Okay..so I'm about to demonstrate the full extent of my noobness. There are several questions that I have (in fact a few extra that I will leave out of this post). Well for starters I don't know if I have taken a wrong interpretation on the kanji themselves or if I just don't understand how they are/aren't used together as compounds or what. For one heisig says right at the beginning of the introduction "You will read nothing about how kanji combine to form compounds." So as I understand it, all of the kanji I am studying in RTK1 mean exactly (or approximately) what the key word is? As a basic, single word definition? Yet everyone says it's not even important to remember the keyword, as you are mainly just practicing stroke order and such. Well is it not just as important to remember these words? There have been a few cases already where I have seen words (online or subs from movies) in which I recognize a few of the kanji, but I can't tell if they are the words that I am learning or if they are being used as compounds. There doesn't seem to be any way to distinguish it, as they always seem to be paired right next to each other either way.
For example I was watching the film "suicide club" and that was written as 自殺サークル
I see a couple of individual kanji here that I have learned (only as far as lesson 4 so far). 自 meaning "oneself" and of course ー meaning "1". It's obvious that ー is being used as a compound, seeing as how it wouldn't make sense otherwise, but I'm wondering if 自 is being used as part of the meaning of "suicide" as in perhaps "to kill oneself"? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself thinking about this stuff, I don't know.

I also don't know why people say you should only study keyword to kanji, and not the other way around. Heisig says he would explain it later on in the book, but I couldn't find it flipping through the pages. I would think it's just as important to study kanji to keyword, that way you know if you are actually remembering what these characters mean, or if you are just remembering what to draw to whatever keyword.

On another note, I feel that I am making very slow progress. Heisig estimates that with average study of a couple hours a day that you should be able to learn 20-25 new kanji a day. Other people often say they learn double that, or even more. Sounds like quite a feat to me. I've only been at it actively for a few days now, but I'm definitely not even retaining 20 a day. I've only made it to lesson four, so that's only 52 kanji that I have learned so far, and honestly those 52 are not 100% in my mind for easy recall. I still struggle at times when reviewing just those. Is that normal? Should I not be picking up on this faster? I feel I'm just as mentally capable as the next guy, so I don't know why I'm struggling so much with these baby steps.

Ok well actually, I guess ー is just used as a dash there to space the words "suicide" and "club". This was actually what I originally thought when looking at it. But since in the movie it was just a straight line (same as the keyword for "1" in my SRS) I misinterpreted/overanalyzed it.

Note: サークル is the word for "Club" (like a 'circle') The ー means that the sound from サ is extended, effectively making it サアクル. I would highly suggest learning Hiragana and Katakana immediately.

In the specific case of 自殺, you get lucky and it actually is 'self kill.' Most situations you're not so lucky.

At first you may want to hang onto the keywords, thinking that they're little definitions of what the kanji mean. This may be more or less be true for some kanji, but they're not. The only reason they exist is to give you a word to "link" the unfamiliar chicken scratches to.
Kanji -> Keyword will not help you. Your goal is to learn the kanji (how to write them, presumably) so test in that direction. The other way around will work itself out (how can you write it without being able to recognize it?)

As for retention rate, you don't need 100%. For long term, anything roughly 80%-95% is usually considered good. I think you need stronger associations from the keywords to the stories. If you know the story well, the kanji will easily fall into place. Don't memorize the kanji, memorize the stories, and it will take care of itself. Eventually the stories will fade away too.

tl;dr: Keywords not definitions. Don't go Kanji->Keyword. Remember stories better for better retention. Things work themselves out. Learn the kana!!!


edit: typos, missed words

Hologen Wrote:For one heisig says right at the beginning of the introduction "You will read nothing about how kanji combine to form compounds." So as I understand it, all of the kanji I am studying in RTK1 mean exactly (or approximately) what the key word is? As a basic, single word definition?

No, he just means the book doesn't say anything about compounds. In some cases a keyword is chosen based on a compound in which the character is used, and not strictly based on the character's actual meaning.

Quote:Yet everyone says it's not even important to remember the keyword, as you are mainly just practicing stroke order and such. Well is it not just as important to remember these words?

You'll need to remember the keywords in the short term. They're less important in the long term.

Quote:There have been a few cases already where I have seen words (online or subs from movies) in which I recognize a few of the kanji, but I can't tell if they are the words that I am learning or if they are being used as compounds. There doesn't seem to be any way to distinguish it, as they always seem to be paired right next to each other either way.

The only way to make the distinction is to learn the various compounds and become familiar with Japanese text.

