Hey everyone;

I'm currently studying rtk2 by using mnemonic sound "cues" to aid in memorizing the readings, for example;

R114-121 "工" コウ imagine a "Co-ld" hard steel beam when looking at the character

or this one

R144-147 "申" シン the "sheen" on this monkey's coat is very nice; (imagine petting a monkey who's just had a bath and has very soft shiny fur)

This is a method I had adopted 3 years ago when studying Vietnamese in an effort to memorize and familiarize foreign sounds with a strong visual image. I'd use them as cues to temporarily memorize a word long enough to be able to use it in conversations, after using it a few times the mnemonic would "fade" out and be forgotten entirely. Now I no longer need create new sound mnemonics when studying Viet because now all the sounds are familiar and I can use existing vocabulary to build mnemonics, or I just memorize words as soon as I hear/read them.

These "sound-mnemonics" sould'nt be put in long-term memory though, because I'm afraid they may inflict quirks on pronunciation. I just use them as "cues" whenever I get stumped on a new reading, like when you're in a play rehearsal and you forget your line, someone "cue"s you. But after practicing a few times the mnemonic should fade out.

R136-139 "麻" マ "Ma"rijauna

R57ー60 中 チュウ a stick of chu-ing gum in your mouth (a really long piece
like the gum-tape for the extra ウ sound)

I was wondering if anyone else was using a similar method or has heard of this method before or had any ideas concerning it

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Quote:R57ー60 中 チュウ a stick of chu-ing gum in your mouth (a really long piece
like the gum-tape for the extra ウ sound)

Oh nice one! I had a Chuu-pa Chups factory, as a mnemonic for the sound, which also becomes a kind of "memory palace" in which I visualized a bunch of kanji all using the same chinese reading. It's not far from chewing-gum, I'll probably use that now.

The advantage if you can visualize a place (in your example could be a chewing gum factory), is that you can link kanji in your memory which have no relation whatsoever graphically; this is useful because while there are "signal" components which are tied to the sound, there are many exceptions as well.

If you find visualizing a imaginary place with kanji in various spots difficult, you can try also to create a simple story to link those characters together.

See The Chain Method of Studying Japanese Characters

The next site area I'm working on will almost directly support this approach, but there are also other surprises which make it easy to remember readings; so the kanji chain approach is not always necessary (it's kinda slow too); however I think it can be of benefit for those characters you tend to confuse or you keep forgetting, or those readings where there the associated characters share no "signal" primitives.

oh yeah that would be awesome. I've noticed a few people using the sound mnemonics and mixing them in with the RTK1 "study-stories" area of this site, but I agree with Heisig that reading and meaning study should be kept separate so I haven't posted any of my Reading mnemonics.

I'm using rtk2 as opposed to the chaining, but it is so hard to get a copy of rtk2 now, and it seems like chaining is a more popular method.

From what I've read the chain method says that the mnemonics should be very solid and unforgettable and claims;

-"Remembering becomes highly reliable due to the plot connections. Every character acquires its own address in memory and its quick retrieval is made possible - in contrast to the host of tiny, static "stories" which are not linked and thus easy to forget."- from; http://www.susi.ru/kanji/ChMethod.html

I'm doing the opposite of this however. I'm creating mnemonics for the Signal Primitives (in the Pure/Semi Pure groups of kanji) to cue me the first few times I read characters from the set(a "static" story), then doing a lot of reading practice to memorize them long term, as opposed to long term memorization with mnemonics. I know for a fact that this is one of the best ways to gain vocabulary in a spoken language, but as for kanji I'm not sure yet.

Learning Vietnamese for example, I'll create a short "static" mnemonic for a word then make it a point to use the word the next time I have a conversation with someone (though this may be anywhere from 5 - 20 words); the mnemonic is totally forgotten, used only as a cue to remember the word in the conversation, but after using the word once or twice it is automatically memorized and placed in permanent memory. Like I said I'm not sure how successful I'll be, but I have hope in the signal primitives. I believe that the non-signal primitive kanji that are low-frequency will need stronger mnemonics to memorize long-term.

