Kanji isn't that hard! Kanji can be mastered with the "24 rules"

ahibba Member

Registered: 2008-09-04 Posts: 528 Website

Kanji isn't that hard by Professor Yoshiaki Takebe, Waseda University.

What do you think about this book?

I found it very interesting. I read it in one day.

There is a copy for borrowing in ebookee.com.cn!

Sample page:

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3848/isnthard.jpg

liosama Member

From: sydney Registered: 2008-03-02 Posts: 896

i borrowed this strictly for the passages at the bottom

for a kanji book i thought it sucked

iSoron Member

From: Canada Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 490

First time I see furigana placed below the text, not above.

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drivers99 Member

From: Alamogordo NM Registered: 2009-03-31 Posts: 141

Well I just looked over the book. I see a lot of problems with it, but I am pretty much biased in favor of Heisig in that I assume what he writes in his introduction to be correct (in that I can see where he's coming from and have found his method to be very useful so far). This book introduces different primitives (to use Heisig's term... what he uses to break down the kanji into smaller pieces that are often repeated) in no logical order. One character will have two parts, and the next one will have two completely different new parts. They are presented in the order they are in order to illustrate the "rule" that defines that chapter. The pictorial versions of the kanji, which many different books try to do, isn't particularly helpful. Same for the seal versions of that characters, but it's interesting. The explanations in English aren't fluent, sometimes not really explaining the point. EDIT: This book is NOT based on etymology like I thought. It does promote the idea of breaking down the characters, and of recombining them to be associated with the meaning of the character, but at the same time, does not put those characters in a logical order where each character builds on the previous ones, does not actually show you very many kanji, sticks to etymology EDIT: not really for the meanings of the primitives (but not one-for-one... heaven is listed as the place that is over a person, but that symbol is what we on the site would call BIG (or St Bernard, LOL) NOT person). I think that it might be interesting to read the text itself as part of immersion, because it has both English and Japanese text, side by side. This would be good exposure to the language after Heisig if you're interested in the topic. (Based on the idea of reading parallel texts side by side, like in Ilya Frank's method which I just found out about yesterday.) I think SOME of the explanations might make good stories.

Last edited by drivers99 (2009 June 05, 4:33 pm)

Codexus Member

From: Switzerland Registered: 2007-11-27 Posts: 721

iSoron wrote:
First time I see furigana placed below the text, not above.

I wish this was more common. That's much more convenient for hiding the furigana with some piece of paper and first try to read from the kanji only.

bodhisamaya Guest

Yea. I always thought it was annoying that furigana was above kanji for this reason. I hope other authors catch on to this as well.

ahibba Member

Registered: 2008-09-04 Posts: 528 Website

Actually, I don't read the book to memorize the kanji. But I wanted to know how the people who invented those characters think!

Earth on top of a fire = red

A cover placed over fire + heart = love!

It's funny but logical.

drivers99 wrote:
I think that it might be interesting to read the text itself as part of immersion, because it has both English and Japanese text, side by side. This would be good exposure to the language after Heisig if you're interested in the topic. (Based on the idea of reading parallel texts side by side, like in Ilya Frank's method which I just found out about yesterday.) I think SOME of the explanations might make good stories.

This is one of the reasons why I read book and why I recommend it to anyone interested in parallel texts and etyomology.

By the way, how did you know about Ilya Frank?

Do you speak Russian?

vosmiura Member

From: SF Bay Area Registered: 2006-08-24 Posts: 1085

Is this book based on etymology? I have Henshall's book "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters" which describes the etymology.

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

ahibba wrote:
This is one of the reasons why I read book and why I recommend it to anyone interested in parallel texts and etyomology.

The book has nothing to do with etymology, nor does RTK. They both just use made up mnemonics.