Quote:For example I was watching the film "suicide club" and that was written as 自殺サークル
I see a couple of individual kanji here that I have learned (only as far as lesson 4 so far). 自 meaning "oneself" and of course ー meaning "1". It's obvious that ー is being used as a compound, seeing as how it wouldn't make sense otherwise, but I'm wondering if 自 is being used as part of the meaning of "suicide" as in perhaps "to kill oneself"? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself thinking about this stuff, I don't know.

Sounds like you are getting ahead of yourself. the ー here (notice it looks different from 一) is katakana, not kanji. It's not a word-separation-dash either. The two words here are 自殺 and サークル.

Hologen Wrote:So as I understand it, all of the kanji I am studying in RTK1 mean exactly (or approximately) what the key word is? As a basic, single word definition?

Not really. Some kanji can stand alone as words, but a lot of them can't. It's sort of like the "tele" in "telephone" and "television" -- "tele" has a meaning, but you can't use it by itself as a word.

The problem is that kanji often have multiple meanings, or sometimes when they get put in compounds they essentially lose their meaning.

Quote:For example I was watching the film "suicide club" and that was written as 自殺サークル
I see a couple of individual kanji here that I have learned (only as far as lesson 4 so far). 自 meaning "oneself" and of course ー meaning "1". It's obvious that ー is being used as a compound, seeing as how it wouldn't make sense otherwise, but I'm wondering if 自 is being used as part of the meaning of "suicide" as in perhaps "to kill oneself"? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself thinking about this stuff, I don't know.

自殺 is an example of a word where the meanings of the kanji combine very well and you can clearly see the meaning. 自 = self, 殺 = kill, so 自殺 = kill self (suicide). Unfortunately this kind of very clear compound doesn't cover every case.

The ー is actually not the kanji 一, but a dash showing a lengthened vowel in katakana (so this is "saakuru").

Quote:I also don't know why people say you should only study keyword to kanji, and not the other way around.

Heisig's argument seems to be that if you do that, you'll automatically remember the kanji->keyword as well. But also, the single keyword does not always encompass all of the kanji's usages.

lol, so even with my re-evaluation of ー I was once again wrong! But it did make a bit more sense and I did notice it was different from 一, it's just that it didn't go either way in the movie, it was just a straight line.
So are there never spaces inbetween words?

I also considered learning the hirigana and katakana to give me a better understanding of what I'm learning here, but for some reason most people say to learn the Kanji first. At least that is what Khatz from AJATT stresses, so I opted to take his advice. Now I'm not so sure.

So to make sure I'm getting this, while the Kanji I am learning typically do mean, at least in the ballpark range, what the keyword is. The fact that a) this is not always the case and b) they are used so often as compounds, that this is the main reason for not learning kanji to keyword? Because I will get tripped up thinking of old keywords when they are being used otherwise? But why study the keywords at all then? lol...if you really learn everything in RTK wouldn't that happen anyway? I mean, I know that might be a little over the top thing to say, but at the same time it just seems like, well I am learning things like 自 meaning "oneself" I'm not just learning how to draw 自. So it seems like either way I study it, I will encounter that very thing in the future.

Hologen Wrote:So are there never spaces inbetween words?

nope

Quote:I also considered learning the hirigana and katakana to give me a better understanding of what I'm learning here, but for some reason most people say to learn the Kanji first. At least that is what Khatz from AJATT stresses, so I opted to take his advice. Now I'm not so sure.

I don't know who most people are, but I'd say that Khatz is very far from most people, and in fact, someone who I disagree with on many points.
Go through RtK doing however many kanji a day you want. 20-25 should be OK.
Learn Hiragana, at the very least, and go learn some grammar and vocab. You can learn a lot of Japanese before you finish RtK.

Quote:So to make sure I'm getting this, while the Kanji I am learning typically do mean, at least in the ballpark range, what the keyword is. The fact that a) this is not always the case and b) they are used so often as compounds, that this is the main reason for not learning kanji to keyword?

I don't have any objections to you believing this at this point in time. Eventually you'll understand.
The reason you don't go Kanji->Keyword is because you'll never need it. You won't look at 三匹 and be "Three Equal, That must mean it equals 3!"
hint: It means 3 small animals.
However, if you're thinking "Crap, what's the word for subtitle...it's 字, and then is it 幕 or 墓?" Heisig will be able to help you differentiate between the two

Quote:Because I will get tripped up thinking of old keywords when they are being used otherwise? But why study the keywords at all then? lol...if you really learn everything in RTK wouldn't that happen anyway? I mean, I know that might be a little over the top thing to say, but at the same time it just seems like, well I am learning things like 自 meaning "oneself" I'm not just learning how to draw 自. So it seems like either way I study it, I will encounter that very thing in the future.

