I'm nearly done RTK1 (~250 new frames), and I'm wondering if all the trees that Heisig has included are really common words, or if he is just a bit of a tree nut. Are they joyo, or his personal inclusions?

If I deleted them from the deck, would I be missing out on all that much?

Some are, some aren't -- I would say as a general rule for the trees, if you don't know the English word for it, it's not worth putting in an effort to learn at this stage of your study. (i.e. "pine" and even "Japanese cedar" are worth learning, "Japanese judas tree" is not.) Some of those tree kanji are used in names, though. 杉 (the cedar) is a very common name kanji.

A lot of the kanji you can't find words for in a dictionary tend to be used in people or place names.

Which ones will be more useful will vary depending on what your interests are.

For example, yudantaiteki did not find 桂 (Japanese Judas tree) useful but to me it was very common as it's used to write 桂馬 (keima) the piece equivalent to the knight in shogi, it's also a very common go term and it's a kind of wood frequently used for making equipment for both games. Also it's used in names (for ex. 桂正和, a famous mangaka).

So my point is just because it seems to refer to some obscure tree you don't know, doesn't mean it won't be useful. But also it will depend, some kanji you might encounter a lot some you won't, but it's hard to know which ones in advance. Since you're doing the Heisig method rather than going by frequency or grade, I think you might as well learn those extra few kanji.

Codexus Wrote:For example, yudantaiteki did not find 桂 (Japanese Judas tree) useful

Actually that's not what I said; in fact I encounter 桂 quite a bit in my own research. What I said is that if you are still at the RTK 1 stage, you don't need to spend a lot of time learning them. Obviously you may later find that some of the kanji are actually useful to you, but I think that by the time you get to that stage, it will no longer matter which kanji you spent time learning in RTK 1.

As I've often said in the past, if you complete RTK 1 and are still unable to learn new kanji on your own, you did not use the book correctly and seriously screwed up along the way. If you don't make an equal effort to learn every single kanji in the book, it shouldn't have any real effect on your long-term ability.

Then I agree. You can skip pretty much any kanji and then come back to it when you think you need it. Of course, if you do that too much, then at some point you aren't really doing the Heisig method anymore

I'd argue you don't even need to come back to it. If you complete RTK with say 85% of the cards in the fifth box in this site's srs, then you know your radicals which is all you really need. I don't bother srsing new kanji, as long as I recognise the radicals, repeated exposure takes care of the memorisation (including writing ability).

I don't think I've ever I've ever seen 桐 in either language.

I may be a bit crazy but i just love discovering all those trees... I always really try to find out more about them (on Wikipedia f.e.) and to invent a story with these informations. And some of them are important even for modern japanese culture: I just added 楠 (Camphor) which is the tree where Miyazaki's トトロ live... Or read that about Paulownia (Or, as the japanese say, キリ - or 桐): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa#Uses : It's interesting and you can always find some impressive all-purpose-trivia ;-)

I wouldn't be able to write my address without 桂.

桐 is in the name of Japan's largest hand warmer manufacturer, to name one example.

It's also in the name of the first chapter of the Tale of Genji (桐壺).

nadiatims Wrote:... repeated exposure takes care of the memorisation (including writing ability).

Not writing, unfortunately.
edit: whether SRSed or not.

dizmox Wrote:I don't think I've ever I've ever seen 桐 in either language.

If I glance out the window I can see about 10 acres of 桐.

Also it's worth pointing out that tree names are often written in katakana anyway, so even if the tree name would be known by most Japanese people, that doesn't necessarily mean the kanji is necessary to know.

Thora Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:... repeated exposure takes care of the memorisation (including writing ability).

Not writing, unfortunately.
edit: whether SRSed or not.

If I know a word well enough to recognise its meaning when I read it then that word's spelling will eventually shift its way into my memory, without me having to go out of my way to learn it's spelling. This happens simply by virtue of have been repeatedly reminded of it, just as is the case for words in english. I don't have trouble spelling english words (with the odd exception) despite having never systematically learned to spell every single one. Learning the alphabet and then learning to (and continuing) to read was enough. Think about it, when you learn new english words do you go out of your way to practice their spelling? Even for words with oddly spelled phonemes, silent letters etc we eventually learn them. I don't recall having to check with a dictionary each time I had occasion to write an English word for the first time. The kanji primitives are like letters, and even rare ones that don't appear in RTK1 can be learned quite effortless once you've developed the skill to break kanji down into component parts.

[ファブリス]

What, you don't know what a catalpa tree is!? Pffft, kids these days... :p

nadiatims: You are very unusual then. There are many words that I've seen probably thousands of times by now but still can't write off the top of my head.

ファブリス Wrote:What, you don't know what a catalpa tree is!? Pffft, kids these days... :p

I don't know that even.......

ta12121 Wrote:

ファブリス Wrote:What, you don't know what a catalpa tree is!? Pffft, kids these days... :p

I don't know that even.......

All I know is that it is the spicy tree!

Just another two cents: keep in mind that just because a tree is unknown to you doesn't necessarily mean it is rare or unusual in Japan. 桐-paulownia, 桂-japanese judas tree, 楠-camphor tree, etc. are all pretty common species here.

And I was thinking that another place you might see the kanji being used often are as the names of rooms in traditional inns and such.

Not necessarily a reason to go out and memorize them, I know, but...

nadiatims Wrote:[stuff about English]

Irrelevant. English and Japanese aren't at all analogous in this regard. If you're curious to know how they're different, you should do a little research. Some differences seem obvious, but other differences surprised even the researchers. The types of kanji errors native speakers make are not the same as spelling errors English speakers make. It has something to do with the role of frequency of lexical neighbours in morpheme prediction. Primitives and letters are not analogous and don't affect "spelling" the same way.

Quote:[...]and even rare ones that don't appear in RTK1 can be learned quite effortless once you've developed the skill to break kanji down into component parts.

I didn't say anything about learning rare primitives (or kanji). I said that reading (repeated exposure) doesn't ensure writing ability. (By that I mean both getting the right kanji and the right components). I don't see this as a controversial idea. Don't assume everyone is endowed with your unique ability. ;-)

I assure you I'm not pretentious enough to assume I'm endowed with any unique abilities...unless you count moving clasped hands from behind your back to in front over your head with out unclasping them.

Perhaps Japanese and English indeed are not exactly analogous in regards to spelling (writing difficulty). But the question is does any of this research account to much more than the simple conclusion that Japanese people forget how to write uncommon words slightly more often than native english speakers forget word spelling? And to this I suspect the answer is no. We can agree to disagree on this one I think.

I disagree that anyone who occasionally handwrites japanese words and repeatedly encounters the word キリ written in its kanji form is going to have any particular issues remembering that it's the tree written with 木 and 同. Sure if that word never or extremely rarely pops up in daily life then it will be harder to recall, but how is this any different than for any other word you don't know well? If you asked me to spell some random unfamiliar word like paulownia (I had to check the spelling in this thread) I'd also make mistakes. Likewise for random chemical compounds because I don't spend enough time reading the backs of shampoo bottles, and presumedly the same for obscure animals because I'm not a zoologist.

Anyway my answer to the OP doesn't change. Just finish RTK and move on. If you have familiarity with the radicals, you can keep the kanji distinct and tackle the problem of reading and learning actual words. If the tree kanji seem obscure or difficult now don't worry about them, they will not be be any particular barrier to you later once you can actually read semi proficiently.

Can't tell if the words are common or not, and instead of wasting the time for performing this thought - I have added them in Anki already