I like synewave's approach of reading current news stories as they're easy to bring up in conversation and allow study of a wide range of topics.

I'm open to the kanji-chain method but I just bought rtk2 (120$ ) so I'm going to go as far as I can with it.

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I didn't mean that you should use kanji chains, and don't worry the next big site update will (actually does since last w-e ) directly support RtK2 even though that's like a side-bonus. For each Japanese character + reading combination (both On and Kun) you will be able to add exemplary compounds, the program gives a list from all possible choices but from that list you can select the one that is suggested in RtK2, so the book may be handy.

Keep in mind Vadim also learned the writing of the characters at the same time. You only need a story or a more visual "memory palace", to link keywords, but not the components/writing. So it's a lot easier than what it sounds like when reading his article.

On top of RtK2 the kanji chains is not that complex, you just make a simple story to include all the characters sharing one common chinese reading. For example I did one yesterday for all the きん kanji. I didn't have many ideas for the sound mnemonic so I chose the temple in Kyouto "kinkakuji" 金閣寺 as a setting for the story. The plot is minimalistic and involves the keywords "muscle", "germ", "koto(harp?)", "gold", "level", "brocade", etc (13 in total). Then for each character I selected an exemplary compound with the site update I'm working on (it's in development).

One thing I found while working on this udpate, and also trying some Kanji games on DS is that compounds can really help remembering readings, however there's a paradox where actually adding more unknown compounds can help because if you have only one exemplary compound for a reading that you won't see anywhere else, you will soon forget it. So the application I'm working on lets you add as many exemplary compounds you want for a character/reading. For example I kept forgetting the reading for 給料 so I added and learned a few easy compounds: 高給　無給　年給　these are super easy to learn if you know the other kanji and you use RtK, as the keywords becomes riddles and mini-mnemonics for the compounds.

From experience though, I've found the kanji chains, when you use a common location as the cue for the reading, stick much better than relying on compounds alone. Those kanji chain stories are also crutches, but they're interesting because you can navigate the lists in memory in your spare time. Yesterday of those 13 きん kanji I learned, while navigating the list, I was also recalling the exemplary compound I had for each one, reading AND writing!

With all that said "kanji chains" is not that popular, looking at the activity on the related topics. That's because people are much more confortable with known techniques like exemplary compounds I believe. But I am hopeful that the next site update will give new avenues, because kinda like the succesful "guitar hero" / "Rock Band" games make people more aware of how music works, a system which exposes on groups and compounds sharing similar sounds and/or kanji, will make learners more aware of the funny puzzle that the Japanese language is.

Wow, the site update is going to be amazing.. I was playing around with the (beta?) version "onyomi" page and I really liked that it supports both the chains and rtk2 at the same time, can't figure out how to use the cards yet though.

I agree with you that

ファブリス Wrote:actually adding more unknown compounds can help because if you have only one exemplary compound for a reading that you won't see anywhere else, you will soon forget it.

As this is why I'm hoping that signal primitives will help me out, although I'm getting more interested in the kanji-chaining the more I hear about it. It just seems that after finishing rtk1 the task of creating the huge 50-60 chain stories seems so daunting (and tiring), but it may not be as big as I'm making it out to be. Actually, from what you are saying, some of the smaller groups seem pretty easy to chain together. So I think I'll use a double approach with both rtk2 and chaining.

ファブリス Wrote:On top of RtK2 the kanji chains is not that complex, you just make a simple story to include all the characters sharing one common chinese reading.

I'm starting to see this now. I just noticed that with the chaining method all of the characters are laid out and categorized by the character types, signal primitives, etc. I had originally imagined a jumbled mess of characters to link together which gave me instant pre-writer's block. But seeing them nice and organized makes it seem easier.

Also I've noticed that the chains should aid in reinforcing the keywords of the individual characters (or at least the meanings of the keywords) when reading the compounds, reducing the need to review from "kanji to keword". Whereas using the signal primitives does not help that at all.

Though I could've sworn that chaining was more popular than the rtk2 route; (excluding learning by context).

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Yes the smaller groups are really easy.