What happens is that the kanji 自 gets a place in your brain as "oneself." One reason is because your brain, unlike a Japanese person's brain, thinks in English. At this stage, it's much, much easier to remember "oneself" than it is just a random 自. In time, you'll learn to associate it with 自分, or 自然、自動, etc...

Why learn the kanji individually instead of in the words 自分 etc, first? Because Heisig makes it incredibly easy to remember 特　時　持　待 寺　侍 等　and all the other kanji that look exactly alike.

Learning hiragana and katakana while learning kanji shouldn't be too bad. I don't think that is one of Khatzumoto's big rules, just a general thing he suggested. Shouldn't really matter. Do whichever one feels right for you

That really helps clarify things for me, Asriel. Ironically though, at first I thought 匹 was 4, I guess it is different because one side is open. It's ironic because it looks almost exactly like 四. In which case, sort of based on the way you explained that, I should already have learned 匹 because they look so similar! lol..but I think I have a much better understanding now. I appreciate everyone's responses.

Hologen, I agree with everyone else: stick with keyword-to-kanji for now; don't expect yourself to have 100% retention; don't be afraid to bull ahead at 25-30 kanji a day (or more if you have time); and it wouldn't hurt to learn some kana/grammar/vocab while you're doing RTK.

To help with retention, consider a "spaced repetition system" like Anki or, for RTK, this website's "reviewing the Kanji" section. If you click the link in the upper-right hand corner of the page, it will take you to a study page, where you can compare stories with other people, and where you can test yourself daily with flashcards. The site will give you "failed" cards more often, and will test you on "successful" retention a bit less often, making your review more efficient. I highly recommend it. When I was doing RTK, I got between 75-85% right. I'm still reviewing RTK at this site, and now I'm in the 85-95% range.

A few more thoughts on keyword-to-kanji. In my experience, Heisig is right that kanji-to-keyword will "take care of itself," as he puts it. Keyword-to-kanji is a more "active" way of learning: it requires you to actively produce the kanji, not just passively recognize it. Obviously you'll also want to practice recognition at some point, and if you're really eager, you could do it on top of your normal keyword-to-kanji reviews now. But I'd save it for later, once you're starting to learn compounds. Once you're at that stage, you'll spend virtually all your time in passive-recognition mode, and your passive-recognition skills will develop naturally. For now, focus on the other half of the equation, the active-production mode.

Finally, a brief defense of the keywords. In general, I've found them to be very helpful tools. (Full disclosure: I've only been at this a few months.) In most cases, the keywords do put one in the "ballpark" of meaning, which is all you need once you start learning compounds. I've really been pleasantly surprised at how often I correctly guess what a compound means, though I hasten to add that the kanji don't always lend their meaning to a compound -- sometimes they're just there for phonetic purposes. Also, the keywords give you a handy one-word "label" or "name" for a kanji, which is surprisingly helpful; as I said, sometimes a kanji is in a compound primarily for phonetic reasons, and in that case it's especially handy to have a "name" for it. Lastly, it's easier at your stage to have one keyword than to clutter up your brain with 10 different possible meanings of a kanji (to say nothing of all their readings).

Stick with it! RTK de-mystifies the kanji, makes them your friends rather than your enemies. It should also be fun. At least, it was for me.

Groot Wrote:Stick with it! RTK de-mystifies the kanji, makes them your friends rather than your enemies. It should also be fun. At least, it was for me.

I think this may just be the main point of what RTK is. It takes something scary/overwhelming and brings you almost to a point of...'friendly intimacy' with the characters, shall we say.


About the keywords:
The reason that I try and mention how they're not definitions is mainly to avoid misleading the beginner into thinking that they're learning something that they're not.
I agree that a lot of times they are very helpful to have. Especially because I would ALWAYS write 試検 instead of 試験. You need to "verify" your knowledge, not "examine/investigate" it.
They can often be helpful, but just don't put all your faith into thinking "these keywords are how to read Japanese!!!"

[Katsuo]

Hologen Wrote:That really helps clarify things for me, Asriel. Ironically though, at first I thought 匹 was 4, I guess it is different because one side is open. It's ironic because it looks almost exactly like 四. In which case, sort of based on the way you explained that, I should already have learned 匹 because they look so similar! lol..but I think I have a much better understanding now. I appreciate everyone's responses.

Although at first glance 四 looks like 匹 with one extra stroke, in fact the stroke order and the strokes themselves are a bit different. Hence they are in different sections of the book.

