ファブリス
Administrator
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-06-14
Posts: 4021
Website
Does anyone know of a resource online or a book using a method identical to Remembering the Kanji ?
What seems to me really unique to the RtK method (or really new if you prefer, though the book is out since? 20+ years?), is the "tagging" of graphical variations of the same chinese radicals.
It seems everything else has been done in one way or another, or is based on universal principles like "divide and conquer".
The reason I'm asking is that I continue to be amazed and surprised that nobody seems to have built a website that lets people learn kanji online in effective ways and by using the age-old tried and tested "Art of Memory" (i.e. mnemonics).
Especially in the "web2.0" age, this must have been done. So where is it ? o_O
ファブリス
Administrator
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-06-14
Posts: 4021
Website
Hehe, it's a serious question though. Reviewing the Kanji's Study area is quite succesfull, but it's based on RtK, it's not a course in itself. Which is fine by me, as there is plenty to build around reviewing, practicing, sharing, etc.
But I would be really surprised if there are no good online systems for learning the kanji. Where are they? Such a website would expose the composition of each character. Basically what many Japanese study books do, but afaik, nobody's putting a patent on the use of mnemonics applied to learning the kanji. On top of that, Jim Breen graciously made the JDICT and KANJIDIC resources almost freely usable (donations recommended if used in a commercial project), while CEDICT is not free for use in commercial applications and requires express permission (meaning, royalties or such). And yet, I have still not come accross a dedicated online resource for learning Japanese characters.
amthomas
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2006-06-22
Posts: 104
Maybe RTK is 20 years old/young, but the pervasiveness of the internet is a pretty new thing.
There are still many many places where studying with the help of an online-only tool is just impractical, and you'll find that this is still the case for a lot of users of this website. Many people have asked for an offline version of RevTK because they don't always have a net connection ready to go when they have the time to study (say, on the bus, or when traveling away from home, etc).
I think that you'd have more luck trying to find *supplementary* online resources for commercial courses. Or, as you mentioned, websites that allow you to look up the components of characters, such as online dictionaries and such.
As much as Zarxrax's post was a compliment to this site/community, I think it's also accurate. *THIS* is the site that you're talking about. *THIS* community is breaking new ground and paving the way for commercial applications that allow people to learn the kanji online through decomposition of characters.
Get your patents in now, Fabrice, or you'll never make your million! *wink*
I think a lot of us forget that, while the internet is old hat and familiar territory for us, it isn't for everyone. Until courses can be created entirely online for major profit, I can't really see any company going out of their way to investigate innovative methods of teaching kanji.
By the way, have you ever mentioned to Heisig that this community exists? I would think that there would be a GIANT link to RevTK right on the back cover of the latest edition, if he knew about this great forum for sharing stories... (^_^)
-ang
Don't leave it up to Japanese educators. The official japanese CD at my university, in its sample dialogs, still shows Japanese businesspeople using ancient monochrome computers and typewriters. The official Mandarin material isn't much better. Their kanji/hanzi isn't even real text, just images, so people won't have to install font packages, as if noone would ever want to copy and paste. And of course both cost in the $100 range.
Last edited by snispilbor (2008 July 05, 10:58 am)
leosmith
Member
Registered: 2005-11-18
Posts: 352
Fab, could you be more specific? There are certainly some books, for Japanese and Chinese, that use a similar approach. By that I mean they assign a word or meaning to each "primitive" and character, and suggest linking them with a story. Some add readings and tones too. But none of them are exactly like Heisig, and yours is the only thing I know of like this online. There are so many members here, I'm also surprised there aren't more sites like this. Anyway, you're probably not asking for this, but the books I know of are
1) RTK1 & RTK3
2) Kanji ABC
3) Learning Chinese Characters
4) Cracking the Chinese Puzzles
erlog
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2007-01-25
Posts: 633
Is this radical confusion a real thing or a theoretical thing. I understand that it could be problematic but Heisig's book is for people who are learning Japanese. For the most part he sticks with the original meaning of the radicals, but the ones that he doesn't stick to...can't those just easily be fixed later? That has been my experience.
