So I just got to chapter 11 and Heisig talks about making sure you have the stories for every kanji down, even the ones you "knew" before hand. Is this really important? I mean, for those kanji like "large", "little", "day" and all the other ones you learn when first studying Japanese. Granted, I am forcing myself to call them by their keywords as in the book, but I didn't really bother thinking about the stories for these basic kanji.

Also, some kanji I didn't know before hand, but the story didn't help me remember. I just remembered it. "seduce" is an example. I kinda remember what the story is about but I just remember it as being "seduce" and that's it.

Do you repeat the story in your head for every single kanji you review? Or are there some you just know, write down, and move on with? Has anyone else been in the situation like me and then later been screwed by it? Heisig makes it sound like my entire kanji world will crumble before I hit 1200.

What happens is that as more and more keywords pile up you get more and more keywords that have similar meanings. So what happens is that when you're further in the book, you start confusing keywords and overthinking. I've missed 日 a few times because I confused it with things like 昼.

So really, you need to make sure you solidify those keywords to those kanji to make sure you're not going to confuse it later on. The only real good way to do this is to use stories that lead you directly from keyword -> kanji.

Yes, the process I go through when I review is to walk through my mnemonic as I write the kanji.

I remember stories for all but the most basic kanji (i.e. numbers, for which he doesn't even really give stories). It's good to have a story in your head for "small" for when it pops up in kanji like 鎖 and you remember it's 3 dots, and isn't always shaped exactly like 小. The same goes for "seduce." It shows up as a part of other kanji later so it's good to have a clear image in your head.

For several, I don't have a story, but remember that the kanji is a pictograph of something and I have a mental image relating the character to the image, not to just a word.

I think Heisig is being a bit too exessive in his recommendations -- if you know a character and are sure you are not going to forget it (like 日) there is no need for a story.
Moreover, I think it is actually often harmful to have stories for simple characters, and you should never ever have any stories for primitives, not even when Heisig is offering them -- at least, not if your memory is anything like mine....

I would't worry about it all that much, although, this is what happened to me... When I first started the book, I didn't have this site to help me out, so as I progressed through the heisig story section of the book, I didn't really bother too much with trying to remember the "story", and I also wasn't using any kind of spaced repetition, I did try and start making cards, but I got to maybe 100 and gave up.

Up until recently (I've almost rectified this now) I didn't have strongly solidified stories in the first 500, so I could still catch myself confusing characters like 賄 bribe, frame 80, and 貢 tribute, 81, even though I've got it sorted now, it should've been sorted 6 months ago.

Well that's mixed, hehe. Basically I should figure out what works for me then. I do say the stories for 99% of the kanji I've learned, even ones I knew before but aren't quite as simple (like 消 for example). But a story for 本... I CAN remember what he said, something like a book is a crossection of a tree, but I think book and I can't help but think of that kanji. It's just TOO common.

I do fear my stories might not be strong enough. I will try to clearly visualize each story as I go to make sure, even on the ones I knew before. I can't wait to see what the story for 難 is. But I won't try to get ahead of myself. hehe.


edit: I think I realized a problem that I'm working on taking care of. I can see a keyword and remember the kanji. But, I don't think I've solidified the keyword itself into the story well enough for many kanji, 'cause the reverse, looking at kanji and seeing the keyword, is more difficult for many. Hopefully I can go back and do something to my stories to make that keyword stick.

One last thought that I'd rather not make a new thread about... What is up with frame #264 (栓)? I formed a great, vivid story and sure enough, when reviewing it came without a problem. But because Heisig says to use tree...umbrella...ball, when I wrote it, I wrote 玉 instead of 王. After all, he said in frame #256 (玉) that if it's anywhere BUT the left side, it would appear in it's full form, with the extra stroke. So while I can probably remember this exception, it seems he dropped the 玉 on that one.

It's been covered in another thread somewhere, but what you're describing is using visual memory more. Good! It's an effective method of memorization! However, Heisig wisely and strongly encourages you to avoid relying on visual memory as much as possible. 2042 kanji is just TOO much. Heck, 500 is probably too much for visual memory alone at this speed.

