[Zgarbas]

So I like finding at least one common word which has each Kanji, right? And every now and then I keep finding a few in RTK which have no common usage whatsoever(at least according to jisho.org), only belong in archaic terms and what not. How exactly did they make it to the joyo list? (I mean, the ones in usually kana-written words like 処　and 尚 I can sorta get, the ones who can only be found in certain place names like 幌　or 埼 I can sort of get...but really obscure ones like ヒ　and 謁 confuse me...)

The Joyo list was very political, and many branches of the government lobbied to have kanji in their own departments included, also they made sure to include any kanji that was used in the post-war constitution (which accounts for 朕, 虞, and a few others).

I don't think ヒ is on the list.　謁 may have been included by a right-wing Imperial supporter, I don't know.　謁見 is pretty common in video games, lol.

The basic problem is that once you get past a group of kanji that are common or somewhat common in almost anything (which I believe is about 1000-1200 or so), the rarity of kanji beyond that is highly dependent on what you are reading. You shouldn't think of the Joyo list (despite the name) as a comprehensive list of common kanji.

yudantaiteki Wrote:The Joyo list was very political, and many branches of the government lobbied to have kanji in their own departments included, also they made sure to include any kanji that was used in the post-war constitution (which accounts for 朕, 虞, and a few others).

I don't think ヒ is on the list.　謁 may have been included by a right-wing Imperial supporter, I don't know.　謁見 is pretty common in video games, lol.

I see that in games too. I've seen it in Final Fantasy games and quite a lot. My rule of thumb for adding vocabulary cards is, if you've seen it in context, then adding it won't hurt.

処 is not even close to being an uncommon kanji. 処理, 処分 and 処罰 for starters.

[Zgarbas]

*facepalm*, was thinking of something else. nevermind that

(thanks for the 謁見 tip).

Zgarbas Wrote:*facepalm*, was thinking of something else. nevermind that

(thanks for the 謁見 tip).

Hey! I saw that before the edit!

諮 maybe? Only somewhat-common word that comes to mind is 諮問.

桑 always was my favorite example, though it isn't in the list anymore.

HonyakuJoshua Wrote:桑 always was my favorite example, though it isn't in the list anymore.

It's pretty common in place names around here...

I've also seen 謁見 at work, probably regarding interviews with chief engineers or designers or something.

I think there are only a handful of kanji on the Joyo list that are so rare almost nobody will ever need to learn them -- stuff like 朕, 璽, 虞, 匁, 錘, 銑, and such. However, there are a good deal more (I would say 500-600 or more) where it's not really the best use of your time to spend an equal amount of effort memorizing all of them, since their frequency will be very dependent on what you're reading.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think there are only a handful of kanji on the Joyo list that are so rare almost nobody will ever need to learn them -- stuff like 朕, 璽, 虞, 匁, 錘, 銑, and such. However, there are a good deal more (I would say 500-600 or more) where it's not really the best use of your time to spend an equal amount of effort memorizing all of them, since their frequency will be very dependent on what you're reading.

I've seen 3/6 of those characters before in context. I've seen the first 2 and the 4 and the last one. Wait that makes it 4/6.

Where did you see 朕 in context? I guess it's in the transcript of the 玉音放送.

I have actually seen 璽 in context but I count myself in the "almost nobody" category due to where I found it

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think there are only a handful of kanji on the Joyo list that are so rare almost nobody will ever need to learn them -- stuff like 朕, 璽, 虞, 匁, 錘, 銑, and such. However, there are a good deal more (I would say 500-600 or more) where it's not really the best use of your time to spend an equal amount of effort memorizing all of them, since their frequency will be very dependent on what you're reading.

This is why i think RTK Lite is a good idea. The JLPT2 kanji are all absurdly common (well, in general anyway) but there are quite a few on the JLPT1/jouyou list that i've still never encountered. On top that, there are many *outside* the jouyou list that aren't that uncommon at all. Hence it's probably best to switch to learning kanji you encounter at some point.

