Filip,

I just sent you an email on this subject. If you give me an email address then I can send a list of keywords which I consider to be more accurate.

Number 1956 "interview" might better be named "treat" or "encounter", though the latter is already used as a keyword in Heisig.

In addition, some keywords need clarification. For example.

Does "exhaust" mean tired, used up, car "exhaust"?
Does well mean fine or the hole you draw water from.

In reality, we're supposed to lose the keyword itself and be left with only the concept built up from studying the kanji in context.

"exhaust" as in "to run out" and "well" as in a water well. That's why I used to look up the kanji, to make sure I understood what they meant.

Katsuo wrote:

Filip,

I just sent you an email on this subject. If you give me an email address then I can send a list of keywords which I consider to be more accurate.

Number 1956 "interview" might better be named "treat" or "encounter", though the latter is already used as a keyword in Heisig.

Halpern's "Kanji Learner's Dictionary" also lists "treat" and "encounter" as core meanings for #1956. I quite often use Halpern's meanings but don't always like even his choice.

Katsuo, would you be willing to put your preferred list here or to share it via PM. I'd love to take a look at it.

And thanks for all the info you have shared so far!

Ryuujin27 wrote:

But anyway, the point is that we discussed his book and how I am currently using it, and he said to me, "Well, you know that most of his keywords are wrong, right?" And I said, "Yes, but I don't think that matters much. The main goal is just remembering the kanji." And all he said was, "Well that's like words right out of Jim's mouth."

So I think that the main point of this book is to remember the kanji. If the keywords are wrong, when you start learning full Japanese sentences and applying the kanji, it will fix itself. After all, if you are going to be fluent, you're not going to be translating the kanji in your head to Heisig's keywords. No, you'll be thinking the Japanese concept.

If the keywords are wrong, you fail at any attempt to predict new words from the keywords you know, and you have to relearn its meaning. So, it's a total waste of time.

You can say that the focus is to learn the characters and it's true, but by sticking to Heisig's keywords you kill a bird with two stones when you could kill two with one. Also, Heisig's keyword are meant to fade away, but the concept you attach to the kanji will perdure because that's the way the mind works. If you have to substitute that concept by 'the japanese one' you are working twice because Heisig didn't gave you 'the japanese one' right from the start. You'll have the same problem if you use the wrong meaning for an ambiguous keyword just because it's easier to learn it that way. The point is not to remember the exact keyword, but the concept!

What to do then with kanji with multiple meanings? You can attach more than one keyword to it, duh. When you are recalling a kanji you can say to yourself "it's the one for hearing that also means ask". If you think that you shouldn't use more than one keyword, though, you can still work with metaphors: you relate all meanings of the kanji (qualities) to one single object that shares all qualities. If that doesn't work, either, then just write a japanese word! (note, however, that in that case you are doing the same process than in the previous two)

In conclusion, learning a "wrong keyword" is a mistake that you'll have to fix later, and it takes as much work as learning a "correct keyword" from the start, so you are only fooling yourself by not giving importance to the clue that your professor was giving to you. Just so you know how important I think it is, I found this page only because I was actively looking for something to fix the many deficiencies of Heisig's book (useful as it is, nonetheless).

Last edited by DrJones (2008 March 20, 6:18 am)

Ryuujin27 wrote:

Well, I do believe you are mistaken, DrJones.

Sure, you talk about how it's so hard to "relearn" the concept, but have you ever thought that Heisig chose the keywords for a specific reason? I'm sure his motivation wasn't something along the lines of, "Hey, how can I learn the kanji and then royally screw the rest of the people out there who want to learn it?"

No. But he devised his method on his first month in Japan with no idea of japanese. That's why so many of his keywords are wrong. You cannot appreciate something without listening at his critics, and that's one of the top complaints about his method.

It's not really such a big deal to "relearn" the kanji concepts and meanings after you finish Heisig. And the reason "relearn" is in quotations is because it isn't really work, you are going to be reading Japanese, writing Japanese, and looking at Japanese all the time (I assume). So while doing this, the concepts of the characters will come to you.

You are evading the question. Of course you can correct a bad habit with time (how relieving!), and I could understand it if that made learning easier. The problem is that it doesn't, and sometimes it even makes things harder. For example, Kanji #526 : 起; try to come up with a story with the keyword suggested in the spanish edition ("Ocurrir": to ocurr)), and later try using a more correct one, like "wake up". I used this example to help you see for yourself how needlessly difficult Heisig's can sometimes be (and even though I used a spanish example here, I can tell you that there are plenty of them in the english edition).

What I find ridiculous is that easy things became difficult for no good reason!!

Last edited by DrJones (2008 March 20, 11:50 am)

rich_f wrote:

Actually, the English keyword for #526 is "rouse" which means "wake up, " both in English and in 起きる which means "to wake up." I think the Spanish edition is the real problem here. Whoever was the editor on that seems to have seriously dropped the ball, if he's using "occur" for "rouse." I honestly don't understand why anyone would make that translation.

