji to any reasonable degree of sufficiency. That is where you would see the most improvement. This would be the teens and adults that I'm referring to. I just think that these people are a much better target than the general Japanese population that are good enough at reading to get by.

Actually Ive had a look in a few bookshops here in Tokyo and there are several books for kids which show images of why the kanji looks like it does, deriving from a picture and combining the primitives, eg 男 from field and muscle (although the book I saw taught 男 before 田　or 力 why???!). Different from Heisig but sort of what I imagined. However, in these days of computer and mobile phone auto text entry I think many if not most Japanese adults find it hard to remember how to write all of the joyo kanji by hand. Ie my wife thought that 皆 had 日　on the bottom not 白　etc but with the Heisig story of comparing the whites of 2 washing powders its impossible to make that mistake. (Neither my wife or my Japanese mother-in-law had any idea what consult with 諮　was which made me wonder whether it was worth bothering to learn it!）. I think a book along the lines of Heisig for adults to brush up on the easily mistaken and less common kanji could be very useful.