I get out my english dictionary for nearly ever word.

I sat down thinking "what does this word actually mean anyway?" Because just like how a Japanese or Chinese native only associate the character with a 'tag' through rote memorisation. We too, associate a set of letters with a 'tag' via rote. These 'tags' were built off fundamental 'tags' in the same way that characters are built off fundamental radicals. So in a sense I don't really know the full meaning of a word, i merely see what word should go where when I construct a sentence. Meanings for me were pretty much built off reading words in context in books and stuff.

I felt that with many of Heisigs stories, the word was part of a sentence description, rather the actual SUBJECT itself. So i try to make my stories start off with
"when you proclaim you...."
"an illumination is something that "
rather than add stories and words unnecessarily when they arent needed. Ofcourse some characters are way too abstract to do this way, and if they are far too abstract i ignore the story and memorise it.[sorry james!]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this one, especially since it's near the beginning of the book. Probably one of the worst stories that Heisig wrote is the one for silence: 黙. The story goes like this (paraphrasing, of course):

"Think of that song about silence that begins 'Hello, darkness, my old friend.' Here we have a black 黒 chihuahua 犬 named 'Darkness'. All you have to do now is remember that the oven flames 灬 extend under the chihuahua."

I know that writing good stories for others is difficult, but this one is staggeringly bad. First off, you have to know the song in the first place. I'm 24 years old; although it may have been fitting for readers of the first edition of RTK1, Simon and Garfunkel is not exactly typical music for my generation. Second, I can't imagine any particular reason why Darkness would be a chihuahua, or why a chihuahua would be named Darkness. Finally, the word that comes to mind most readily with this story is "darkness", not "silence". A couple of times I've written this kanji in place of 暗, the actual kanji for the keyword "darkness"... a bit odd considering that I learned 暗 before studying Heisig.

However, the sheer badness of the story had the ironic effect of helping me remember the kanji because it was so bad. In fact, I find that really bad stories can be used to this effect if you use them sparingly. (Use them too much and of course the thing that makes them stand out will no longer stand out, and then all you have is a bunch of really bad stories.) So the only real problem with it is the potential for confusion with 暗. Note that the confusion also works in reverse because the story for 暗 is that in the original times of darkness, there was no sun 日 and no sound 音. "No sound", of course, reminds one of "silence"... argh!

Another thing... sometimes Heisig does not elaborate enough on what he's talking about. I've long memorized the kanji for measuring box 升, but I still do not know what the heck a measuring box is... and I can't be the only one who doesn't use terms like "lidded crock" or "taskmaster" every day. (Funny enough, I often find myself imagining the phrase, "I don't have time for this, task man, taskmaster!", an adaptation of a line from Space Ghost Coast to Coast: "I don't have time for this, Space Man, Space Master!")

- Kef

There have been weird stories yes. But also weird kanji. I just did ricicule (829) and someone put a ref to mandala (2100) I had to look this up in a dictionary. And then I don't get why its there. Its not in my Kodansha Kanji learners dictionary and Jim Breen's site doesn't give it a grade. There have been a few like that. It seems a waste to make a hard job harder.

I would expect to come across some words as it is from a foreign language. But learning Kanji even the Japanese don't seem to use much or learn seems weird, especially as there have been some kanji that seem more common but are not in there.

hugs
amber

So I'd just like to add a bit of double-WTF. It's a common kanji that I looked up, discovered wasn't even covered until RTK3 (WTF?), and then had a double-take--"wait a minute, self," I said, "doesn't RTK1 cover all of the jouyou kanji?"

At which point I double-checked and discovered that, indeed, it is not in the jouyou kanji.

The kanji? 誰／だれ. Double-WTF to whoever made the jouyou list, but a WTF still goes to Heisig for not including this since he added others off of the list.

~J

AmberUK wrote:

There have been weird stories yes. But also weird kanji. I just did ricicule (829) and someone put a ref to mandala (2100) I had to look this up in a dictionary. And then I don't get why its there. Its not in my Kodansha Kanji learners dictionary and Jim Breen's site doesn't give it a grade. There have been a few like that. It seems a waste to make a hard job harder.

What are you trying to say?
Somewhere around 80% of the characters in volume 3 aren't in the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary, and about 80% of them don't have a grade on Jim Breen's site.  Why pick on 曼?

Last edited by JimmySeal (2008 July 15, 6:30 am)

JimmySeal wrote:

Why pick on 曼?

Because its one I did recently and so could remember that it seemed weird.

Just doesn't seem much use to me (mandala - 2100) As I am only on book 1 I don't know what kanji/ readings are in the other books

Wizard wrote:

What you said about bad kanji really works too. I remember the kanji we learned near the start, "Only", 只, which I learned as "Well, its the only kanji that looks like this"... and it stuck perfectly.

I did something similar with ought 須. I thought, "Unlike most kanji, with this one, you ought to draw the shape 彡 to the left of the head 頁." And it's stuck at least as well as any other kanji I've learned.

- Kef