Hologen Wrote:That really helps clarify things for me, Asriel. Ironically though, at first I thought 匹 was 4, I guess it is different because one side is open. It's ironic because it looks almost exactly like 四. In which case, sort of based on the way you explained that, I should already have learned 匹 because they look so similar! lol..but I think I have a much better understanding now. I appreciate everyone's responses.

Once you've learnt a lot more (or all) of the kanji, you'll find how great it is to immediately see that there's a difference between those kanji that at first looked so much alike. I remember showing some of my flash cards to my brother-in-law and he thought two of them were the same (I can't remember which ones, I think it was 来 and 平 or something), and I was like: OMG can you not see they're absolutely totally different? :O Of course, when I first started they all looked like big scary mean things that were all the same to me as well, so it's really satisfying to be able to see the difference at an immediate glance now.

I remember a Japanese person laughing at me for confusing 減 and 滅. At the time, and for a while after, I thought "They're not that different... -_-" But now I too see them as completely different.

To me, Heisig's method is about 'remembering' the kanji so they'll be familiar and recognizable as one goes on to study other aspects of the language (like kanji compounds!). It's NOT about learning vocabulary. When it comes to studying kanji, I think it's best to avoid thinking in terms of 'meaning', in the sense of 'definition' altogether. Instead, think of the keywords as concepts, i.e., abstract ideas or general notions of things. Their purpose is to give the non-Japanese mind a single, familiar conceptual hook on which to hang the individual kanji during the learning process. Certainly a much better idea than trying to associate the unfamiliar kanji with equally unfamiliar Japanese 'readings' or multiple 'meanings'. Yikes!

And by all means learn the kana now. It's very easy and fast, and you won't be able to read or write Japanese without them. Also, you'll be better off studying grammar from a source that employs kana instead of relying solely on English and romaji.

speaking as someone who has recently finished rtk and done almost nothing else (slowly starting grammar/sentences), if i had a do-over i would have done rtkana (it takes like 3hrs a book, if that) first and then been progressively studying grammar as i did rtk. by the time you're done with rtk you'll have gotten much more bang for your buck than i have just doing straight kanji (imho) and it won't take THAT much longer.

I think the reason khatz says rtk first is more about prioritising - rtk is ultimately (at least it can be) very tedious and its benefit is reduced the longer you take to start "using" what you've learnt (which is why we're all relying on srs to keep it in our heads). to be successful using rtk you need to do it as quickly as you can a) so you can start using it and thus further distilling it in your brain and b) so you don't get sick of it and give up before you start the fun stuff.

personally, i find now that i'm in the early stages of grammar/sentences i can easily hold onto a reading and meaning of an otherwise non de-script character in a sea of kanji when i have a real context in which to keep it. thus when i see it in my kanji deck i can pass it as easy and not have to worry about it again. EG, 何, i failed that a few times til i started doing some grammar here and there and realised how common it is - i see and hear it a hundred times a day and now it's at an interval of over a year or something...

perhaps look at nukemarine's guide thread and try one of his RTKlite lists rather than slaving your way through 2042 kanji for better bang for your buck...

Hologen Wrote:I also don't know why people say you should only study keyword to kanji, and not the other way around. Heisig says he would explain it later on in the book, but I couldn't find it flipping through the pages. I would think it's just as important to study kanji to keyword, that way you know if you are actually remembering what these characters mean, or if you are just remembering what to draw to whatever keyword.

Heisig suggested in the end of RTK2 to set up a following drilling routine:
1) from meaning to writing (from my experience, at some point in your studies it becomes easier to drill from both on-yomi and kun-yomi to writing, then from english keyword to writing)
2) from compound to on-yomi
3) from inflected kanji to kun-yomi

I guess Heisig didn`t recommend to drill from kanji to (english) keyword, because (1) in most cases one keyword is not enough to grasp the range of possible meanings for a given kanji, and (2) "kanji to keyword" drill doesn`t add to your reading ability, while "inflected kanji to kun-yomi" or "compound to on-yomi" do.

You can think of RTK keywords as indexes, or unique addresses for each kanji, rather than meanings. The idea is that if you don't have a separate "home" with its respective unique address for each kanji in your mind, then the kanjis will start occupying whatever place they find open randomly. If that happens, you'll have a hard time each time you have to find a kanji, because you won't know where to search for it.

If you like analogies, imagine that you're playing "Guess Who?". The kanjis are the faces, and the keywords are the names. How could you check if you have the correct kanji if you don't have unique names for all of them?

Hologen Wrote:I also considered learning the hirigana and katakana to give me a better understanding of what I'm learning here, but for some reason most people say to learn the Kanji first. At least that is what Khatz from AJATT stresses, so I opted to take his advice. Now I'm not so sure.

