synewave Wrote:

Christine_Tham Wrote:ｔhe technique cannot be applied to kunyomi or any irregular reading so right off this would be an incorrect use of the technique.

I think this is what JimmySeal is pointing out.

Yes, but what I'm trying to say is that you wouldn't really apply this technique on characters with irregular readings. That's why you need to have a base of 1000-1200 before you even start applying the technique.

Quote:I'm still confused as to what your technique actually is. One minute you seem to talk about learning individual characters, the next, learning through context.

I think the confusion is that somehow this is "my" technique. As I've said before, what's being discussed here is not "mine", and it's not "one" technique, and it actually has nothing to do with me (and furthermore, I am not even at the level where I can apply some of this).

I am talking about various techniques relating to learning kanji that I've picked up or have been taught. In addition, I said my general approach is to try and learn 1000 kanji through various techniques, and then learn additional characters from "context." The specific technique that everyone is focusing their attention on is a technique I mentioned that aids learning from context. This technique is only applicable if you already know 1000+ kanji.

Now there's a lot of hot air about whether this technique works or not, and how effective it is, etc. Frankly, I don't care whether people believe it or not, as I've said it was taught to me (but unfortunately I don't have the background to apply it yet) and I have seen it working.

So far I have seen various attempts to suggest that the technique is not effective, or doesn't work, etc. The rationale is usually that there are too many exceptions, and irregular readings etc. But the point is you wouldn't even begin using this technique until you've already learnt (most) of the kanji with exceptions and irregular readings, so by the time you are applying it, it can be effective. And the more kanji you know, more effective it is (because it becomes more and more likely that the unknown character is relatively rare, hence only has 1 reading and typically used in a compound.)

It's the same situation in English - if you are a beginner and you encounter a word you don't understand in a newspaper, then your chances of guessing it's meaning and reading is virtually zero. However, if you are already reasonably proficient, then it's very likely that when you encounter a new word, you can simply guess the meaning from the context. This is true whether or not you use the above technique, so the technique is just bonus assistance.

I gave an English example earlier involving "jacaranda" and "Quadrangle" - most readers will be able to guess the meaning of these two words in the sentence even if they have never encountered it before. Notice that was potentially two unknown words in a sentence less than 20 words long, in other words the word recognition rate is less than 90%. Someone said that wasn't good enough but obviously even for English it is - provided you know the other words really well.

mspertus Wrote:Heisig says again and again that the key insight of his system is that there is no reason to believe that the right way to teach kanji to Japanese schoolchildren living in Japan is the right way for Western adults (not necessarily living in Japan) to learn kanji. In fact, he goes on to give many compelling reasons why it isn't (for example, Japanese schoolchildren already know the spoken language). Nowhere does he imply that his approach is a good one for Japanese natives to use to learn to write their own language.

But Heisig was assuming that Japanese schoolchildren learn through constant repetition, but this is not necessarily the case. So far, I have now a total of 5 textbooks that suggest otherwise (or at least suggest that the learning process is not solely due to repetition). In fact, what Heisig teaches (breaking down a character into components, assigning a keyword, and associating a story with the components and the keyword and the character) is precisely what these textbooks also rely on. So with this in mind, what Heisig says actually does not make sense - because he is advocating a method that *is* in fact used to teach Japanese schoolchildren, along with other methods.

Quote:Same thing for vocabulary. One generally does need to "memorize the dictionary" by drilling vocabulary to learn a foreign language in a reasonable amount of time (unless one is lucky enough to immersed 24x7 in the country).

This is an unsubstantiated opinion, and there are experienced Japanese teachers who disagree with this opinion. If you see a Japanese trying to learn English by memorizing a dictionary, would you necessarily agree that this is the best method to learn English? Or will you suggest, "just read a few novels and newspapers and you'll get the hang of it?"

Christine_Tham Wrote:But Heisig was assuming that Japanese schoolchildren learn through constant repetition, but this is not necessarily the case. So far, I have now a total of 5 textbooks that suggest otherwise (or at least suggest that the learning process is not solely due to repetition). In fact, what Heisig teaches (breaking down a character into components, assigning a keyword, and associating a story with the components and the keyword and the character) is precisely what these textbooks also rely on. So with this in mind, what Heisig says actually does not make sense - because he is advocating a method that *is* in fact used to teach Japanese schoolchildren, along with other methods.

