Funny you would post that article. Maybe you didn't read the whole thing? Yes, learning your radicals gets you out of Failure #2, but by purposely avoiding RtK you are falling into Failure #4. Heisigs primitives build upon each other in a very logical order. They make sense, and come in easy to remember groups.

Do what works for you, but don't grow your own oats when someone has already made you oatmeal for breakfast.

Reg777 Wrote:I didnt say anything about rote memorization, I'm trying the radical approach. Breaking down the kanji into smaller pieces. Heisig does the same thing but he calls them primitives and distributes them throughout the book.
But I'll try learning all the radicals first using the book about radicals.
I'll try this approach, different things work for different people.

http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/25/the-5-b...ing-kanji/

Just because you didn't use the term "rote memorization" doesn't mean you didn't mention it. In fact, you did mention it.

Reg777 Wrote:about 30 minutes. I also practice writing it over and over again. I want to be able to not just read but also write kanji.

Stop writing them over and over again. That's rote memorization, and it's unnecessary if you just follow the RTK method the way it's laid out in the book. I don't understand why you even bothered asking for advice about books/learning methods in the first place if you're just going to minimize all of it in favor of just sticking with what you were doing in the first place.

It sounds like you haven't even read the introduction to RTK that lays out exactly how you're supposed to be going about using the method. If you understood what the Heisig method actually is you would realize how silly it is to practice writing them as much as you are.

It's also really funny that you link that article about the biggest mistakes people make when trying to learn kanji. You're succumbing to about 4/5 of them.

1. Writing them over and over is a variation on the idea of learning them stroke by stroke.

2. Not learning radicals. You are focusing on radicals, so this is the only mistake you're not making.

3. Writing them over and over is memorizing instead of learning, flat out.

4. What order do you think that radicals book is going to introduce kanji in? I would bet you it is in grade order, unlike RTK which introduces kanji systematically in terms of radicals you already know so that you're constantly building on top of prior knowledge.

5. You're using rote memorization(writing them over and over) in favor of actually using RTK, and in my opinion that means you aren't using the best tools available to you.

yeah, i dunno what the point of this topic was, if you're going to solicit advice and then just reject it and go your own way anyway.

it doesn't even make any sense that your priority is to pass JLPT N2 so you're short for time, and then on the other hand you want to learn how to write kanji as well when it's not needed at all for the JLPT.

Also, now that I have a real keyboard...

You don't learn to "read kanji." You learn to read Japanese, which consists of words, that are often written with kanji. So even if you know that 反対 is read HAN-TAI, there's no guarantee that you'll know what it means. Just knowing the readings will only get you so far.

Kanji is going to take a long time to learn, no matter how you do it. RtK has laid out a great, logical path that teaches the primitives and builds them on top of each other. Take advantage of that!

You want to get the most bang out of your buck. Try RtK Lite. It's got roughly half of the characters, and it's based on the ones that are the most common. Heck, if you want to add even more information to your kanji studies, create "characters" for the common onyomi, and add them in as primitives to your stories (look up the movie method)

Yeah...actually, it sounds like what you want to do is something like the Movie Method. Look that up.

I just wanted to let you know why I think the way I do...not that I'm just harping DO RTK, YOU MUST DO RTK down your throat. I believe that it's laid out logically better than your current plan. If you like your own plan, go for it, let me know how it goes! That's how RtK Lite and the Movie Method came about in the first place, right?

This Book is nice, I like what I saw about it and I think I will buy it.

Does anyone know the Kanji Alive Page?
http://kanjialive.uchicago.edu/download.htm

I think there are lots of ways to learn the kanji for JLPT 2... but I think you need to devote more time to Japanese if you want to pass, no matter what method you use.

It's not so much about knowing 1,000 kanji. 1,000 kanji is just a base for the reading and vocabulary skills necessary for the test. Even the grammar section of the test is very dependant on vocabulary, since you need to understand the sentence to pick the correct grammar item.