Personally I just don't like the Joyo list in general. It's too misleading and it gives rise to two huge misconceptions about the list that many learners seem to fall into: (1) The Joyo list represents a complete list of pretty much all the kanji you will ever need to learn, or (2) The Joyo list represents a set of the basic kanji that everyone needs to know, then you add additional kanji depending on your interest/field.

Heisig even falls into this trap; it still makes me grind my teeth every time I see that line in the introduction to RTK 1 where he says you need to know all the Joyo kanji for any of them to be useful.

zigmonty Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think there are only a handful of kanji on the Joyo list that are so rare almost nobody will ever need to learn them -- stuff like 朕, 璽, 虞, 匁, 錘, 銑, and such. However, there are a good deal more (I would say 500-600 or more) where it's not really the best use of your time to spend an equal amount of effort memorizing all of them, since their frequency will be very dependent on what you're reading.

This is why i think RTK Lite is a good idea. The JLPT2 kanji are all absurdly common (well, in general anyway) but there are quite a few on the JLPT1/jouyou list that i've still never encountered. On top that, there are many *outside* the jouyou list that aren't that uncommon at all. Hence it's probably best to switch to learning kanji you encounter at some point.

I have never understood when you would need to use 匁. It's like knowing what a hectare is. Also, I thought 錘 had beend dropped from the new joyo list, but I have never looked at the new list, so I don't know for sure.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Personally I just don't like the Joyo list in general. It's too misleading and it gives rise to two huge misconceptions about the list that many learners seem to fall into: (1) The Joyo list represents a complete list of pretty much all the kanji you will ever need to learn, or (2) The Joyo list represents a set of the basic kanji that everyone needs to know, then you add additional kanji depending on your interest/field.

Heisig even falls into this trap; it still makes me grind my teeth every time I see that line in the introduction to RTK 1 where he says you need to know all the Joyo kanji for any of them to be useful.

Yeah, unless you're going to learn 朕 and 匁, why even bother with kanji like 食 and 気. And as for obscure kanji like 誰, why the government has declared it's not needed for basic literacy, so don't worry about it.

I can see where's he's coming from though. Until you know enough kanji to be able to read an average sentence, it's pointless really to learn any of them. You still can't read. It's an argument against the drip feeding of kanji many courses promote, which is partly responsible for the large number of western people who can speak japanese but are illiterate.

Imho, they've fixed the situation substantially with the new jouyou list, but they probably could have removed quite a few more than they did.

匁 isn't super uncommon. It's even an English loanword (standard industry unit for weighing pearls). I've seen it a number of times in context.

@zig: 誰 is in the new joyo..

Jarvik7 Wrote:匁 isn't super uncommon. It's even an English loanword (standard industry unit for weighing pearls). I've seen it a number of times in context.

Lol... i think you're up there with yudantaiteki in terms of "i've seen it a number of times" not mattering much. It's so uncommon that it was one of the few dropped from the jouyou list.

Jarvik7 Wrote:@zig: 誰 is in the new joyo..

Yep, i know, that's why i said the new list has fixed things substantially. It doesn't have the glaring omissions that the old list had (like 誰), but there are a few like 癌 that i'm surprised they didn't add.

zigmonty Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:Personally I just don't like the Joyo list in general. It's too misleading and it gives rise to two huge misconceptions about the list that many learners seem to fall into: (1) The Joyo list represents a complete list of pretty much all the kanji you will ever need to learn, or (2) The Joyo list represents a set of the basic kanji that everyone needs to know, then you add additional kanji depending on your interest/field.

Heisig even falls into this trap; it still makes me grind my teeth every time I see that line in the introduction to RTK 1 where he says you need to know all the Joyo kanji for any of them to be useful.

Yeah, unless you're going to learn 朕 and 匁, why even bother with kanji like 食 and 気. And as for obscure kanji like 誰, why the government has declared it's not needed for basic literacy, so don't worry about it.

I can see where's he's coming from though. Until you know enough kanji to be able to read an average sentence, it's pointless really to learn any of them. You still can't read. It's an argument against the drip feeding of kanji many courses promote, which is partly responsible for the large number of western people who can speak japanese but are illiterate.