For example, while modern 赤 is indeed earth+fire, signifying fired earth (bricks), it is actually a simplified form of the kanji. It used to be 大 over 火 signifying a big fire
From 学研漢和大辞典: 会意。「大+火」で、大いにもえる火の色。）

恋 is a simplification of an obsolete character that looks like "糸言糸" (tied together) overtop of 心 (→戀). There is nothing to do with fire or lids.
From 学研漢和大辞典:
会意兼形声。戀の上部(音レン)は「絲+言(ことばでけじめをつける)」からなり、もつれた糸にけじめをつけようとしても容易に分けられないこと。乱(もつれる)と同系のことば。戀はそれを音符とし、心を加えた字で、心がさまざまに乱れて思いわび、思い切りがつかないこと。)

Henshall's book is the best/only layman's etymology reference in English.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 June 05, 4:31 pm)

drivers99 Member

From: Alamogordo NM Registered: 2009-03-31 Posts: 141

ahibba wrote:
By the way, how did you know about Ilya Frank?

Do you speak Russian?

It was mentioned on this board and so I did a search and added a few bookmarks to my browser.

http://english.franklang.ru/6/

Apparently you can buy books in Russian (for Russians learning other languages) in this format but there isn't much for people who have English as their first language unless you make your own. However, here's a collection of Japanese fairy tales (momotarou etc) in that format
http://english.franklang.ru/12/

Sorry, that's kind of offtopic.

Last edited by drivers99 (2009 June 05, 4:11 pm)

drivers99 Member

From: Alamogordo NM Registered: 2009-03-31 Posts: 141

Jarvik7 wrote:
The book has nothing to do with etymology, nor does RTK. They both just use made up mnemonics.

Henshall's book is the best/only layman's etymology reference in English.

The book we're talking about talks AS IF that was the actual etymology. I didn't realize it wasn't. I thought that was why the explanations were so unhelpful. It's very much "this piece is this, and this piece is that, and that's how the Chinese/Japanese saw things." Then again, Heisigs original stories weren't that great (and are missing from 2/3 of the book) which is why we have this excellent site.

I looked up some in Henshall and the explanations are totally different. So ... Kanji isn't that hard (EDIT: I mean "Kanji isn't that hard" not Henshall being useless for etymology and mnemonics) as being useless for etymology AND for having crappy mnemonics.

Incidentally, Henshall also tries to be a method for remembering things. He says stuff like "suggest taking 口 for hole ..." on a specific kanji for example, and each item has a mnemonic, e.g. "前 Mnemonic: Before cutting meat cut horns." I guess that much is obvious since the title is "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters." ha ha.

Last edited by drivers99 (2009 June 05, 4:36 pm)

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

Yeah, Henshall tries to offer up mnemonics as well, but they suck. It was the first book I tried to use to learn kanji way before RTK. I just keep it around now because the etymology is interesting. 漢字源 and 学研漢和大辞典 also have the etymologies in each kanji entry though.

On the topic of 口, apparently there is a lot of debate among specialists about what it means. Mouth vs ritual container (which were HUGELY important in ancient Chinese religions) vs something else.

example

Another complaint about Henshall is that all of the characters are unreadably messy. For some reason he thought it would be a good idea to shrink down brushwork to 10pt instead of just using block print in the paragraphs.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 June 05, 4:44 pm)

ahibba Member

Registered: 2008-09-04 Posts: 528 Website

driver99 wrote:
It was mentioned on this board and so I did a search and added a few bookmarks to my browser.

http://english.franklang.ru/6/

Apparently you can buy books in Russian (for Russians learning other languages) in this format but there isn't much for people who have English as their first language unless you make your own. However, here's a collection of Japanese fairy tales (momotarou etc) in that format
http://english.franklang.ru/12/

Sorry, that's kind of offtopic.

I know that it was mentioned on this board because I'm the one who mentioned it here, but I thought that you are Russian yourself and know about it from other sources in your language. So I wanted to ask you some questions about the Russian language.

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

The japanese and english text side by side is great, the pictures however remind me of the well intended, but flawed, Kanji Pict-O-Graphix book/method.

So what are the 24 rules?

drivers99 Member

From: Alamogordo NM Registered: 2009-03-31 Posts: 141

The 24 rules (fair use for critical review purposes)

1. Kanji express meaning; let's learn the basic units in kanji (e.g 子 means child, but the English "child" means the sounds "ch" + "i" + "ld")

2. The same outline indicates the same meaning; put two meanings together (That apparently means that one kanji is made up of the meanings of the "outlines" (primitives) contained within it.) (e.g. 抱 is "hand" + "wrap" meaning hold. In Heisig this was "embrace" = "finger + wrap")

3. Pictures turned into Kanji. (e.g. 鳥　田　人　手　羽)

4. Circles became squares; curved lines became straight lines. (e.g. 日)

5. curved lines mostly became horizontal and vertical lines; let's fit the kanji into a square grid, (e.g. 月)

6. Three signifies many. 森　桑　品　冊　

７．writing Left to right, top to bottom.