I have never understood why he says so. Going all the way through RTK without having any idea of the kanas (which also hinders your knowledge of Japanese pronunciation, and prevents you from reading even a single word without using romaji - shudders -, which basically means preventing you from having any contact with real written Japanese) is just so illogical, counter-intuitive and pointless that the only explanations I can think of are:

a) He has no idea of what he's talking about.
b) He's a sadistic SOB and wants to make you suffer and laugh at you.
c) He was baked when he wrote that.

I'm pretty sure Khatz didn't suggest not learning the kana at all until you've finished RTK. Anyone who would has no idea what they're talking about and they'd find out after a while it's better to do it beforehand (or during, if you have to).
Then again, I don't know him, but I don't think he can be that stupid.

I'm pretty sure this means he does mean to learn Kanji first, isolated:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo....chart.png

Quote:Do not: pause in your kanji study. Do not: start learning Japanese grammar on the side before finishing kanji. Learn kanji first.

Wat?

Quote:Learn the 46 hiragana and katakana respectively using Heisig’s Remembering the Kana. Why do this after kanji? No particular reason…you could do the kana first if you wanted, even though you won’t be using them much.

WAT? That's right, I almost NEVER use hiragana in everyday life, because like 90% of Japanese writing is Kanji anyway. People never forget what kanji a word consists of.

I can see where this whole "get RtK out of the way" is intriguing. But if I was starting Japanese over, I would like to begin with learning Japanese and doing RtK in the background.

Asriel Wrote:

Quote:Learn the 46 hiragana and katakana respectively using Heisig’s Remembering the Kana. Why do this after kanji? No particular reason…you could do the kana first if you wanted, even though you won’t be using them much.

WAT? That's right, I almost NEVER use hiragana in everyday life, because like 90% of Japanese writing is Kanji anyway. People never forget what kanji a word consists of.

I can see where this whole "get RtK out of the way" is intriguing. But if I was starting Japanese over, I would like to begin with learning Japanese and doing RtK in the background.

What he means is that while your doing RtK, you won't have much (any) use of hiragana since you'll be doing nothing but learning kanji, you won't start learning Japanese until after you're done.

Tobberoth Wrote:What he means is that while your doing RtK, you won't have much (any) use of hiragana since you'll be doing nothing but learning kanji, you won't start learning Japanese until after you're done.

Heh, thanks. I guess I misread him as putting a lot more emphasis on Kanji than he actually is.

Regardless, I think spending 3 months doing nothing but RtK, before learning a word of Japanese, is a silly idea (although people, including ta12121, have done it). Perhaps I just like quicker gratification.

Asriel Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:What he means is that while your doing RtK, you won't have much (any) use of hiragana since you'll be doing nothing but learning kanji, you won't start learning Japanese until after you're done.

Heh, thanks. I guess I misread him as putting a lot more emphasis on Kanji than he actually is.

Regardless, I think spending 3 months doing nothing but RtK, before learning a word of Japanese, is a silly idea (although people, including ta12121, have done it). Perhaps I just like quicker gratification.

I agree with you there. It seems unlikely to me than someone who has no grasp of Japanese at all can really value RtK. And it would suck pretty hard to spend 3 months on RtK and then give up Japanese altogether after another month because it turns out they found it boring to learn the actual language.

Kanji is an integrated part of Japanese, so doing it first without having ANY contact with Japanese seems odd to me.

I think RTK is best done after you have a solid grasp of the basics, learning a few kanji the old fashioned way in the process. That means about JLPT4N (3 on the old scale). One could I suppose start RTK at a leisurely pace around JLPT5N, but it shouldn't be the priority. Until you start attacking JLPT2, it isn't kanji that will be holding you back anyways.

Personally I started RTK after I was JLPT2 level, although I owned the book since before I really knew much Japanese other than koneecheewah. I have a bad habit of collecting books that I never look at (or only look at years later).

Tobberoth Wrote:

Asriel Wrote:Regardless, I think spending 3 months doing nothing but RtK, before learning a word of Japanese, is a silly idea (although people, including ta12121, have done it). Perhaps I just like quicker gratification.

I agree with you there. It seems unlikely to me than someone who has no grasp of Japanese at all can really value RtK. And it would suck pretty hard to spend 3 months on RtK and then give up Japanese altogether after another month because it turns out they found it boring to learn the actual language.

Kanji is an integrated part of Japanese, so doing it first without having ANY contact with Japanese seems odd to me.

I did RTK first exactly because it would not teach me any Japanese. I had no experience with self-studying and planned to learn by taking a course later in the year, but before that I had a three-month summer holiday with nothing to do.