Chinese characters a la Heisig anyone?
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shop … be917dad7b
ps I just found out, that you can't use the letter "a" with an accent ` on it.

Last edited by HerrPetersen (2008 October 24, 1:25 pm)

So it's FINALLY published --did hell just freeze over?

Time to suit up and do battle with the anti-Heisig cliques over at chinese-forums and 4chan!

So, what version are you guys going to buy?  As much as I love the ascetics of traditional characters, I'm still going to study the simplified set.  I desperately want to be able to read the blogs of prominent Chinese democracy advocates and other dissidents!  It's an exciting (and very tragic) time we live in.  The Heisig-method is going to make it a hell of lot easier for us to get a foothold in written Chinese. 

Perhaps someday we could make a tread describing our different approaches to learning Chinese, what resources and texts we're using, sharing advice and support.  What do you think?

Last edited by kumori (2008 October 24, 4:40 pm)

It all depends on the degree of overlap in usage between Chinese and Japanese.  Take a look at this thread I wrote a while ago about the difference in "Apple":

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=2101

I have ordered and paid for both S & T RTH Vol 1.  I'm actually open to other ways of studying the Hanzi, but I figure doing RTH will save me the most time and effort...  ...like the way RTK did.

alyks wrote:

. There's a gif somewhere that explains how characters where simplified.

Is this what you are referring to?  (I bookmarked it from some other thread in this forum.)
www.sonicnovel.com/Simp3.html

alyks wrote:

kfmfe04 wrote:

It all depends on the degree of overlap in usage between Chinese and Japanese.  Take a look at this thread I wrote a while ago about the difference in "Apple":

Keywords don't matter so much. I wondering more about the study of traditional and simplified characters. I think it's not so difficult to work with simplified characters after learning traditional. There's a gif somewhere that explains how characters where simplified.

Yes, there is logic behind the simplification. In most cases, they replaced the complicated part with the easier phonetic component. Which is one of the reasons why it makes a lot of sense to study Hanzi WITH their readings. I have written pages of detailed critisizm for RTH elsewhere on this forum, you might want to look it up in Hanzi or RTH-related threads.

Serge wrote:

alyks wrote:

kfmfe04 wrote:

It all depends on the degree of overlap in usage between Chinese and Japanese.  Take a look at this thread I wrote a while ago about the difference in "Apple":

Keywords don't matter so much. I wondering more about the study of traditional and simplified characters. I think it's not so difficult to work with simplified characters after learning traditional. There's a gif somewhere that explains how characters where simplified.

Yes, there is logic behind the simplification. In most cases, they replaced the complicated part with the easier phonetic component. Which is one of the reasons why it makes a lot of sense to study Hanzi WITH their readings. I have written pages of detailed critisizm for RTH elsewhere on this forum, you might want to look it up in Hanzi or RTH-related threads.

Yeah, I studied kanji with the onyomi, and I'd study hanzi with their readings using my Movie Method (website). With kanji, I have a really good idea of the phonetic components and such, so I know what you mean.

kfmfe04, I'd recommend you look into my method if you want a system for hanzi.

Last edited by alyks (2008 October 26, 9:00 pm)

Experiments in Chinese Language Study: Learning the Alphabet
(originally posted on ChinesePod on February 2nd 2008)

This forum has seen lots of topics on characters recently so I might as well share my own thoughts on this subject. Also, there's been too little shameless self-promotion on CPod since the departure of Aric. (^_^)

I have finally completed a task I set myself some time ago: that of learning around 6,000 characters of the 'Chinese alphabet'.

It's nothing unique and far from being The Way to fluency. It's just an experiment: I was curious to see what comes out of it for me personally.

So here are a few thoughts, designed to commemorate those hours spent with books and flashcard software and help people think outside of the box.


SO... WHAT EXACTLY HAS BEEN ACHIEVED AND HOW LONG DID IT TAKE?

I have learnt to recognise the form (both simplified and traditional) of about 6,000 characters and associate the form with the main concepts represented by the character, its pronunciation (or multiple pronunciations) and its tone (or multiple tones).

Meant to be a Christmas present for myself, as I had mentioned earlier on this forum, the project inevitably got delayed by a few weeks through obstacles generally called 'life'. Taking out non-productive periods, it took me between 4 and 5 months to complete. I am convinced, however, that a less work-shy and more orderly person can easily acomplish this task within two months.


WHY 6,000 AND NOT 4,000 OR 10,000?

Too lazy to perform my own research, so I have used the frequency tables compiled by T.A.Tan in his monumental 5-volume opus. It is supposed to cover most of what is seen in newspapers and to stretch a long way into classics, which I happen to be greatly interested in.