So knowing 1,000 kanji is kind of a base for JLPT 2. If you can't read the kanji you can't have good reading skills--but the reading skills require a huge amount of knowledge above and beyond knowing the kanji.

erlog Wrote:

Reg777 Wrote:I didnt say anything about rote memorization, I'm trying the radical approach. Breaking down the kanji into smaller pieces. Heisig does the same thing but he calls them primitives and distributes them throughout the book.
But I'll try learning all the radicals first using the book about radicals.
I'll try this approach, different things work for different people.

http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/25/the-5-b...ing-kanji/

Just because you didn't use the term "rote memorization" doesn't mean you didn't mention it. In fact, you did mention it.

Reg777 Wrote:about 30 minutes. I also practice writing it over and over again. I want to be able to not just read but also write kanji.

Stop writing them over and over again. That's rote memorization, and it's unnecessary if you just follow the RTK method the way it's laid out in the book. I don't understand why you even bothered asking for advice about books/learning methods in the first place if you're just going to minimize all of it in favor of just sticking with what you were doing in the first place.

It sounds like you haven't even read the introduction to RTK that lays out exactly how you're supposed to be going about using the method. If you understood what the Heisig method actually is you would realize how silly it is to practice writing them as much as you are.

It's also really funny that you link that article about the biggest mistakes people make when trying to learn kanji. You're succumbing to about 4/5 of them.

1. Writing them over and over is a variation on the idea of learning them stroke by stroke.

2. Not learning radicals. You are focusing on radicals, so this is the only mistake you're not making.

3. Writing them over and over is memorizing instead of learning, flat out.

4. What order do you think that radicals book is going to introduce kanji in? I would bet you it is in grade order, unlike RTK which introduces kanji systematically in terms of radicals you already know so that you're constantly building on top of prior knowledge.

5. You're using rote memorization(writing them over and over) in favor of actually using RTK, and in my opinion that means you aren't using the best tools available to you.

Zarxrax Wrote:I don't quite get what you are doing here. For some reason you can only do about 5 kanji a day with RTK, and thats not fast enough... but by learning all the radicals up front, you will somehow be able to meet your goal?
If you learn 5 radicals per day, that's at least 40 days until you learn them all, and then you still haven't learned a single kanji by that point!

Once I learn all those radicals, I can then learn any kanji I want, in any order I want. I can take any complex kanji and break it apart down to their radicals (primitives) and put them back together using mnemonics or Heisig-like stories.

I can learn the kanji I see everyday in the office, the kanji on my home appliances, the kanji on printed office documents. I can learn kanji I use and need right now, not some kanji I may or may not use in the future.

I write them over and over not to memorize but to learn how to write Japanese effectively. I memorize them using the radicals and mnemonics. Can you suggest a better way to write Japanese effectively?

Why do I want to write Japanese? Say my boss is in a meeting and I need to convey a message to him, so I'll just write him a note in Japanese and then pass the note to him.
That's just one of the many ways I can use it.

I posted here asking about the book but that was before I actually used it. But now I like the book. And I'll stick with it.

Different things work for different people. Thanks to Heisig, he gave me a foundation on mnemonics.

I don't know how familiar you are with past forum stuff, so here are a few things (which somehow ballooned out of control!) which might be useful. Are you starting from scratch, or do you already have some spoken Japanese?

* To save time, consider using Heisig's primitives so that you can use the wonderful shared stories on the RevTK reviewing site. Most are also radicals. Katsuo made a comparision of radicals and primitives.

* The RTK Lite Asriel mentioned has 2 lists: 2001KO and JLPT2. The JLPT2 kanji (and the supporting kanji) is here. Post 183 has the combined list. (List may need to be updated to reflect the new JLPT?)

* The RTK order isn't perfect and folks have have successfully used different orders. Have you thought about how to handle kanji in vocab that you haven't learned yet? Cangy/fugu created some stuff useful stuff: a plugin/tool/deck? that creates prompts with furigana over the non-target kanji, a sort program and an already sorted deck.

