I'm 250 kanji into RTK1, and I'm seeing kanji like 桂 (Japanese Judas-tree) and 桐 (paulonia). My strong urge is to ignore these, because I'm never going to need to read them in real life. Japanese is hard enough to learn without forcing myself to memorize species of plant life. If it was "cherry blossom", sure, I'd love to learn that; but I have no idea what a Judas-tree or paulownia looks like, so it's hard to form a mental image. And if I do encounter these kanji, 木 on the left plus the context of the sentence would probably let me guess that it's a kind of tree or tree-related anyways.

But if 桂 and 桐 are included as primitives in later kanji, then I guess I might have no choice but to learn them. Are they?

Or are they there only to help you learn their primitives, i.e. Heisig needed an example to help you solidify 木, 圭, 同, so he picked those?

[Katsuo]

Those two kanji aren't used later as primitives, nor are they especially common, so you could omit them for now. 桐 (kiri) is often used in furniture, and 桂 (katsura) crops up in names, so you will come across them occasionally.

TBH I thought both of them were pretty lame keywords but because of that, pretty easy to remember. I can list off the story for Paulownia right now that I thought of (I can't do that for all of them):

Paul says he owns that Paulownia tree, but I think it looks the same as all the others.

Really memorable story -> remember it -> why not.

Plus for all you know it might not mean exactly what the keyword is, or have more meanings.

Those are general-use kanji so they are included regardless of their frequency. A kanji is general-use if it is on a Japanese government-approved list. The distinction is arbitrary.

Now, many of the commonly used but previously non-general-use kanji (ex:誰) are now general-use kanji because the Japanese government revised the list recently. James Heisig has said a new version of "Remembering the Kanji" that includes the new general-use kanji is forthcoming.

I HIGHLY doubt you need help solidifying 木. Is 木 the most common element among kanji? It might be second only to 日. The others possibly.

Consider RTK-lite, which is an alternate set of Kanji from the RTK1 book (1000 instead of 2000). I don't have the details. You could search for RTK lite on the forum for the details. Basically they exclude any kanji where f is >1000. f=frequency. For 桂, f=1651 and for 桐, f=1668. For 日, f=1 (it's the most common kanji).

While I don't think you can say with certainty that you will never need them, I agree that they are not worth learning now. I see both of them in Genji-related stuff because the title of the first chapter is 桐壺（きりつぼ）, and 桂 is used in classical poetry. But most likely they would appear with furigana in a general-use work, and even if they don't, you can learn them when you see them.

I don't get why you wouldn't want to learn them now. I mean, not only are the more useless ones few and far in between, but those two OP listed are particularly easy to remember as well. Why not do them while doing the method learning primitives and keep it simple instead of needing to give yourself extra work later?

BTW: About the extra added characters.

For someone who is gonna be doing RTK3, do you suggest doing the extra ones now or don't bother with them until RTK3? Because I heard they came from RTK3.

If not does anyone have a spreadsheet or something of them, that shows which ones came from RTK3 and which ones didn't so I can just do the latter ones? I'll do RTK3 later.

Why would you skip them?you are going for more than 2000 kanji,are 2 more going to give you that much trouble?they are pretty easy but thats besides the point.the attitude of skipping kanji might harm you later in the book,there are lots of kanji keywords that could sound useless,so i say just do everything now instead of having to worry about it later.

[Katsuo]

zachandhobbes Wrote:does anyone have a spreadsheet or something of them, that shows which ones came from RTK3 and which ones didn't

I made a spreadsheet last year. (Note that my keywords for the 23 kanji not in RTK1/3 sometimes differ from those in Heisig's supplement which came out more recently.)

Here is a list of the 98 kanji in RTK1 that were not in the old Joyo kanji list of 1,945 characters. The updated list released this year has 2,136 characters. 桂 and 桐 aren't included in either list.

I have the 5th edition so I have the 98 new ones, but the 23 ones in the spreadsheet will be handy. Thanks!!

Not sure how you should go about it, but one thing I want to mention is that common plants in Japan and common plants in the west are completely different. While Japanese Judas-tree and Paulownia aren't popular in the west at all, 桐 is as widely used in Japan as Oak is in the west. 桂 is a bit rare as a plant, but the Kanji is used fairly commonly. For example, 桂馬 (Nights of Japanese chess)、肉桂(cinnamon) and 桂剥き (a way to slice/peel vegetables. Have you ever seen a sushi chef peeling Daikon radish? that's 桂剥き). It is also a popular last name.

Now should I put Paulownia into my English vocabulary list? mmm. I'll pass this one. My spelling checker don't even recognize this guy.

Those two kanji are not common words, but they are used in some family names, and in literature, such as the kiritsubo consort from Genji's Tale.

You'll most likely come across them in proper nouns as ocircle says. Especially things like train stations or restaurant names. I thought it was a bit bizarre that gaul bladder (I think?) was one of the first kanji he has you learn. But to answer your question, yes, it's fine to forget these ones for now.

You're worrying about 2 Kanji out of ...3000? In the time it took you to write this post you could have learned/memorized them and have moved on. Some things are easier to just tell yourself "just suck it up and do it" instead of worrying about it.

jcdietz03 Wrote:Those are general-use kanji so they are included regardless of their frequency. A kanji is general-use if it is on a Japanese government-approved list. The distinction is arbitrary.

Actually, as katsuo pointed out, neither is joyo-kanji.

But seriously @brian, why would you whine about having to learn the characters for two trees? Yeesh.

If you ever decide to read literature, 桐 will probably come up a lot. If you expose yourself to enough media, you'll eventually come across both kanji, so I think that while you're in this phase of learning kanji, it might be a good idea to become accustomed to it now and save yourself the confusion later.

Also, when you start eliminating kanji like that, it may become pretty easy for you to keep eliminating them out of habit (more important ones, even). However, I don't know what your learning habits are like so I could very well be wrong :B

Above all, have fun with your kanji learning

Thanks to everyone who pointed out where these kanji are used in compounds and names. I think that's a good reason to learn them.

I don't know what your Japanese level is, but if you're going into RtK with not much knowledge in general (as I did) then double check the kanji if some of the keywords seem "useless" at first glance. It's no secret to any RtKers that many of Heisig's keywords are poor choices and/or don't accurately convey the true meanings (or multiple meanings) of characters.

Just an extra head's up for ya. As a side note, don't get into a habit of dismissing things as "you'll never need it." You just have no no idea what lies in the future

Good luck!

Taking the time to ask about it on a message board where knowledgeable people may have an answer is the opposite of dismissing it.

While we're passing advice around, allow me to offer some counter-advice. Being skeptical and questioning things is one of the best ways to learn. One way to use RTK is to think "Heisig put it in the book, therefore I must learn it". Another way, a better way, is to notice that some kanji seem out-of-place, wonder why, and ask about it.

It could be Heisig had a good reason to put it in the book. In which case you'll learn that reason, and have a better understanding of Japanese. Or it could be that Heisig had no reason, or no reason that's relevant to you personally. In which case you'll learn that fact, and have a better understanding of the book and how to use it.

I asked a simple question, and now I've learned a little about classical poetry, Japanese names, furniture, cinnamon, government word lists and frequency counts. Most of which I knew a bit about already, but now I know a bit more. I was also motivated to look up Genji, and now I know all kinds of interesting things about that too.

Some of the replies here, i.e. "stop being lazy" and "stop whining", are missing the point entirely.

Thanks again to everyone for answering my question.