I was initially sceptical about some of the characters on the list until I started to encounter them in proper names, on restaurant menus, etc. It makes all the difference if you're reading a text and don't have to stop to look up that one irritating character.


WHY EVEN BOTHER?

Great 'circus' value.

Showing off the knowledge of the exact tone for any given character never fails to impress Western students. (As I myself was suitably impressed by John P. over a year ago... :-) )

Being able to read out any text with correct tones and pronunciation, even without fully understanding its meaning - similarly to what a Westerner might do in a vaguely familiar European language. This sometimes impresses the Chinese. :-)


NO, SERIOUSLY... WHY BOTHER?

Ok, the main advantages are as follows:

The ability to guess the meaning of a huge number of multi-character words through the meaning of the components. It's rather accurate for objects yet much more difficult for abstract notions.

The increased speed of acquiring any new vocabulary items. Even if you can't guess the word, once you've looked it up, the relation usually becomes quite obvious. So it goes: 'Familiar Concept X' + 'Familiar Concept Y' = 'New Word that Makes Sense' rather than 'New Word Composed of Two Unknown Characters with Random Pronunciation'. Retention of any new items has massively improved as well.

Plus, there are, of course, multiple fringe benefits, in no particular order:

The ability to make sense out of Classical Chinese, to a degree. The private pleasures of deciphering the real meaning of chengyu.

The ability to ditch pinyin in my notes (still have to pay attention to the elusive 'zero tone' and some variations though).

The ability to look up obscure characters in my Japanese dictionary by directly inputting them through a Pinyin-based Chinese interface - no more wasting the time with tedious multi-radical look-up. In fact, reading Japanese novels in general has become much easier as I would already know the meaning of most obscure characters and can get the reading from the furigana.

The ability to pick out and being able to pronounce proper names. Somehow, this is one of the most satisfying achievements. The same applies for spelling of foreign names.

The ability to take a guess at the pronunciation of any unknown characters - based on the knowledge of the phonetic components. I estimate that the accuracy of such guessing is about the same as if a Chinese person were to do it but have not experimented much with it yet.

Some beautiful discoveries along the way of studying the etymology, e.g.: 瑯 (琅) lang2 'reading aloud' or 'reciting poetry' where, as reflected in the character components, the meaning comes from melodious tinkling of thin pieces of jade.

SO DOES THIS MEAN ACHIEVING FLUENCY?

Hell, no. Being able to figure out the meaning of most words does not automatically imply being able to parse them together in a meaningful sentence. Besides, I neglected most other aspects of the language during my study of the characters and (so much for my karmic history!) even stopped listening to CPod. Now it's time to catch up.

For one thing, this hasn't done anything for my listening skills. Although if I can guess a meaning of a word I hear from its context, I'm often able to think of how it should be spelt.

Also, this hasn't done much for my speaking skills, except for giving me the tendency of speaking in monosyllabics, e.g., ［沸］ instead of ［沸腾］. ('How very poetic!', a Chinese friend once commented.)


ANY DISADVANTAGES THEN?

Going into the panic mode upon seeing a character consisting of well-known elements but that doesn't trigger recognition. More often than not, I discover that it wasn't one of the 6,000. Also, occasionally seeing something that I should know but seem to have forgotten (I'm only human).

WHAT ABOUT THE METHOD?

Mnemonics and spaced repetition on flashcards. Associating the meaning with the the radical and other components, finding appropriate associations for the pronunciation and the tone. These methods are all over the web.

SO WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS 'BULK' STUDY AS COMPARED TO JUST LEARNING THE CHARACTER ONE BY ONE, AS THEY COME UP?

Studying the form, the reading and the tones at the same time for related groups of hanzi shapes comes at very little extra cost as compared to learning separate unrelated characters.

Let's have a quick look at some examples.

Example 1: The Dream Scenario

〔皇〕huang2 (imperial)
〔凰〕huang2 (phoenix)
〔隍〕huang2 (moat)
〔惶〕huang2 (fear)
〔徨〕huang2 (doubt, walk back and forth)
〔煌〕huang2 (bright)
〔篁〕huang2 (bamboo grove)
〔蝗〕huang2 (cicada)
〔鰉〕huang2 (sturgeon)
〔遑〕huang2 (time)

The radicals give excellent hints at the meaning. The phonetic component, the pronunciation and the tone are shared. That's 10 characters in one go with very little study effort.

Unfortunately, groups like that are rather infrequent. A more realistic example would be the next one.