*sigh*
負けた！

Quote:But the point is you wouldn't even begin using this technique until you've already learnt (most) of the kanji with exceptions and irregular readings, so by the time you are applying it, it can be effective.

So are you learning the kanji with exceptions and irregular readings first, or the 1000 most useful kanji first? Those are two completely unrelated sets. You are repeatedly trumpeting that once the 1000 most common ones are out of the way, the rest have fewer irregular readings and kun-yomi, but that is a complete fantasy.
And it is because you have made that statement repeatedly and are still saying it that I mistook something about what you wrote a few posts ago.
As far as being able to deduce characters' readings from their phonetic components, I've found uncommon kanji to be more irregular than common ones, even if they only have one on-yomi, and at least for the joyo-kanji, the less common half has no fewer kun-yomi than the first half.
And more than that, the multiple readings and everything else from the first thousand will dog you for the rest of your kanji learning career. They never go away, and if you are approaching the next 1000 at random and learning them mostly through "guessing," that's going to make reading compounds all that much harder.


I've seen you say this line over and over,

Quote:I have seen it working.

but I haven't seen you describe what you mean by "working." Are you saying your classmates can sometimes guess the pronunciation and/or meaning of isolated unknown compounds? A lot of us can do that, but like I said, with a low success rate just as I suspect your classmates don't guess right most of the time?
Or are you saying that they're using it to read entire newspaper articles and books, and in that case, how long did it take them to get to that point?

Members here have repeatedly asked you for specific examples of this method "in action" and aside from 旺文社, you've given nothing. wrightak even called you out on it and it seems you ignored him. Surely you can give us something? How about a few cases when your classmates used it, and the process they applied?

Christine, given your reply to my previous post, I'm worried that you will be disinclined to read any further posts that I make but if you are going to read any then please read this one.

Christine_Tham Wrote:Forgive me for saying so, but it seems that your example was not a genuine attempt to test whether the technique works, but potentially designed as "entrapment" to make me look silly (given that I've already said I am not experienced enough to apply this technique).

I have been a member of this forum since its inception and I believe that this is the first time that any member has suggested entrapment by another member. I'm taken aback by this and I'm saddened that you feel victimised enough to suggest it. Please, please believe me when I say that I do not want to make you defend the approaches you're talking about, I want you to promote them to me and explain them. I want to share knowledge with you and I want you to show me how to use the techniques you're encountering in your class.

If you look at these two threads that I started a long time ago:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=285
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=139

you will see that I have criticised the RTK method heavily. I think there are some absolutely wonderful things about Heisig's method, but it's not perfect. I tried to address some of the imperfections in these two threads. In fact, I think that I may have criticised Heisig's method more than any other member of this forum before you. Please feel free to correct me if anyone else disagrees. I therefore should be one of the easiest to convince that Heisig's method might be counterproductive. I am very open to alternative methods and I want to know more about what you've been describing.

I personally thought that Fabrice was a bit hasty last time in closing the thread you started. I agreed with many of the points you were making, especially some of your views on learning by context and the outdated nature of the jouyou list. I thought an explicit warning would have been more appropriate. However, given your reply to my post and given the way this thread is going, I can see Fabrice doing this again. I think this will be a great shame because I honestly think that valuable knowledge can be exchanged.

Christine_Tham Wrote:Let me see if I get this straight. You chose "御社" at "random" but already knew it was a bad example because it's reading is irregular. Then why did you choose this example?

I chose 御社 because I had just used it moments before posting and I was looking for a character that potentially wouldn't be in the first 1200 kanji that you were talking about. I did it in haste. It wasn't until afterwards that I realised that the irregular reading might mean that the primitive breakdown guessing method might not work for the pronunciation. This doesn't mean that it wouldn't work for the meaning. However, as I said in my original post, if 御社 is a bad example then please feel free to choose another. If I was trying to entrap you, I wouldn't have done this, do you not agree? The request remains for you or anyone to give a solid concrete example of the technique. Rather than readings (be they irregular or otherwise), I'm far more interested in how you can guess the meaning of the kanji from the primitive breakdown. You say that you've seen it work in your class, I'm fascinated, and I'd like to know how.

