Christine, to be completely fair I reread every post you've made. You have done a good job of saying that you used RTK and found it didn't work for you. There is no problem there, and I respect that.

But the overwhelming tone and implications of your posts are that your method is superior to Heisig's. You not only repeatedly imply Heisig's method is both pointless and counter productive, but state it baldly and broadly:

Quote:What's worse, I discovered Heisig's method is actually counterproductive in the long term, because he does not distinguish between phonetic and semantic markers, hence his method is detrimental to the most effective way of learning Kanji (composite phonetic/semantic marker decomposition).

Quote:I think I've already explained this earlier. Why bother learning half facts, and then finding you have to unlearn them (see my earlier examples), when everything can be learnt in one go?

Quote:Why not just pick and choose the words you do want to learn?

Quote:I think the point that "Kanji in Context" and my Japanese teacher were trying to make (which I agree with) is that many words in the list are *not* in daily use, and therefore should only be learnt if necessary, not systematically.

Quote:Well, I like the idea of *all* the work being done for me and having someone who has already done the research describe how each kanji was formed and has evolved.

Quote:So whilst I can see knowing RTK1 gives someone a bit of an edge, I'm not sure it amounts to much.

Quote:Also, it not necessary to completely learn the building blocks prior to learning the characters. I know Heisig says so, and logically it makes sense, but if you use the "etymology" approach to teaching Kanji, it's not necessary.

(Plus the whole nonsense with you thinking tree names are useless...)

These don't just imply your method is better, but bluntly state Heisig's is wrong.

On a personal note, though directly related, your posts reek of princess syndrome. They not only disparage the method that has revolutionized our studies, but constantly prattle on. You pleaded,

Quote:So don't see my posts as "hey, this privileged idiot who has the opportunity to access all these great teachers is coming onto this site to disparage Heisig. How dare she!"

but that's exactly how they come across: "Gosh, it sure is difficult doing what I'm doing! Somedays I'm just in a tizzy after all that intense studying. But I'm just dandy. How do I manage it? I AM top of the class of course, always have been, and my teacher is ever so excellent. Everyone in my class is so impressed with how amazing I am. All those other methods are for icky people. I'm glad I can handle the correct way to do things. It sure is difficult though. Tee-hee!" The reason I don't flick about my own crushing list of accolades and academic achievement is because it ALWAYS comes across as bragging that one knows better and thus everything they do is the superior method.

Finally, as a word of advice, never rely on anyone to simply understand you from context by adding "to me" to your statements. It doesn't matter how personal and overtly individual a piece can be, bold statements must be clarified. "Japan is a shitty country" would offend a lot of people even if you'd spent a whole book saying it was all a personal opinion and you know many people who love Japan.

*EDIT: to clarify quotes were from seperate posts, even though it's already indicated from the description...*

dingomick Wrote:But the overwhelming tone and implications of your posts are that your method is superior to Heisig's. You not only repeatedly imply Heisig's method is both pointless and counter productive, but state it baldly and broadly:

With all due respect, dingomick, I think we are going around and around in circles. If you do not like my posts, stop reading this thread.

At this stage, I am not sure there is anything I can do so I am not even going to try. I have before, and clearly you persist in seeing things that are not there. I notice you are not even bothering to respond to my previous posts, you are just rehashing the same points over and over again.

You are quoting my posts out of context, and mixing quotes from a number of different posts together in an effort to make it seem like one train of thought when it is an assemblage of different things said in different posts. I mean, is that fair? How can I even respond to something like that? Especially if you are going to remove all the caveats to make it *seem* like I'm making blunt criticism?

The point is: you *want* to interpret everything I say as "blunt" criticism of Heisig. Even a disinterest in tree names suddenly becomes an implied criticism of Heisig. I notice you never responded to my call for the results of your "informal poll." So, did you do a poll or not? If you did, surely you can share with us your results?

Why don't you follow your own advice in post #80:

dingomick Wrote:Come on guys, let's let the poor girl be. Like us, she has more productive things to do with her time, namely studying kanji and learning Japanese, something we all agree is good regardless of method. (I plead for myself also, because I simply cannot tear my eyes away from this trainwreck. While I was immensely entertained, I barely studied anything today!).

That was excellent advice then, and it's excellent advice now. You said you had to jump in after a post I made, but if you look closely that post was not about Heisig and did not mention Heisig. How is that in any way any sort of criticism of Heisig?

If you want to continue the discussion, try and do it from a positive perspective. You said you wanted to try my method. Why don't you give it a go this weekend, and we can discuss it next week. How about if we both go back and do some studying, huh?

As an addendum to my previous post, I have noticed that dingomick has re-edited #101 to address an issue I raised [about mixing up multiple quotes to make it seem like one quote]. The modification times for both posts show this.

Personally, I think it's a bit dishonest to subsequently re-edit a post based on a response, and not acknowledge this.

Many of the quotes that are attributable to me in post #101 have been taken out of context. If they are traced back to the original posts, then it becomes apparent that in many of these posts the topic of the post is not about Heisig's method and there is no explicit or implicit comparison between Heisig and other alternatives. However, taken out of context, they can perhaps be interpreted differently.

Whilst I admire dingomick's creativity in "cut and paste" and "selective editing" (reminds me of some current affairs journalistic techniques) I would urge anyone reading #101 NOT to assume that they represent a fair sampling of my views.