Example 2: Mixed Tones

〔章〕 zhang1
〔樟〕 zhang1
〔蟑〕 zhang1
〔嫜〕 zhang1
〔彰〕 zhang1
〔獐〕 zhang1
〔璋〕 zhang1

〔嶂〕 zhang4
〔瘴〕 zhang4
〔障〕 zhang4
〔幛〕 zhang4

This is slightly more challenging but still all of the above share the same reading, with some tone variations. It's sufficient to create some mnemonics to remember the tone patterns.
Groups of this type are rather frequent yet the most common type is probably the following.

Example 3. Mixed Readings

〔甘〕gan1
〔坩〕gan1
〔柑〕gan1
〔苷〕gan1
〔疳〕gan1

〔紺〕gan4

〔酣〕han1
〔蚶〕han1

〔鉗〕qian2
〔箝〕qian2

〔嵌〕qian4

Clearly, this is more complex yet there is enough similarity (especially in the so-called finals) to link all of the above together.

Yet one occasionally sees groups like this one.

Example 4. The Chaos.

〔路〕 lu4
〔露〕 lu4
〔璐〕 lu4
〔鷺〕 lu4

〔各〕 ge4
〔落〕 luo4, la4
〔格〕 ge2, ge1
〔閣〕 ge2
〔擱〕 ge1
〔咯〕 ka3, lo5
〔胳〕 ge1
〔骼〕 ge2
〔貉〕 hao2, he2
〔賂〕 lu4
〔駱〕 luo4
〔珞〕 luo4
Challenging but not impossible, especially because the first four clearly have a commont component and shared pronunciation.

SO... WHAT'S NEXT?

If I can find enough time, it's back to CPod listening (trying to tackle Advanced this time and it's actually working nicely so far, due to the ease of acquiring vocabulary, as described above). I am also trying to discipline myself to listen to the news (with and without transcripts) and the radio in general. Will try to read more Chinese fiction and online news. And of course, spoken practice - haven't been to China for about 3 months now, it's time for another trip. (^_^)

kfmfe04 wrote:

Okay, so it's roughly mnemonics/SRS with Hanzi grouped by pronunciation, correct?

Almost. Grouped by phonetic components. In the example above - when learning [zhang] together with 章, I don't care what other phonetics are pronounced as [zhang].

kfmfe04 wrote:

Q1. Do you go from looking at the Keyword and Pronunciation to writing when practicing on SRS?

If so, your "key" is actually Keyword+Pronunciation rather than just keyword, which means you could actually use the same keyword under different pronunciations without confusing yourself.

6,000 unique keywords in any language would drive me crazy, thank you very much. I go from the character shape to pronunciation and meaning. I've been in this game long enough and this has worked fine for me.

kfmfe04 wrote:

Q2. You used a keyword in Example 1, but not for the rest.  If you have no keyword, what are you using as your trigger to write the Kanji?

As per above, I go the other way.

kfmfe04 wrote:

Q3. How long did it take for you to "set up the system" before you began your studies?

I added new characters from the book as I moved along.

kfmfe04 wrote:

Q4. Is there some data (CEDict?) which lets you easily map a Hanzi to a single keyword?

I see the time-sinks in setting up are mostly:
  - picking keyword mappings
  - thinking up stories

The groupings by pronunciation (and perhaps bushu) is doable via machine.

No idea about anything computer-speak-related. I am but a humble user.

Also, please note that I did not invent the grouping, didn't pick up the characters, etc. I just followed the book.

kfmfe04 wrote:

1. Get my grubby hands on the five volumes

The book is out of print (?) but Grant&Cutler in London had them in
stock last time I checked. So did Foyles. I'm sure both do mail order
delivery. There is also an abridged one-volume edition.

kfmfe04 wrote:

Group the cards by phonetic compounds so I can initially, study them in
batches at a time.

No. The book has its own well-structured flow. The author is actually
telling a story. It's not Heisig where it's all disjointed. If you
follow the book, you have to follow the flow. If you don't, you might as
well not bother about the book and group a random character list any way
you like.

kfmfe04 wrote:

- how do you (and the book) handle traditional and simplified?
- are the readings in the book in pinyin?
- are there BRIEF explanations or keywords (non-unique is okay) that can
be typed in? 

Or do you make up your own concise definition/keyword after reading the
story?

I need to find a screenshot of a few pages of the book so I can better
understand this system...

The above link contains an excerpt that I retyped from the book. You
will notice that it handles traditional and simplified at the same time.
The same is true for the rest of the book.

Pinyin... what else?!!

Brief explanations are a-plenty...

Good luck.