For the long chains I created small groups, and then instead of a single chain I have like a star, a center, and a few branches. Then logically each small group is based on a primitive. In "sei" for example I had "grow" kanji at the center 青, "life" kanji in one branch 生, "correct" in another branch 正、征、。。。　so the signal primitives are still useful.

Even in a short chain like the チュウ kanji (your "chuu-ing gum" mnemonic), I had a space with a top and bottom areas, and in the bottom areas are the 中-based characters, while others at the top are the "exceptions" for which RtK2 gives no means of organizing (in this case they were "sign of the cow", "casting","daybreak", etc.), interestingly, just looking at the group of characters I inferred that 主 was pronunced chuu. Without coming accross 主 and 往 yet which are exceptions, the reading worked for 住 注 柱 駐 註, the last one is actually RtK3 but if you learned RtK1 kanji only, the guess would have worked. Is it a signal primitive, I dont know, havent checked

Quote:I was playing around with the (beta?) version "onyomi" page and I really liked that it supports both the chains and rtk2 at the same time, can't figure out how to use the cards yet though.

The onyomi area was in "beta" yes, but it will be obsolete with the next big update. It was focused on the kanji chain method and RtK 2, perhaps too much, and also too clumsy to use.

But in the meantime, you can try this, I think it still works :
Click the onyomi group カイ for example, it should have "23" below it, meaning 23 kanji in that group. In the next page click on the tabs top right "Edit Compounds", click into the 3rd row with 界, now you can enter the RtK2 info, or this one : "世界", "せかい", "the world". Now click Update. Now if you go back to the main onyomi page, click "Review Jukugo" you will get a randomized review of those compounds. It won't save the flashcard status though, just takes all compounds and creates a random test.

Like I said that was a beta and it will be obsolete, just be aware than I may delete it completely with the next big update. However in the next update it will be much easier to enter compounds, you only need to search for them, you won't need to type in manually the compounds, readings or definitions; those will come from the dictionary in the database. Flashcard status for compounds will also be saved.

stehr Wrote:I was wondering if anyone else was using a similar method or has heard of this method before or had any ideas concerning it

Your method is known, in some mnemonic circles, as the linkword method.
http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/japanese.htm
I'm providing the link merely for example. It's easy to come up with my own, so I never buy this type of product myself.

I used linkword a little with Swahili, a lot more with Thai, and close to 100% when I started Japanese. The mnemonics aren't harmful, and disappear as soon as I become comfortable with a word.

There is a method called kanjitown. A guy called littlefish made up the name of a location for each onyomi that sounds like the onyomi. He created a story for each location that included keywords for all the characters with that onyomi. http://kanjitown.blogspot.com/2005/12/ho...-do-i.html
Main problems:
1. 300 or so big stories which are initially hard to create and remember due to their size
2. Without actually reading words containing the characters on a regular basis, it is hard to remember everything until you actually need it, even with an SRS

When I did about half of RTK2 a couple years ago, I tried a slightly different method. I also had locations for each onyomi. The difference was that I made a story for each character that linked the keyword to the location. It worked, but it was painfully slow.
Main problems:
1. 2000 or so little stories which are initially hard to create and remember due to their quantity
2. Without actually reading words containing the characters on a regular basis, it is hard to remember everything until you actually need it, even with an SRS

I abandoned the method for plain 'ol reading compounds. I found that reading the kanji versions of words that I already knew the pronunciation of was very easy, and kicked myself in the butt for wasting so much time on RTK2.

To be fair though, I was not using RTK2 the way Heisig recommends. He wants one to drill from compound to pronunciation (reading), and from kana to compuound (writing). I didn't do either of these, mainly because I only knew about 10% of the words, and I didn't want to learn 2000+ new words just to be able to do his drills. Looking back on it now, I believe that if one knows most of his compounds, RTK2 will be an excellent tool.

Here's my theory about learning yomi. If you already know the pronunciation of a word that contains a certain Heisig character(s), after finishing Heisig, that word will be easy to learn how to read. If you don't have a vocabulary word for a character, then it will be difficult (but not impossible) to remember the yomi. I believe it's so difficult that your time is better spent learning vocabulary words that contain those characters. After you know the vocabulary, you can learn the yomi. After you have learned yomi for a charcter, you can learn the pronunciation of new words by using the kanji; no need to rely so heavily on kana, the linkword method, etc.