I would also like to point out that the following statement is not made by me, even though it is in quotes:

dingomick Wrote:"Gosh, it sure is difficult doing what I'm doing! Somedays I'm just in a tizzy after all that intense studying. But I'm just dandy. How do I manage it? I AM top of the class of course, always have been, and my teacher is ever so excellent. Everyone in my class is so impressed with how amazing I am. All those other methods are for icky people. I'm glad I can handle the correct way to do things. It sure is difficult though. Tee-hee!"

It does not even resemble anything that I have said. What dingomick appears to have done is to take a number of completely unrelated statements I have made on completely different topics, jumbled them together, paraphrased them, and made them seem like an opinion or attitude.

Hi Christine,
Yes!, people are different. Neurologists are now telling us that there are differences in the way males and females process both language and visual information. I find that increasingly I am having to modify Heisig's method is major ways to make it work for me. First, I am in the process of changing to Japanese key words for the words I know. Such a relief.
Best,

Hi Christine!

I would like to go back to something you mentioned in an earlier post on this thread...
I would've brought it up earlier, but I too became glued to the interchange. ;-)

Christine_Tham Wrote:...[snip]... as I've been told by my teacher. If you have a good grasp of the Bushu radicals, plus some common words that appear as components in other Kanji, you already have what you need.

So guess what, we spent one class learning all (most?) of them. So we're prepared now.

Learning all of the bushu radicals sounds like a very good exercise. I think I remember reading in a paper written a while back by the co-author of "Remembering the Hanzi" that he felt it might be better to present all of the primitives up front for memorization. (Or perhaps it was the "Kanji A-B-C" authors who advocated this.) If this is true of primitives then certainly the same argument could be made for bushu radicals.

But I'm curious as to which words are considered the "common words that appear as components in other Kanji" that are also necessary to set the foundation for kanji studies.

Did your instructor happen to mention or give you a list of the "common words" s/he feels are a necessary foundation?

Thanks!

[ファブリス]

Christine_Tham Wrote:Thanks ファブリス, in hindsight I should have realised any discussion of perceived weaknesses in Heisig will likely generate a strong reaction from members of this forum! I can now see why my posts can be interpreted as implied criticism.
(....)
Like you, I do hope that people would talk about the positive aspects of different methods rather than see any positive praise for one method implying criticism for another method (although the sentences could be viewed that way). But I guess this is a sensitive subject to people who have invested a lot of time learning Heisig.

The reactions are to be expected like I said. However I don't agree to making it sound like we have a religion here! People here are anything but blind followers of a method or another. One only need to browse the forum for a little while to see that we have very bright and motivated individuals who surely can handle some criticism, and will welcome any new insights into learning the kanji. And bythe way I thank you for starting the interesting topic.

However, they all went through the same doubts that you have about the relevancy of Heisig's primitives, the value of a mnemonic system loosely tied to the historical background of the Chinese radicals and so on. It's for that very reason that you're going to get defensive reactions if you keep to a one-sided discussion and repeat arguments against the method that have been dissected many times, even in this thread, by succesfull RtK learners trying to help newcomers with their own questions and doubts.

Quote:If you feel I should stop posting, please let me know. My intent was a positive one (the point out that Japanese schoolchildren may in fact be taught using similar techniques to Heisig).

You're welcome to continue posting and discussing this interesting topic, but please stop argumenting with any particular members about what was said before. I know you didn't ask for the reactions when you started the topic, but if you stop argumenting on a personal basis with other members then other people will stop as well and the topic ill get back on track!

I don't think that perceived "implied criticism" is what garnered the reactions in this thread. I think it is secondary, and it's more of an issue of when you have an obviously intelligent person (you) using a stance that make it sound like you are having a one-sided discussion. If you present something in the form of "I'm doing x,y,z" and make it clear that it only concerns yourself and thus doesn't need to be argumented, then it's probably not useful to post it either? (given that this is a forum for public exchange).

On the other hand you've brought some really interesting topics like semantic and phonetic markers.


I am going to close this thread, not because I disagree with anybody in particular, but because it is going in 15 different directions! I hope this will cool down the discussion a bit and I invite anyone including Christine to create new threads to discuss the various topics that were raised such as the value of learning all chinese radicals (from Chadoro_K's last post), etc. You can even re-recreate this thread about whether Japanese children learn or not by rote memorization but please let's keep on track this time, and have more facts.


Thanks for your comprehension.

EDIT:

Christine_Tham Wrote:Thanks, you've actually summarised quite well what I was trying to day. It's not about trying to "downplay" Heisig, but if you were serious about learning Kanji, why wouldn't you explore more effective methods?

Let me be clearer here. You are NOT welcome to downplay Heisig's method on this forum. As I've said above nobody here is blindly following a method or another, learners are perfectly able to make their own decisions as to what works for them or what doesn't. You can discuss alternatives, but downplaying RtK on this community is kind of condescending and asking for flames, considering that it is working extremely well for most members. I invite you to read carefully the rules for posting (or lack thereof) that Synewave pointed out.

Further I'd like to say that I don't like your downplaying of self-study. Teachers have value and personally I think the best thing teachers could ever do is to teach you how to learn! Until then, no teacher in the world will ever come close to skillfull self-study. I learned english on my own, read tons of books as a teenager, and while I don't claim to have native level or perfect spelling, I've noticed I "get" the many puns that are present in english advertisement and movie titles where none of my friends and relatives can, who have relied purely on school teaching.

And thus.. I completely disagree to downplaying RtK on the basis that it is a self-study method. It's results are in fact superior for that very reason! (and I will agree that it's difficulty is another matter, as some learners are not fully prepared and self-learning is a skill).

Btw, sorry for using my super-admin powers here and posting after I closed the topic.. I'll stop now! (^ ^)!