Christine Wrote:I've mentioned before, I can't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, apart from a few words. And it's pretty obvious that if I already knew the characters, then I wouldn't be studying them, would I?

Obviously not but I know people whose first language is Chinese and can't read Chinese characters at all. I thought that you might fall in this bracket, given your comments. I'm sorry if I missed you mentioning this in a previous post.

Christine Wrote:But I am curious how you have mastered English. How did you build your vocabulary? Was it by reading (like me), or watching TV, or talking, or did you memorized an entire dictionary? It strikes me that any systematic study of kanji is kind of like memorizing a dictionary. Sure, it can be effective, but I wouldn't want to study that way.

My first language is English so it's a part of me. I live it, I breathe it and no matter how much I tried to put it to one side when I was in Japan, it's like it's part of what I am. I lived for a year and a half in Japan and for a good part of that I didn't speak any English at all. However, when I started speaking English again, it came back to me without hesitation, like a flood. I think it would never leave me.

Once you get past a certain age, I believe that foreign languages occupy a different part of your brain from your native tongue. I learnt French at school and I haven't spoken it in a while. However, every time I do, Japanese words start popping out. French and Japanese are part of the same area of my brain. I'd love to hard wire Japanese into the native part but I just don't think it's possible. I'm too old. Therefore learning Japanese must take a different approach to learning English. Some approaches can be duplicated but they are quite different, I believe.

Christine_Tham Wrote:There's one critical flaw in the above estimation. 58% assumes you are trying to guess all 2000+ characters.

But if you are trying to guess the full Jouyou list that would imply you don't know any kanji at the moment. And if that is the case the success rate is actuallly 0% because you simply do not have the background to do the guessing.

As I've pointed out several times before, this technique works ONLY if you already know at least 1000 charaters. So all the exceptions that you are factoring into your estimations are irrelevant, since you already know those 1000+ characters you don't need to guess their meanings and readings.

Well how many of these 1000 characters that you have to know are characters that this technique is useful for? Depending on that the 58% could go either way.

Christine_Tham Wrote:

synewave Wrote:My understanding is that 革 is indeed a valid bushu （かわへん）. The kanji 靴 does have the onyomi reading か however the kunyomi is used in JimmySeal's example above.

Two points:
- the technique cannot be applied to kunyomi or any irregular reading so right off this would be an incorrect use of the technique.

The technique doesn't work in these cases, but you can't tell whether or not a kanji compound is going to use on-yomi or not... in my recent reading, I keep guessing the readings wrong because I expect them to use on-yomi when they use kun. The solution is to look up the unknown words you come across. Even if you guess the reading right(this does happen quite a bit), I doubt one could get the meaning right too. Even in context.

Christine_Tham Wrote:Of course, serious learners will want to study all the Jouyou plus the popular non-Jouyou systematically. Just like some Japanese try to learn English by memorizing an entire dictionary.

But my motivation is a little different - i don't care if I never master Japanese and subtle things will remain beyond my grasp. My goal is to get to "a broad, adequate knowledge" to enable me to read simple stuff and watch a movie. Once I get there I will probably stop. I will never sit for the JLPT and I don't plan to work or live in Japan, so my goals are probably different from others in this forum.

Hi Christine,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply (#15) to what I wrote here a few days ago.

I saddened that this thread appears to be getting bogged down in defending one's position (on both sides). I sincerely hope that my reply here will not add to this.

The main thing I took away from your reply to me was a reminder of our differing Japanese abilities and goals.

It also brought to my mind how this method might work better with graded readers and/or intensive exposure to kanji and vocabulary within limited fields of interest/study.

First let us consider this topic from the point of one's ability in Japanese:

I think that the method you describe will work best for a beginning / low-intermediate student using graded readers. (BTW, I firmly believe in Krashen's I+1 input theory that you get the most out of input that is just above your current level -- too difficult and you get discouraged, too easy and you do not stretch yourself and grow in ability). If a student is using a good graded reader at their I+1 level the amount of unknown material will probably include a higher percentage of words that can be correctly deduced using the method you describe. And it is immensely gratifying and motivating to be able to deduce new words (either with pinpoint accuracy or just the general gist) early in one's studies.

