Well mandala and horsechestnuts are nouns so if you've never seen or encountered them it's understable to not know. The only mandalas I know of are cookies. I see a horsechestnut as a chestnut with a picture of a horse engraved.

Disconcerted I think means uneasy. To lazy to look it up. Dis- meaning the state was removed and concerted -meaning, like, together in harmony. Disconcerted.

It also improve my voc a little. Unfortunately the words I learned are ones I will never use.

Most words not in my vocabulary that I encounter in the book; I don't think I'll be using them a lot even in the far future

But than there's that question: should you learn those Kanji as hard as the rest or not? Will they reappear frequently in compounds or not?

Precipitous and promontory. Those got me as well.

Precipitous make me think of rain or falling. I'd never even heard the word promontory in my life. I thought consign was cosign when I first saw it. Go School.

What about autochthonous (2184)?
This one, not even Heisig could spell correctly.

Last edited by iSoron (2008 December 17, 5:59 am)

Not that I'm bragging, but I'm a 25 year-old American. I've spoken English all my life and read countless books (some with no pictures at all!). I got a perfect score on the vocabulary section of the SATs. This is a modest list of all the words from RtK1 that I had to look up in the dictionary in order to know them:

abet, exhort, versify, meritorious deed, hawser, promontory, sagacious, decameron (even the spell-checker says that's not a word), appellation, cinnabar, wisteria, paulownia, camphor, repudiate, ardent

I've seen a lot more that it seems like a lot of people might have trouble with that I only know due to sheer coincidence (usually something on TV I've only seen once and remembered because it was an unusual word).

Katsuo wrote:

Here's twenty-eight everyday keywords from RTK3. How many do you know?

camelopard, autochthonous, receptable, plantain, shingling, kudzu, candle rush, sedge, viscera, escutcheon, loquat, plotosid, zelkova, refulgent, redaction, livraison, pongee, damask, gimp, gunwale, ghee, carillion, piebald, crucian, kalpa, entreat, tenebrous, brahman.

Not a single one I feel like I recognize tenebrous... but I have no idea what it means. Gimp I know in some situations, though I doubt this word has anything to do with what I'm thinking of.

Katsuo wrote:

Here's twenty-eight everyday keywords from RTK3. How many do you know?

camelopard = giraffe (because the ancients thought it looked like a camel (long neck) with spots (leopard))
autochthonous = something out of HP Lovecraft :-)
receptable = NO IDEA
plantain = a Caribbean/African fruit like a banana
shingling = ...?
kudzu = invasive vine common in the southern US
candle rush = a plant with lots of oil, so you can use it as a wick
sedge = some kind of marsh plant
viscera = internal organs
escutcheon = shield, and by extension one's family honor, as in "a blot on one's escutcheon"
loquat = tree with orange fruit, used to have one outside my old house
plotosid = NO IDEA
zelkova = ... ? some kind of plant?
refulgent = radiant (already used in RTK1, hence the synonym, I'm guessing)
redaction = bringing together several version (of a manuscript) to make one authoritative version
livraison = NO IDEA (sounds French?)
pongee = a kind of raw silk
damask = a heavy figured cloth
gimp = a kind of upholstery trim
gunwale = the upper rim of the sides of a boat, pronounced "gunn'l". If you're gunwale-deep, you're in trouble...
ghee = clarified butter (from India)
carillion = a bell tower or the bells in it
piebald = with large patches of differing color... think your typical brown-and-white "pony" print
crucian = ...? (something to do with a cross?)
kalpa = NO IDEA
entreat = to beg
tenebrous = shadowy (from Latin)
brahman = a humped cattle bred in India

Pretty good, I think, but yeah, I have a vocabulary stuffed full of academic and obsolete words. Costuming for friends in the SCA gives me a double advantage, fabric words plus medieval words :-)

I posted something like this somewhere.

I asked, "Am I the only one who has to carry a dictionary with me when learning the keywords?"

I actually have a dictionary in my car so I do not have to carry one when I am out and have a chance to learn new Kanji from RTK.

No point in learning Kanji if you dont even know what the word means in English.

Wisher

Mandala and kalpa are both common Buddhist terms.  A mandala is the universe as perceived by an enlightened being and a kalpa is a very long time.  Estimated to be about the time period from one Big Bang to its Big Crunch in scientific terms.

Katsuo wrote:

annabel398 wrote:

Pretty good, I think,

I'm impressed. I had to check the dictionary for all of them.

Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Loads and loads of specialist terms there.

kazelee wrote:

You didn't get abet or ardent. You should watch more television. The irony. LOL.

I personally got ardent, seen it used a lot in videogames etc... abet was odd for me, when I saw it I didn't recognize it and checked dictionary.com... as soon as I saw the definition, I did a facepalm. I have heard "to abet in the escape" a thousand times, I just didn't make the connection since I've only "learned" it from exposure watching TV. I've never ever seen it written.

Don't feel bad.  I'm a native speaker of English from the US who's lived his life completely in English so far.  I did very well on the ACT and am planning an English Major in college.  Despite that, I still run across words that I've never heard or had to use in RTK. 
It doesn't really matter, anyways.  If I come across a word that I don't know and look it up, I don't sweat it when it turns into too much of a chore to remember the definition.  If it's some random word like "Paulownia tree" or something, I just get/make up a simple mental picture of it so it's easier to remember.
If you think about it, these words were chosen for their particular connotation or feeling that they invoke when you hear them.  That means that the context in which these word are used in English is very often much different than the context in which these Kanji will be used in Japanese.  That means that you're going to have to (re)learn the Kanji in context in Japanese sooner or later.  Chances are it'll have a different connotation or "meaning" after that, so don't sweat it.  The keywords are just a handy little stepping stool to get you up onto the table of understanding/writing the Kanji.  Once you're on the table, you don't need the stepping stool (yes, very crappy metaphor, but you know what I mean)...