Summary:
1.Finish RTK1
2.Learn the pronunciation of at least one word with the target character/yomi (this should probably be done in the line of normal studies, reading, listening, etc)
3.Learn to read the word
4.Use the learned character/word to learn new words with the same, when you encounter them.

This is the path of least resistance for a Heisig learner, IMO.

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I agree with learning the compounds, and reckon that RtK2 is a bit daunting.

I thought I'd point out that RtK2 not only gives you exemplary compounds, but also gives them in sequences based on the chinese readings. While RtK2 doesn't advocate creating stories to link those characters together, there is the same idea of learning all characters sharing a reading at the same time. This is very efficient. So the other day I learned 13 exemplary compounds for the 13 kanji that are read きん, this took about 20 minutes. I barely reviewed and remember them easily so far I believe because they were learned in one swoop.

So that's something not to overlook, learning with compounds is nice, but I think learning from the On groups, rather than from random textbook vocab lists can be more effective. Pratical? Probably not, the same goes for RtK2 that goes for RtK1. Mind I'm not trying to recommend the book here, but rather the ideas behind it.

I don't think readings should be learned in isolation, and Kanjitown/chaining has you spending more time not actually learning Japanese...

It's my opinion that rtk2 (or chaining) should be used more to familiarize oneself with the organization of the "sounds" in the kanji. That's why I'm trying to find the best way to get through it. I've found that in learning any language even the smallest tidbits of information, even the slightest nuances, the more learned, will greatly expidite the accumulation of new vocabulary. So all context and compounds aside, even familiarizing oneself with only the signal primitives or linking by chains, I believe, is still a worthwile effort. This I think is one of the main goals in getting through rtk2, much as a main point of getting through rtk1 is familiarizing oneself with the shapes of the kanji.

ファブリス Wrote:I thought I'd point out that RtK2 not only gives you exemplary compounds, but also gives them in sequences based on the chinese readings.

The selection of compound in rtk2 follows logical patterns as one progresses through the book. First, the compound usually has a definition very close to the selected character's keyword or at least complimenting the keyword. Second, the more one progresses through the book more previously learned readings are used in new compounds. And in some cases the first learned compound is repeated several times; 奈良 for example.

leosmith Wrote:Here's my theory about learning yomi. If you already know the pronunciation of a word that contains a certain Heisig character(s), after finishing Heisig, that word will be easy to learn how to read. If you don't have a vocabulary word for a character, then it will be difficult (but not impossible) to remember the yomi. I believe it's so difficult that your time is better spent learning vocabulary words that contain those characters. After you know the vocabulary, you can learn the yomi.

I absolutely agree, it's just so hard to jump off the rtk rocket, and hard to see that vocabulary clearly needs to be the main focus of study after rtk1. On the other hand I don't think that chaining or study of the signal primitives is a waste of time.

I do a mix. I have sentences full of unfamiliar words, compounds, and individual kanji thrown into Anki. I have no evidence to back this up, but it seems that a variety of methods helps me retain, and at least it is a little more interesting.

With the kanjis I like to group them by onyomi and make a chain. It may not be the "best" but it doesn't take very much time.

A potential problem with the chaining is that you simply can't avoid words that technically shouldn't be there. I just did a chain for シャク which involves Shaquille O'neil as a bartender. Of course he's pouring drinks (using a stone ladle I might add), but technically I should avoid "drink" because 飲　isn't pronounced シャク。 So far I've been able to keep this straight, but I could see it causing problems in the future.

Something I do with the keywords to prevent　confusion between チュウ and チュ: The key word for チュウ should of course start with the Choo sound, but the next sound should be "long" like l, r, s, w. For チュ the key word should start with choo, but then have a "short" sound like p, t, d, c. So "chewing gum" is good for チュウ　because you can say "chewwwwwwww." But with Chupa chups you can't go "chupppppp." So "Chupa Chups" would be a better keyword for チュ. Using this method it is almost impossible to get チュウ　and チュ　mixed up. I got this from some website, but I can't remember which. For all I know, it's references in the links given above; I scanned them, but didn't read in detail.