However, I think that this method/concept will fall apart the further one ventures out into reading authentic materials -- newspaper and magazine articles, novels, movie subtitles, etc. At least until their ability catches up to just below the difficulty level of whatever they are reading. But from my experience this is a wide hurdle to cross.

Nevertheless, an individual's perspective on the experience of reading authentic material that is too difficult for them will vary:

For example, a lower level student will be inundated with many unknown words/kanji when reading something at an I+5 level (for them). They can probably only pick up the barest content gist and the occasional word. However -- and this is important -- it can still be satisfying and motivational for them. (I.e., they will view "getting the gist" of things and any "bonus" words they pick up as "a plus".)

Whereas intermediate (and above) students reading at an I+5 level (for them) may feel frustrated because they want to have a more pinpoint precise understanding of new words and overall content. (I.e., they are likely to focus on how much they didn't understand.) Also, like myself in grad school, they may realize that they weren't getting the gist of what they were reading as accurately as they thought they were. Again this is mainly true the further away from an I+1 level that the input becomes.

Next, repeated exposure in specific fields of interest/study:

Certainly there are exceptions to the above. For example, Laura's experience with authentic materials in an area that she has a keen interest in. Within any area of study or interest there will be a frequently used set of vocabulary (and kanji). So eventually (thanks to context and repeated exposure) the most commonly used words (and the kanji that make up those words) will take root in the person's brain. Another example is the time I had to prepare an hour-long presentation on cloning in Japanese for a Japanese audience. (Yikes!!) First I did a quick study on the topic in my native language and then I used authentic Japanese source materials. Eventually I became very familiar with often used genetic, chemical, and biology terms that I had not known or used previously (or since ). I was also able to deduce many readings and meanings of unknown words in this field using the kanji common to it much more accurately the more exposure I had to the kanji and vocab used within it. However, a good portion of this newly acquired knowledge was not that immediately useful to me outside of this field. (Of course, a different field may have produced more usable knowledge.)

Finally, lets consider one's goals for learning Japanese:

You said you want to be able to read simple stuff, watch movies, and (you mentioned elsewhere) chat with people in Japanese. Systematic study of 1,200 or so carefully chosen kanji may give you (the majority of?) what you need to enjoy these pursuits. And once you know 1,200 kanji you may be content to pick up additional kanji as you encounter them "in context." Especially if you have a high comfort level with only general understanding of what is being said or written (when the input is much above I=1). The trick, however, will be figuring out which set of 1,200 or so kanji will best help you to meet your goals and needs.

Whereas someone else may want to sit for exams, live and function in Japan at a higher level of literacy, read more difficult materials and/or have more precision in their understanding of the finer nuances of what they are reading.

I think we all agree that each of these is a valid goal, and each will require different knowledge sets and study tactics to get there in the fastest most efficient way.

I hope that in discussing this topic we will keep these and other important factors in mind.

I am still interested in seeing examples of the method/concept you brought up. I understand that you don't feel you are far enough along in your studies to post your own. If you could ask your instructor and/or higher level classmates for some examples it will be appreciated. I would like to get a better feel for it. I may wish to incorporate it into my review (and learning) of reading / vocab. And I think others here are genuinely interested as well.

There are things *I* like about Heisig's method as well as things that *I* chose to tweak. Heisig forever changed kanji for me from a jumble of squiggles to a collection of easily identifiable (and reproducible) components. However, Heisig's "one English keyword per kanji" never felt like the right fit for me because I didn't use his method at the beginning of my studies. I thought it would be more productive for me to associate the kanji with Japanese words. Similarly I feel like I have enough Japanese ability to learn multiple core meanings for those kanji that have more than one. And although this last one may have been a mistake, hopefully what I am choosing to do makes the best sense for my background abilities, needs, and goals.

I wish you good luck in your studies and hope that you will continue to share with us what works for you, what doesn't, interesting facts and observations about Japanese, as well as how your strategies and perceptions change (or don't) as you learn more kanji and Japanese.

PS--Thank you for your well wishes for my health and future.

