Meh?
I do either or. Depends on where I am. At home it's with finger, at work it's with pen/paper. The other teachers get a kick out of my pages of kanji, so that's part of the reason why I do it, lawl.

I'm a "tracer" in terms of review.  I suspect that doing things this way will very much have consequences, but I also have my reasons:

Personally, I never evolved past "chicken scratch" handwriting, even with English.  I can't even make Roman, Latin letters very pretty ... thus, my kanji always looks rather crude and ugly.  I just try to make sure to write a character until I get a legible version -- I do my best to to eventually create something that I feel a Japanese native could recognize.

Granted, with no Japanese natives to use as test subjects, I can never be sure ... but in the "initial memorization" stage, I still never move on to a new kanji until I've made a version I can fit into a reasonable space on a bit of ruled paper, and I feel like I can "read."  Heisig recommends that you only write a kanji once during the initial memorization, but I strongly suspect that his own latent talent for writing the kanji might have made it difficult to understand that not everyone can produce something recognizable in their first attempt, even knowing all of the primitives that make the kanji up.

It's not about me trying for rote memorization; it's just about me realizing that I wrote something illegible.



As for going through that AGAIN when I review, well ... I'm so lazy.  I just trace them with a capped pen on my desk, as quickly as I can.  I do watch myself as I do it, to get a feel for how the character "would" look, but it's still not quite the same.

I know that this has got to be having an effect on my penmanship, but I still feel like I'm getting the added memorization benefit of "motor memory" by at least PRETENDING to write the kanji.  Long story short ... as with most things, if you take shortcuts or cut corners, your results won't be as good as if you had done otherwise.  I made the decision that I was okay with that, or (at least) ... that I would live with it for now, and address my penmanship at a later point if it became an issue.

It's really up to you whether or not you want to go as far to write each kanji as you review ... the only benefit of cutting the step out, as far as I can see, is that tracing without ink somewhat lowers the length of time necessary to spend on each flashcard.

Last edited by dukelexon (2007 December 30, 7:26 am)

dukelexon wrote:

Heisig recommends that you only write a kanji once during the initial memorization, but I strongly suspect that his own latent talent for writing the kanji might have made it difficult to understand that not everyone can produce something recognizable in their first attempt, even knowing all of the primitives that make the kanji up.

I think it has to do with him specifically trying to avoid the repetition attached to rote memorization. Writing the characters over and over is one of the classic long-form ways of learning the kanji. Heisig developed his method in response to this.

I recommend going for pen and paper. Preferably lined or squared paper so that your proportions are easier to keep. As stated above, you're likely to see any mistakes you made when you're wrighting. Hard to argue with the evidence that you put 'insect' above 'crotch' in the boisterous kanji.

In addition, you're working on your kinethetic memory (though at a much lower magnitude than Japanese school children) which will also assist your kanji progress "Hey, that doesn't 'feel' right when I'm writing it! Maybe it should be this way?" Sort of like how you dial phone numbers or your bank pin. Yeah, you'd be doing kinethetic enforcement (is that a real term?) with finger and palm too.

As also stated, there's something that's impressive after you have 20+ pages filled with Kanji. It's telling when a native looks at my sentence work (you know the "watashii wa nihongo kakimasu" bit) then turns the page to see hundreds of kanji that they know are very difficult to write. Like seeing an elementary student go from 'Dick and Jane' to Shakespeare in a homework assignment.

PS: Yes, always, always, review. Do it with mentally or finger in palm if you have to though try for that pen and paper. Let's face it, most of the Kanji you'll write in the future will be with an IME.

erlog wrote:

I think it has to do with him specifically trying to avoid the repetition attached to rote memorization. Writing the characters over and over is one of the classic long-form ways of learning the kanji. Heisig developed his method in response to this.

Well, I do appreciate your input, but I addressed exactly that in my post.  Read a bit further.  I understand completely why Heisig RECOMMENDED writing a kanji only once.  I was only pointing out that Heisig may not have completely understood the fact that there may be more reasons (other than memorization) to repeat a kanji a couple of times.  I strongly suspect that his natural, spacial talent for producing the kanji may have made it a bit easier for him to achieve legibility a bit more easily, even after one try.  As for me ... well, if what I've just produced looks like a mess of steel wool rather than a recognizable Chinese character, I'm going to write it again.  I stated:

dukelexon wrote:

It's not about me trying for rote memorization; it's just about me realizing that I wrote something illegible.

I'm not doing it to memorize it with repitition.  I'm just trying to "clean" it up.

I sometimes trace the character on my hand, but 99% of the time I write the character into my Kanji notebook.

I don't think there's anything wrong with just tracing the kanji on your hand, but for me personally, I just find it satisfying to write the character out, also my hand-writing is much much better for it.