I'm guessing they're going more along the lines of 起こる and 起こす.  I've never looked them up in a J-E dictionary, but their meanings are close to 'occur' and 'to cause something to occur'.  Both are very common words.

rich_f wrote:

Actually, the English keyword for #526 is "rouse" which means "wake up, " both in English and in 起きる which means "to wake up." I think the Spanish edition is the real problem here. Whoever was the editor on that seems to have seriously dropped the ball, if he's using "occur" for "rouse." I honestly don't understand why anyone would make that translation.

scout wrote:

I'm guessing they're going more along the lines of 起こる and 起こす.  I've never looked them up in a J-E dictionary, but their meanings are close to 'occur' and 'to cause something to occur'.  Both are very common words.

Thank you for your cooperation, it was hard to make my point without help from others.

rich_f wrote:

The point of this large-scale exercise is NOT to teach you the Japanese meaning of kanji-- it's to give you a way to REMEMBER them.

My point is, which keyword makes it easier to remember 起 (a picture of someone running because there was a snake in his bed, according to my books)? "rouse/wake up", or "occur"? Do you honestly don't see that the choice of keyword makes a difference?

Now, say that this is a mistake on the part of the spanish translator... weren't you saying previously that this shouldn't make any difference?

Maybe I've posted here as if I were forcing you to change their study method. I don't intend to force anyone. I'm being however a bit too enthusiastic about my points (that I feel were good for me and thus want to share with the rest), because I don't want people to encounter the same problems I found on my first pass through this book. It's a good tool, but it's not honest to ignore its many faults, because then nobody will ever try to fix them. If I searched for this page and the first poster opened this thread, is because we feel that the "unfortunate choice of keywords" is not making our lives easier. (I say unfortunate because as you can see "occur" is not a wrong keyword per se)

Just to show you an example with the english edition, take kanji #1130: 折.
It shows a "finger" and an "axe". It may mean fold, bend (your fingers) moment (that you timed bending your fingers) or bone fracture. Don't you think that maybe one of these keywords will make the process of remembering this sole kanji easier than the other choices? I do.

Last edited by DrJones (2008 March 20, 2:03 pm)

Btw, not to hijack the topic, but reviewing ambiguous english keywords after finishing RtK1 since a long time is becoming annoying.

So I've decided to to make the "Japanese prompt / Japanese keyword" review mode as my next priority after what I'm working on now.. it should also help with lack of motivation after completing RtK1. I spend more time working on the website than studying Japanese so I can't wait to use it myself and learn some vocab while I continue reviewing RtK1.

Actually, I just looked it up in the dictionary, and there is another common word, "okoru" (which I just realized someone also mentioned earlier) which makes use of the same primitive and sounds phonetically even more like "occur".  Its definition is "1.  Originate;  start.  2.  Happen; break out."  I am thinking that the case for using "occur" as a keyword is looking better.  I really think, at least on this one, that the Spanish translator, as well as Heisig, really knew what they were doing.

Last edited by Dragg (2008 March 20, 3:17 pm)

Well, from what I've gathered from the other posts, it seems like his keywords really are never that far off. I've only ever managed to get to somewhere around 550 (but this time I promise I'll complete it ), so I didn't really know the case for the last 1500 or so. As such, I couldn't bring up the argument that some of Heisig's keywords are off.

However, now that I've read through other's comments on the subject, it seems that Heisig has managed to keep his keywords close to at least one meaning of each kanji. And considering this, I don't think anyone has any reference to say that he wrote this book with "no knowledge of Japanese". Even if this is true, he certainly did his research about each kanji before selecting the keywords (as the book's foreword says).

Nevertheless, I can understand some people getting the wrong "concept" from each kanji later on, where only the keyword and the primitives are given. However, this is easily corrected on the spot, and corrected here isn't even the correct word, by simply looking up the kanji in a dictionary before you learn it, to realize what connotations the kanji carries and how that relates to the keyword.

So now the argument really just turns in to how much work you actually want to put into this. And now that I have this information, I plan to do just that, and look up every kanji when it's keyword may not be clear to its concept.

sorry for continually posting but I am really bored today and enjoy debating trivialities.   As Dr. Jones states, the kanji for "fold", also can mean "bend" or "fracture", but it can also mean "relationship" as in "oriai", or "turn, go back" as in "orikaesu" or "paper folding" as in "origami"  In each of these cases, "fold" still makes a much better keyword than "bone fracture." "Fold" is better when thinking of relationship because you can imagine two people folded together.  It is also better for the concept of turning back because you can think of it as "folding" as in a poker game.  And of course obviously, "bone fracture" as a keyword is a bit too harsh for thinking about the gentle folds of origami.  This is why I am so adamantly supportive of Heisig's often ambiguous quality keywords.