Chadokoro-K,

You are making a very valid point about motivation and comfort level in relation to language learning. But, I have a slightly different take on this (as usual?). I think that the strategies that promote language learning and the strategies that motivate students are not always the same thing although if people give up it doesn't matter how effective a method might be. Learning a language through true immersion can be fairly painful in the early stages, but it's effective. I met a group of Mexican men who worked in Japan and their language skills were amazing. If they didn't learn, they were replaced.

Not understanding anything you are hearing or reading can be very stressful. I remember Henry Kissinger saying that he learned English by reading the New York Times which is not exactly ESL level material. I sometimes force myself to "read" things that I don't understand at all. At first, I am really reading the hiragana and katakana and looking at the kanji. Then, I make myself read it again. The second time around I pick up a few words. Every moment, I want to stop. But, it has the same effect on my reading as pushing myself to do one more push-up when I feel ready to drop dead. I am building a kind of endurance. I stop tuning out kanji that look hard. I see them, even when I don't understand them.

I use props to help myself get meaning from new material. One thing that I find very effective is listening to songs that I know very well in English in Japanese. I feel as if I am understanding every word. Also, lots of music is very emotional which activates different parts of the brain. There are lots of music videos on Youtube with Japanese subtitles. So for example, I know the words in English to "I give my life to you" from "Miss Saigon" and I am listing to Hondo Minako sing "Inochi o ageyou" while seeing the words on the screen. And there is no motivation problem, because it is beautiful. And I am generally sobbing at the end, because the song is so sad and because the beautiful Honda-san didn't live too long after singing this song.

For me anyway, learning to read Japanese is daunting and hard. If I held back and went one tiny step at a time, I don't think I'd have a prayer, but that's just me.
My obsession with music and theater certainly helps, but I still think a little shock immersion might be a good thing in general. Pity my students!

Thank you for your thoughtful posts. You always seem to find the manage to keep help steer the conversation in a production way. Also, thank you for letting us in on a little of your history. If your writing is any example, you have made an amazing recovery and I too hope things continue to go well for you. Laura

Laura Wrote:...[snip]...I think that the strategies that promote language learning and the strategies that motivate students are not always the same thing although if people give up it doesn't matter how effective a method might be. Learning a language through true immersion can be fairly painful in the early stages, but it's effective. I met a group of Mexican men who worked in Japan and their language skills were amazing. If they didn't learn, they were replaced.

Not understanding anything you are hearing or reading can be very stressful. I remember Henry Kissinger saying that he learned English by reading the New York Times which is not exactly ESL level material. I sometimes force myself to "read" things that I don't understand at all. At first, I am really reading the hiragana and katakana and looking at the kanji. Then, I make myself read it again. The second time around I pick up a few words. Every moment, I want to stop. But, it has the same effect on my reading as pushing myself to do one more push-up when I feel ready to drop dead. I am building a kind of endurance. I stop tuning out kanji that look hard. I see them, even when I don't understand them.

As I said, there are other important factors to consider and I think you are absolutely right on this. Still, there will always be people for whom this "shock immersion" is too overwhelming (pity your students, indeed!), and who will continue to tune out kanji that look hard. However, I hope I can be more like you on this point.

Laura Wrote:I use props to help myself get meaning from new material. One thing that I find very effective is listening to songs that I know very well in English in Japanese. I feel as if I am understanding every word. Also, lots of music is very emotional which activates different parts of the brain. There are lots of music videos on Youtube with Japanese subtitles. So for example, I know the words in English to "I give my life to you" from "Miss Saigon" and I am listing to Hondo Minako sing "Inochi o ageyou" while seeing the words on the screen. And there is no motivation problem, because it is beautiful. And I am generally sobbing at the end, because the song is so sad and because the beautiful Honda-san didn't live too long after singing this song.

Thank you for this tip! I listen to Japanese songs on Youtube but had never thought about using songs that I know the original English lyrics to that have been translated and performed in Japanese.

And thank you for your well wishes.

Laura Wrote:One thing that I find very effective is listening to songs that I know very well in English in Japanese. I feel as if I am understanding every word. Also, lots of music is very emotional which activates different parts of the brain. There are lots of music videos on Youtube with Japanese subtitles. So for example, I know the words in English to "I give my life to you" from "Miss Saigon" and I am listing to Hondo Minako sing "Inochi o ageyou" while seeing the words on the screen. And there is no motivation problem, because it is beautiful. And I am generally sobbing at the end, because the song is so sad and because the beautiful Honda-san didn't live too long after singing this song.