It's a valid criticism of Heisig, but it's so easy to avoid, so rare, or so easy to fix that I feel like it just becomes a non-issue.
Last edited by erlog (2008 July 21, 9:18 am)
alyks
Member
From: Arizona
Registered: 2008-05-31
Posts: 914
Website
ファブリス wrote:
The reason I'm asking is that I continue to be amazed and surprised that nobody seems to have built a website that lets people learn kanji online in effective ways and by using the age-old tried and tested "Art of Memory" (i.e. mnemonics).
Because mnemonics are old, archaic, not well known. It is only in this new age of technology and communication do the truly good ideas become mainstream, and only in this sub-youth culture. It is communication on a massive level that allows such ideas to spread, and indeed, be shown a new light.
Sure, Remembering the Kanji was written a while ago, but how many people knew about it before amazon or peer to peer? The internet has allowed the genius of the method to get out and spread. If this were the eighties or nineties, would half as many people know about it? Would half as many people even be studying Japanese?
I believe the internet is a massive filtering system that allow the best and brightest ideas to be shown to the world, regardless of social class or remoteness, and allow the collective intelligence of the world to be brought together. The result is exemplified in this website. Because of this website, we have a community collaboration with AJAAT. We're constantly discussing new ideas for learning the readings, so much that people aren't alone and have options. Would half as many people learn the readings without this community? We have brought gems to light, like Understanding Japanese Grammar, All about particles, Kanji odyssey. Would anybody here know about SRS without this website?
Web 2.0 is a joke, and refers to an older generation's idea. This is something else. Something much better.
Last edited by alyks (2008 July 22, 3:04 am)
Dragg
Member
From: Sacramento, California
Registered: 2007-09-21
Posts: 369
One reason that there are so few web-based systems for learning kanji must be the fact that kanji is traditionally viewed as an advanced subject. Heisig reversed the order of learning, but I don't think kanji-first is a very popular idea yet for anybody other than Heisig fans yet.
Let's face it: Most Western people who set out to learn Japanese will give up and fail. If you go to any major retail bookstore, you will often see dozens of "Beginning Japanese" books, only a handful of intermediate titles, and almost no advanced books. To put it simply, most people following the traditional order never get far enough to even seriously attempt learning more than a few kanji. The handful of kanji books that you see at said bookstores are almost always reference books instead of complete methodologies, and to the people who buy them, often represent wishful thinking more than anything else.
Web-based solutions tend to suck or not exist because there is so little demand for them. To most casual learners, kanji continues to be perceived as the most intimidating aspect of the language.
Last edited by Dragg (2008 July 22, 12:51 pm)
PParisi
Member
From: Columbus, GA
Registered: 2007-07-19
Posts: 57
The most flexible and user friendly is Kanji ABC. The late Fr. DeRoo wrote a similar book.
In fact, Kanji ABC takes the Heisig 'divide and conquer' approach a step further by presenting all the primitives at the very beginning. A student can proceed in a few ways: learn all the primitives and then the kanji, learn a group of primitives and the kanji based on them, or learn the primitives and then apply them to kanji as they are presented in your regular language textbook (eg. Japanese for Everone). With RTK the user needs to stick to Fr. Heisig' order. This is not a criticism: there is something to be said for the simplicity of having it all laid out for one, and the fact that there is only one route through the kanji using Heisig's text made producing this site less complicated than it might have been (though Fabrice has clearly put an enormous amount of effort into it as it is).
One thing that is more important than any other consideration: think twice before you change horses midstream. Kanji ABC and the other alternatives may seem more attractive but they are no better than RTK and RTK, for anyone using this site, has the advantage of having received a fair amount of the users' effort already.
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