Unfortunately, this method makes it harder to pick good keywords -- you can't pick keywords for which there is already a kanji, either. I'm hoping there can be some kind of communal effort like we see with developing stories for RTK1.

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I thought also of using "v" or "w" to indicate the long vowel [kana]U[/kana], good idea.

Wakela Wrote:Of course he's pouring drinks (using a stone ladle I might add), but technically I should avoid "drink" because 飲　isn't pronounced シャク。

The same applies to RtK1 stories, no? Not sure how I deal with it, just focusing on the keyword at the center of each story. It's hard to avoid using an existing RtK1 keyword in your story/mnemonic. In RtK1 stories, I often used an alternate word while "retelling" a story in full (early reviews), to avoid thinking of other characters.

I agree about Chu and Chuu, the "chewing (gum)" mnemonic is perfect. It wasn't a problem for me yet, but I can see for 270 kanjichains a system for the long vowel like you described would be very useful.

Wakela Wrote:you can't pick keywords for which there is already a kanji, either.

I see what you mean. For example I wanted to use COW (eg. one of those sacred cows in India) as the mnemonic for the largest group [kana]KOU[/kana], but I was worried that I would misplace the character for cow 牛
into the onyomi group where it doesn't belong (牛 is read ギュウ not コウ).

It' still possible to do like Heisig did in RtK1 and use a different meaning for keyword knowing it's a onyomi group mnemonic, but I'd rather avoid it too. Using "special cases" like this makes recall kind of indirect.

ファブリス Wrote:I thought also of using "v" or "w" to indicate the long vowel [kana]U[/kana], good idea.

Wakela Wrote:Of course he's pouring drinks (using a stone ladle I might add), but technically I should avoid "drink" because 飲　isn't pronounced シャク。

The same applies to RtK1 stories, no? Not sure how I deal with it, just focusing on the keyword at the center of each story. It's hard to avoid using an existing RtK1 keyword in your story/mnemonic. In RtK1 stories, I often used an alternate word while "retelling" a story in full (early reviews), to avoid thinking of other characters.

That's a good point, but I think a key difference is that in RTK1, 5 primitives for one kanji would be a lot. In the case of onyomis, 5 is almost not worth the trouble. I started with the yomis that have 8 kanjis, but I could see getting more confused as I get to the ones with 20. Here's my story for シャク：

Shaquille O'Neil is bartending, but wearing a bright red uniform he borrowed from the Red Baron. He pours drinks from a stone ladel and serves them in shakus. When people ask for a explanation he always starts with, "Well, once upon a time..."

(Is Shaquille O'Neil world famous like Mr. T? I thought it would be more interesting to use him than a plain ol' shack.)
So far I actually haven't had any trouble remembering that シャク doesn't apply to "bright" or "drink," but since "explanation" fits into the story so naturally, I keep forgetting that it's a keyword. It would be better if Shaquille were explaining something unusual.

ファブリス Wrote:

Wakela Wrote:you can't pick keywords for which there is already a kanji, either.

I see what you mean. For example I wanted to use COW (eg. one of those sacred cows in India) as the mnemonic for the largest group [kana]KOU[/kana], but I was worried that I would misplace the character for cow 牛
into the onyomi group where it doesn't belong (牛 is read ギュウ not コウ).

It' still possible to do like Heisig did in RtK1 and use a different meaning for keyword knowing it's a onyomi group mnemonic, but I'd rather avoid it too. Using "special cases" like this makes recall kind of indirect.

Yeah, it's torture that you can't use shoe for シュウ, too. What were those Japanese (Chinese) thinking?! But I would think that if you were going to use Cow for anything, you would use it for カウ ... OK, I just checked and it looks like カウ　isn't an onyomi. But it sure sounds like one, and I think I would get them mixed up. I tried using the keyword "sex" for セキ, but I kept remembering セク.

Wait a minute. You are Beligian, right? I don't think I have ever hear a Belgian say "cow." It's now on my list of things to do before I die. Is your pronunciation of "cow" closer to コウ, while mine (American) is closer to カウ? Even if it's not, that puts an interesting challenge on a communal effort to come up with onyomi keywords. This site is pretty international.