If you haven't seen it already, you may like to read the following thread:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=582

Quoting Christine Tham - Basically I would recommend "Kanji ABC" if you want an approach similar to Heisig but has the flexibility to address some (most?) of the issues I have described.

Is this the "Kanji ABC" by Dyrkstra of Hawaii, or have I got a different book? Dykstra wrote two books called "Kanji ABC" and "Kanji 123", which contained stories and graphics to aid remembering the first 500 kanji from the Japanese Ministry of Education list. I assume from the age and basic presentation, my copy may have been a draft.

stephjapan2004 Wrote:...[snip]...Is this the "Kanji ABC" by Dyrkstra of Hawaii, or have I got a different book? Dykstra wrote two books called "Kanji ABC" and "Kanji 123", which contained stories and graphics to aid remembering the first 500 kanji from the Japanese Ministry of Education list. I assume from the age and basic presentation, my copy may have been a draft.

No, it is a different book. The one that Christine recommends gives you the "tools" to go through all of the jouyou kanji, but it offers no stories. It is: "Kanji ABC: A Systematic Approach to Japanese Characters" by Andreas Foerster and Naoko Tamura (Paperback - Jun 1994)

The one you have seems to be:
"The Kanji ABC" by Andrew Dykstra (Paperback - Jan 1987) because the author of
"Kanji 1-2-3" (Paperback - Jan 1987) is the same.

While way back in the mid 80s I photocopied "The Kanji ABC" by Yoshiko Kurata Dykstra (Unknown Binding - 1975) from the university library.

The one I used and the one you describe are very similar. I wonder what's up with the similar but seemingly different authors? Perhaps Andrew is Yoshiko's husband?
Edit: Yes, that was it. See http://www.kanjipress.com/about.htm

I don't remember the ordering of the kanji presented in "The Kanji ABC". Does it progress from the graphically simplest kanji and then build on those little by little the way that Heisig does?

Regardless of the sequencing it seems that authors as early as the mid-1970s tried to popularize a similar method of character decomposition for students from non-kanji language backgrounds.

As of today, I have finally decided to give up reviewing the kanji on this site (so far, I have tried my best to keep up the reviews on this site whilst doing everything else).

Therefore, in accordance with Fabrice's site guidelines and synewave's suggestion, I probably should no longer be posting on this site.

This has been a very interesting discussion, and I have learnt a lot from everyone who has posted here.

If anyone wishes to continue discussion, please email me.

I know I have left several questions unanswered, but I've also had criticism that I post too much.

To the person who was asking for the rules to convert from Pinyin pronunciation to Japanese, they are provided in the textbook "Japanese for Bilingualism" which you can purchase from Japan Seminar House (http://www.japansh.com).

Those of you genuinely interested in alternative techniques for learning kanji can try contacting your local Japan Foundation. I know the one in Sydney which I joined have on their staff Japanese language consultants who provide advice to Japanese language teachers. These guys are really good, I would suggest they can probably explain techniques such as the ones I have described much better than I can and provide real examples.

To wrightak - I did read your post, and accept your explanation and your good faith. I appreciate that most of us can't remember exactly how we learnt our primary language, it seems "natural". However, I suspect if you really analysed it, most of the vocabulary (especially from uncommon or difficult words) probably came from reading and learning in context. I am pretty sure that is the case for me, and I can't recall ever looking up any word in a dictionary. You are right in that adults may learn differently, but I have also seen cases of adults picking up language just like kids, via immersion. I remember many years ago spending a few weeks with some Italian friends touring Denmark. By the third week, I was surprised to find out I can understand the gist of most of what they were saying in Italian, and started conversing with them in Italian. I know several people who have "picked up" Japanese like this, after several weeks/months. I don't have any Japanese friends, if I did I would certainly try and hang out with them and just listen to their conversations and see how much I can pick up. Problem is most of the Japanese I meet in Sydney are actually trying to learn English so I suspect they prefer to practice their English on me.

