Has anyone come out with a book yet that helps you learn vocabulary "RTK Style"? Kanji-compounds and just the words and phrases themselves?
Ikimasu.
*I* need a *key* so that I can -go- do *mas* things. (Mas = more in Spanish).
You may be skeptical, but you were probably skeptical of RTK first too then. I would love love love something like this. Anyone find anything like it?
I doubt it, and you'll find that it is usually wasted effort. Most vocab terms will stick to you eventually, much quicker than a mostly nonsensical and phonetical-based story will. A combination of kanjis would work for compounds, but that's about it.
Also, Ikimasu is not Ikimasu, it's Iku conjugated in the -masu version. That story would be learning 12 words for a random phonetical hint which only serves for a certain conjugation, and it would be very hard to separate き From きい since they both sound like key, etc.
While I do use certain hints for certain vocab terms, using it as a general learning method would be... superfluous.
Aspiring
Member
From: San Diego
Registered: 2012-08-13
Posts: 307
With Japanese words, mnemonics are more efficient with kanji than with phonemes.
e.g. 絵画
picture + picture = picture
^Your best bet is learning the 1500+ words with straightforward kanji. This way you get a feeling for how all the kanji and pronounciations work together.
Some other examples
戦争(competition/argue=war)
商品(make a deal/goods=merchandise)
黒板(black/board=blackboard)
上級(upper/class=upperclass)
There is a deck for these "synonymous pairs", but you would most likely learn these words in core6k.
Edit: Use kanji keywords to learn words
Last edited by Aspiring (2013 March 03, 12:41 pm)
Katsuo
M.O.D.
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2007-02-06
Posts: 887
Website
In the final chapter of RTK2 Heisig describes a mnemonic method for learning kun-readings and their associated vocabulary. (I imagine it could also be used for kana-only words.)
Simply put, each sound in the Japanese language is assigned a meaning, e.g. mosquito is か, hand is て, etc. and those are combined into stories/images in a similar way to RTK1.
He does say, however, that this is intended for those words you are have difficulty with rather than a general method for learning all vocabulary.
For me, I do pretty well with mnemonics so I made up a person-action system where each syllable in a word represents an image of a person doing an action. I based it on the Dominic System which is popular in the mnemonic community for memorizing a sequence of numbers. So here's an example of how I use it practice using ikimasu as an example.
These are images I associate with each syllable.
i: Inuyasha performing a wind scar attack
ki: Kiki riding a broomstick
ma: masa swinging a shinai
su: Vanellope driving her car made out of candy
When I chain the syllables together, here is the image I get: Inuyasha riding a broomstick and telling it to "go! go! go!" because he's in a race with Masa who's driving a car made out of candy.
Choosing images to correspond with the syllables only took me a few hours and has been very useful for me so far. Also, as a side note, for certain syllables, like su and ru, I actually have more than one set of person-action associated with them. Since they often appear in words, it allows me to create more variety in my images.
Stansfield123
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2011-04-17
Posts: 799
I'm gonna assume that ikimasu was just an unfortunate choice of an example, and you're not actually suggesting that someone try and memorize it as a separate word.
Still, I don't think there's any need to try and memorize vocab. Immersion takes care of that. But, if you set out to memorize words, then sure, using various tricks would be better than just brute forcing it.
However, the same does not apply to the writing of words. Both the reading of a word and its meaning are already big hints to what Kanji are used to write it. To make up a story, on top of that, would be entirely useless. The exceptions (where neither the reading nor the meaning are useful hints) are so rare that they're not worth bothering with. Those exceptions can easily be learned through using the language, there's no need to try and memorize them.
Also, in RtK Dr. Heisig gives a convincing argument against trying to use visual memory to learn Kanji. If you read it, you'll find that the same argument does not apply to a lot of words with multiple Kanji. With these, visual memory is in fact very useful in recognizing them even without paying attention to the individual Kanji. That's a third reason why there's no need for any further effort towards learning vocab.