The context he mentions it in is arguing why you should not learn the kanji by frequency or grade level. This "fact" is not just an incidental thing but one of the cornerstones of the entire book; it's why gall bladder can be in the first 100 kanji.

[Zgarbas]

Maybe because 癌 would be depressing to teach to a 10-year-old?

"What's that mean?"
"Cancer"
"What's that?"
"..."

yudantaiteki Wrote:

zigmonty Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:Personally I just don't like the Joyo list in general. It's too misleading and it gives rise to two huge misconceptions about the list that many learners seem to fall into: (1) The Joyo list represents a complete list of pretty much all the kanji you will ever need to learn, or (2) The Joyo list represents a set of the basic kanji that everyone needs to know, then you add additional kanji depending on your interest/field.

Heisig even falls into this trap; it still makes me grind my teeth every time I see that line in the introduction to RTK 1 where he says you need to know all the Joyo kanji for any of them to be useful.

Yeah, unless you're going to learn 朕 and 匁, why even bother with kanji like 食 and 気. And as for obscure kanji like 誰, why the government has declared it's not needed for basic literacy, so don't worry about it.

I can see where's he's coming from though. Until you know enough kanji to be able to read an average sentence, it's pointless really to learn any of them. You still can't read. It's an argument against the drip feeding of kanji many courses promote, which is partly responsible for the large number of western people who can speak japanese but are illiterate.

The context he mentions it in is arguing why you should not learn the kanji by frequency or grade level. This "fact" is not just an incidental thing but one of the cornerstones of the entire book; it's why gall bladder can be in the first 100 kanji.

I thought some obscure kanji like gall bladder appear early because of Heisig's system: he groups kanji by primitive, so each kanji appears only when its primitive does. Since they aren't ordered by usefulness some more common kanji appear later. Of course, I assume you know this, but your post makes it sound like Heisig had some ideological reason for introducing obscure kanji early on.

胆 isn't *that* rare a kanji. I mean, it does have non-anatomical uses. Having said that, the only one i can think of is 大胆.

Heisig's premise is that *if* you intend to learn all the jouyou kanji anyway, *and* you're prepared to go through them quickly, then he believes his method is beneficial. Let's be honest here though: it's just the method he followed. A bunch of people begged him to publish his study notes. He added the introduction to give some sort of context.

@Zgarbas: lol. I think it'd be one of the ones you'd teach in middle school... 死 is on the 3rd grade list.

I thought of maybe starting a new thread for this question, but since it's related I'll post it here: do any of you who have completed RTK 1 and 3 still use the basic Heisig method when you come across kanji which Heisig didn't cover? Or do you even feel compelled to memorize those kanji?

@kusterdu

I did RTK 1 and 3, and when I come across new kanji/words, I tend to note it down if I have paper handy. That is all. I don't need to make stories relating the different components. I already know all the radicals (probably) occurring in modern japanese so it's really not that hard to remember it especially if as I see it a recur a bunch of times. Also in most cases, part of the character is just a phonetic marker so it seems somewhat silly linking it semantically with the radical with some funny story.
Also I'm now learning simplified and traditional chinese characters. I'm yet to make a single story or review them in isolation. I just write out and learn the words. If they contain new kanji so be it.

kusterdu Wrote:I thought of maybe starting a new thread for this question, but since it's related I'll post it here: do any of you who have completed RTK 1 and 3 still use the basic Heisig method when you come across kanji which Heisig didn't cover? Or do you even feel compelled to memorize those kanji?

I've never completed RTK3, but that's because i decided against it. I still use the basic heisig method with new kanji, although i started taking a lot of shortcuts a long time ago. My story is now nothing but a minimal mnemonic to connect the primitives. Sometimes it's just a list of primitives. Sometimes i look at a kanji and go "stuff making a story for that" and just muscle learn it. As nadiatims says, once you know pretty much all the primitives confidently, it gets pretty easy. I'm probably only still Anki'ing them because i'm obsessive like that.