* Good idea to take note of which radicals are reliable phonetic components as you learn them, but be aware that there aren't many of them. (RTK 2 has a list.) Similarly, you could take note of which semantic radicals reliably impart meaning. (An improved RTK would include this kind of info, imo.)

*Are you using an SRS? It sounds like you plan to drill vocab (2001KO) rather than individual kanji, yet still use mnemonics to associate a 'meaning'/keyword with each kanji? In other words, you're not memorizing isolated readings? Advantages of vocab over isolated on-readings include earlier visual word recognition, and developing a sense of which kanji have multiple readings, the relative frequency of kun/on readings, which kanji use kun in compounds, etc.

*I've become convinced that a flexible knowledge of kanji 'meaning' is a valuable thing. I don't think it's essential to drill kanji meaning, though, if you find some other way to incorporate it.

*Would it make sense to use a JLPT word list instead of 2001KO? Rachel's huge anki vocab deck has vocab tagged by source, so you could create a deck with JLPT2 vocab using the sentences and audio from Core6000 and 2001KO, where available.

*Incidentally, tofugu's point about complex kanji seems inconsistent with his other advice. A dense kanji composed of pre-learned radicals isn't particularly difficult. Some think giving all components equal weight makes it easier for us to remember some detail than natives who tend to focus more on the semantic radical. Frequency, not complexity, soon becomes the strongest determiner of kanji competence, just as it is for native speakers.
[edited]

Good luck. Let us know how you make out. :-)

Oh, one more thing :-) about writing: If one of your main goals is to be able to handwrite kanji, RTK does seems to be one of the more effective methods. It forces an attention to detail that passive reading doesn't. This is just anecdotal of course, but among my classmates and coworkers there was general agreement that RTK improved long-term retention for reading and writing (varied use over 10-20 years). For style, I think a combination of practice and good handwriting examples. Rich_f has written some fairly detailed reviews of various ぺん字　books, if that would interest you.

(I also needed to handwrite in Japan and I think folks tend to underestimate the amount of handwriting still used in schools and many jobs in Japan. Although, I think erlog had memorizing in mind, not writing practice.)

Writing as a motor memory tool to aid memorization when learning and during reviews is very valuable, but hopefully you're not spending too much time doing it. Personally I think writing the kanji ‘a few times’ when first encountering it, and then the same or less upon subsequent review is ideal, becoming more and more infrequent over time as you internalize the kanji.

As for radicals, I don't see the harm in learning radicals up front quickly, but their most valuable aspect is parsing/combining them into a spatial layout of iconic characters that you see as wholes, so it makes sense to learn combinations of primitives/radicals in a systematic way, such as per character, according to a balance of general frequency and personal preference (e.g. RTKLite), rather than individual radicals. That's where the value of the Heisig-style narrative scaffolding of stories occurs. It's less a matter of it being harmful or wasteful, since I can't imagine it taking very long, it just seems like an unnecessary step with the existence of RTK. If you're not doing RTK and intend to piece the radicals together over and over as you encounter them in words until you eventually get used to them, I'm sure that's better than the same rote exposure without knowing the radicals. ^_^ So either it's a bandaid for a rote strategy, or it's simply extraneous, in my opinion.

Regardless, good luck to you! People mean well for you even if when they're disagreeing in bad form. We're all passionate about learning and whatnot. ^_^

@Thora

Sheesh, write a book already. ;p

Also, I do like the idea of learning radicals in themselves as a later refinement. Systematizing one's knowledge after achieving intuitive, gestalt perception of kanji.

"姦 = rape" lolwut?
Kanjidamage has a strange sense of humor but I looked at some of their/his stories and it looks good. (No method is perfect but an individual path, right?)

nest0r Wrote:@Thora
Sheesh, write a book already. ;p

I know! lol I felt a bit self-conscious about it, but didn't have the motivation to go back and delete stuff. :-)
[edit: I think maybe I was trying to counterbalance something.]

gyuujuice Wrote:"姦 = rape" lolwut?

I don't get it. Why does that get a "lolwut?"?

@Thora

Don't feel bad, I was just joking, being ironic and whatnot. It's me, nest0r, after all.