You really need solid images for every kanji, even the simple ones. When you've got 30 odd related kanji for a single concept (ie, money: profits, income, earnings, tribute, market, pay, price, etc.) your mind is mush if you can't follow your story.

I force myself to slow down and think through the stories when I review. It's only a couple seconds, but it's worth it. When I rush, I make stupid mistakes/confusions/substitutions as a few have alread exampled.

Jawful Wrote:One last thought that I'd rather not make a new thread about... What is up with frame #264 (栓)? I formed a great, vivid story and sure enough, when reviewing it came without a problem. But because Heisig says to use tree...umbrella...ball, when I wrote it, I wrote 玉 instead of 王. After all, he said in frame #256 (玉) that if it's anywhere BUT the left side, it would appear in it's full form, with the extra stroke. So while I can probably remember this exception, it seems he dropped the 玉 on that one.

It seems you are indeed right, though I don't have the book in front of me to see if he really said that, but you wouldn't just make that up. Maybe you can replace the balls with scepters.

When discussing 玉

Heisig Wrote:When it appears anywhere other than on the left side of a kanji, it generally takes the same shape as here.

My emphasis. ref: page 119, RTK1.

It seems a bit odd that Heisig would bother saying this coz there are plenty other kanji that have the king on the right...

From my version:

Heisig Wrote:As a primitive, we can use this to mean either jewel or ball.
When it appears anywhere other than on the left side of a
kanji, it takes the same shape as here. On the left, it will be
lacking the 3rd stroke, making it the same as the character in
the previous frame, 王.

RTK 4th Edition, pg 119. The word "generally" is missing.

What edition are you looking at?

Also, how often is 玉 actually used in other kanji? Often enough that I should ditch the thought of 王 as "ball" when it's in other kanji? 'Cause I don't want the addition, or lack of, that stroke to mess up the kanji so I'd rather think of kings or scepters... but after finishing that chapter, I have balls without that extra stroke all over the place in my stories.

Jawful Wrote:What edition are you looking at?

A 4th edition! Don't have my book in front of me just now but I think king and jewel are both described by Heisig as ball when used as a primative (at least I think so).

Jawful Wrote:Also, how often is 玉 actually used in other kanji? Often enough that I should ditch the thought of 王 as "ball" when it's in other kanji? 'Cause I don't want the addition, or lack of, that stroke to mess up the kanji so I'd rather think of kings or scepters... but after finishing that chapter, I have balls without that extra stroke all over the place in my stories.

Personally I think what I do is think of 王 as either *king* or *ball* in my stories. Where as 玉 I see as *jewels* or *valuables* and the like.

EDIT: I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just keep adding cards at a constant rate (if time allows) and let the system's review structure sort thing out for you. So what if it is in and out of your red stack a few times before you "get" it.

Good idea. No point stressing over something that may not end up being a problem at all.

i could read about 1200 characters when i started with heisig, and successfully skipped ~500 stories.

I skipped stories for kanji I thought I already knew well, but since staring blankly at the kanji for paper for several minutes, convinced I'd never seen it in my life before, I've started making up stories for most of the ones I think I know too. Since studying RTK, I sometimes find that I have a complete mental block on recognising kanji that I can't relate to the Heisig method (i.e. I didn't bother writing stories for them). If I somehow add an extra tag to them in my brain that says "not Heisig", it's fine, but I'm not convinced this method is ideal! I've tried to go back and write at least something basic for the "well-known" kanji, even if it's not the best story I've every written, so I have some way of relating it to the Heisig method. So long as you can recall the story for each kanji though, I wouldn't worry about whether you do recall it each time you review. I'm sure Heisig says somewhere in the intro that eventually you shouldn't need to recall your stories when writing.

It bit me today. I had to learn 乾 (473 drought) and the story mentioned mist. I was like, "mist? wtf is mist?" only to realize it went in and out of my mind rather quickly when I supposedly learned 朝. That one is just in my visual memory, I have no idea how mist and month,moon,body,etc are supposed to make up a story and thus far it hasn't mattered. But I still had to relearn what "mist" was so I could remember this new kanji. And, of course, in reviewing it, it went into the red box...