To everyone, best wishes in your Japanese studies, and hope you reach the goals you have set for yourself. As for me, I am pleased that in two months, I have progressed from knowing 0 kanji to mastering the JLPT3 set (well, at least enough to pass the moji section of the JLPT3 exam). This is whilst doing a full time job, travelling back and forth between Sydney and Melbourne every week, attending Japanese classes, and doing other things as well. My focus now is to cover the remaining 700-800 characters to get me to 1200. I am hoping to do that before the end of the year, but realistically I think mid next year is more appropriate. I have discovered that it's best to study kanji, vocabulary and grammar side by side, so that I am learning kanji for words that I'm encountering in my studies, rather than study the characters in isolation. My progress so far has been rapid only because I am studying characters that I should already know from previous context.

After this, I hope to be able to begin learning new words by context. If not, then never mind, it's probably as far as I'm willing to go in terms of systematic study.

@Laura:
I admire your attempts to learn Japanese simply through observing the language and picking it up as you go along. For half a year or longer I've held firmly to the belief that dictionaries are deleterious to the learning process and even had a heated discussion about it here a while ago.
Since then, all my language studies have been sans-dictionary, sans-grammar reference. (That's not completely true. I do use a dictionary to find out how to pronounce words. Often there's no other way.) I'm glad to see that a similar approach is working for you.


But as much as I lay stock in that philosophy, I firmly believe that it's not true for kanji. They are simply too complex and too numerous to reasonably pick up as you go along, at least until you've got a good 2000 under your belt. This is especially true if you want to read and write well.

So I have never regretted going through RTK1 or the time it took me, and I followed his book to a T (except for the way he explains how to make flashcards; I worked out my own flashcard layout until this site came along).

So I hope you do make it through RTK. I really think it will help you in the long run.

Quote:One thing that I find very effective is listening to songs that I know very well in English in Japanese.

This also works well with familiar children's books.

Mr. Seal,
I am a Conehead and we are from France.

Hi Christine,

I too would like to say thank you for your posts. Thank you for the interesting information and informative sites you have shared. I have appreciated the opportunity to exchange thoughts, experiences, debate the merits of various aspects of kanji and language learning, and to encourage one another.

I wish you all the best!

[ファブリス]

Christine_Tham Wrote:Therefore, in accordance with Fabrice's site guidelines and synewave's suggestion, I probably should no longer be posting on this site.

Just for the record, I have never said that someone wasn't welcome to post on this board because they are using other methods than "Remembering the Kanji".

Suggesting that people are unwilling to hear critics on the system (which you did before), and that you are unwelcome to do so on this board (which you wrote now) is, I feel, unfair, and an easy way out, which I completely disagree with.

If you genuinely feel that way, I'm sorry but this is a misunderstanding.

To me it is clear that the only reason why several members got irked by your posts, is because you relied more on assumptions than facts to affirm that RtK is counter-productive in the long run; in addition to the fact that you admitted yourself being at most 1/5 into RtK and thus not in a position to affirm the efficiency of the method based on your limited experience alone.

I think it's more of a problem of stating one's opinions on a public board. It would have been better if you started with something like "could RtK be counter-productive in the long run?", or "could this method work better and faster than RtK", etc. Stating your opinion and being open to arguments.

Instead you seemed very defensive and consistently quoted and counter-argumented with almost everyone who disagreed with you, thus being unwilling to accept critics to your approach (and your teacher's approach), and failing at the exact thing which you infer to be a shortcoming on this forum: to be reluctant to accept critics and being open to discussion. The fact that those discussions were done in a polite way doesn't make them any more agreeable, imho.

With that said, since you seem to be leaving, I too sincerely wish you all the best with your Japanese study.

If you manage to become proficient at reading and writing Japanese in a year's time, even two, by learning the reading, writing and meaning of kanji all at the same time, I certainly would like to hear about it. But those things take time, and only time will tell..

Cristine,

Your posts served as both guide and a support in a way that nothing else on this site quite matched. I have gone from no reading ability to having a "site word" vocabulary of about 750 kanji in 2 months. By site word, I mean kanji or kanji compounds that I can read only in their most common form. My goals are similar to the ones you have stated. All the best in your studies.

Laura