My keyword for コウ is "coal mine." (And the miners are very comfortable wearing funnels on their heads, thank you very much).

That reminds me. There is a used car place near where I live (in Japan) called in romaji "Cow Cow." I always thought this was just an example of cute, weird English, but my wife explained that it's a trans-lingual (?) pun. Cow Cow -> Buy Buy.

leosmith Wrote:

stehr Wrote:I was wondering if anyone else was using a similar method or has heard of this method before or had any ideas concerning it

Your method is known, in some mnemonic circles, as the linkword method.
http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/japanese.htm
I'm providing the link merely for example. It's easy to come up with my own, so I never buy this type of product myself.

I used linkword a little with Swahili, a lot more with Thai, and close to 100% when I started Japanese. The mnemonics aren't harmful, and disappear as soon as I become comfortable with a word.

There is a method called kanjitown. A guy called littlefish made up the name of a location for each onyomi that sounds like the onyomi. He created a story for each location that included keywords for all the characters with that onyomi. http://kanjitown.blogspot.com/2005/12/ho...-do-i.html
Main problems:
1. 300 or so big stories which are initially hard to create and remember due to their size
2. Without actually reading words containing the characters on a regular basis, it is hard to remember everything until you actually need it, even with an SRS

When I did about half of RTK2 a couple years ago, I tried a slightly different method. I also had locations for each onyomi. The difference was that I made a story for each character that linked the keyword to the location. It worked, but it was painfully slow.
Main problems:
1. 2000 or so little stories which are initially hard to create and remember due to their quantity
2. Without actually reading words containing the characters on a regular basis, it is hard to remember everything until you actually need it, even with an SRS

I abandoned the method for plain 'ol reading compounds. I found that reading the kanji versions of words that I already knew the pronunciation of was very easy, and kicked myself in the butt for wasting so much time on RTK2.

To be fair though, I was not using RTK2 the way Heisig recommends. He wants one to drill from compound to pronunciation (reading), and from kana to compuound (writing). I didn't do either of these, mainly because I only knew about 10% of the words, and I didn't want to learn 2000+ new words just to be able to do his drills. Looking back on it now, I believe that if one knows most of his compounds, RTK2 will be an excellent tool.

Here's my theory about learning yomi. If you already know the pronunciation of a word that contains a certain Heisig character(s), after finishing Heisig, that word will be easy to learn how to read. If you don't have a vocabulary word for a character, then it will be difficult (but not impossible) to remember the yomi. I believe it's so difficult that your time is better spent learning vocabulary words that contain those characters. After you know the vocabulary, you can learn the yomi. After you have learned yomi for a charcter, you can learn the pronunciation of new words by using the kanji; no need to rely so heavily on kana, the linkword method, etc.

Summary:
1.Finish RTK1
2.Learn the pronunciation of at least one word with the target character/yomi (this should probably be done in the line of normal studies, reading, listening, etc)
3.Learn to read the word
4.Use the learned character/word to learn new words with the same, when you encounter them.

This is the path of least resistance for a Heisig learner, IMO.

yeah totally agree with you here. Finished rtk1 the other month and wondering what to do next, the problem is my vocab is just so utterly piss poor that most of the rtk2 readings are new. Had a shot at the first few groups of rtk2 with terrible retention.. and I think the problem is

compound -> (reading, meaning)

is just too difficult. Yet compound -> reading (words you know) is so much easier.

Probably learning is optimal for *pairs* of things, A->B etc. things just arent wired for learning tuples, which makes RTK2 when you have really bad vocab a waste of time - tuple learning.

So will try a change of direction, and instead learn the vocab in RTK2 for the pure/semi-pure, then go the compound reading - doing RTK2 in 2 passes so to speak.

study plan is

1) visual collage -> english word (rtk1)

2) english word (rtk2 compounds) -> reading (vocab/`normal jp study`)

3) compound -> reading (rtk2)

4) higher level kanji / reading proficiency blah blah blah

... basically exactly what you said. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.