8. Adjectives can also become pictures. (e.g. 大　小)

9. Verbs can also become pictures (e.g. 比）

10. Expressing verbs with signs; imagine the actions. 攻 The right side of this (Heisig taskmaster) means it's a verb. (true?)

11. Chinese people invented Kanji. "If you look at the kanji, you can grasp the Chinese situation." (e.g. 家 "In old China, pigs lived under the floor. People lived on the floor. The people gave the leftovers to the pigs.")

12. a far place in the upper portion; near place in the bottom portion (e.g. 川　shows many streams flowing in from far away.)

13. Left is East; right is west. (e.g. 朝　the sun rose between the grass in the East and the moon is in the West.)

14. Symbols appear in kanji; do you know what symbols are? 上　下　

15. That is this part; That is here. e.g. 刃 the last line indicates the blade. 本 The last line indicates the base of the tree.

16. There are many types of hands; They all have the same meaning. (e.g. the first two strokes of 右, the top of 当、the bottom half of　事　the top of 負 and the top of 愛)

17. A combination of pictures; look at the whole picture. (Units were combined to make kanji. e.g. 東）

18. Combining special features; consider the whole meaning (same idea again, features of the same thing come together to make a kanji for that one thing)

19. Combinations become verbs; and adjectives (blah blah blah)

20. The outline of units change; the meaning is the same (primitives in different locations look different, e.g. heart or water, or become wider or taller)

21. There are many signs; the same sign has the same meaning. for example, the symbol on the left can show the category of the word

22. There are many stems; the same stem has the same meaning. (showing how different kanji with the same stem (right side usually) have related meanings... hmm.)

23. There are two meanings; one meaning branches off from the original meaning (月 means both moon and month.　光　ひかり　means light, 光るひかる　means to shine.

24. Kanji are interesting; kanji are combinations of units (i.e. kanji with many strokes are not hard, just break them down into their components)

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

It seems like a lot of folk etymology. Just kind of figuring "well that makes sense" with no real research or historical insight.

Ex: rule 6, while true, has an incorrect example. 冊 is a picture of old style binding, where strips of engraved bamboo are joined by string. It is NOT a stack of books, which didn't even exist when this kanji was made.

Ex: rule 12&13. I've never heard of this and I'd have to look into it, but again the examples are pure fiction. 朝 didn't even have a "moon" on the right side of it in early forms, it was grass + sun + WATER. The etymology was "草の間から太陽がのぼり、潮がみちてくる時を示す。" Sun rises over the grass and the tide comes in (in the morning). NOTHING to do with east/west. 川 is indeed a picture of a flowing river, but it doesn't matter if it's flowing towards you, away from you, or if you are standing directly over it. It's just a picture of a river. At the time these were created China had no concept of vanishing point, perspective or even SCENE in their drawing. Everything just hovered as if floating in outer-space and everything was viewed in profile. Check out some classical Chinese art. I'm pretty sure the author just pulled these ideas out of thin air.

Ex: rule 16 is not true unless you want to make up your own folk etymologies. Those aren't even all hand radicals! ex: 当 is 小 and it used to look like "當".

Ex: rule 21 is just a VERY simplistic way of talking about 部首. The problem is that there is no requirement for them to be on the left, they just often end up that way.

Why is 22 a different rule? it says the same thing as 21. Actually both are the same as rule #2. A lot of the other rules are also duplicates of each other.

Ex: rule 23. kunyomi are Japanese words. They have nothing to do with the kanji other than the fact that those were picked to write words which had already been around long before kanji came to Japan. 光 and 光る are infact the SAME word. The former is just conjugated in a way which lets it function as a noun. The rule itself is right, but is confusing a kanji having multiple meanings with a word having a broad or nuanced (ex:月 means moon and ONLY moon. You can describe the passage of time in terms of number of moons) meaning. Kanji can have multiple meanings, but he isn't demonstrating that with his examples which are linguistically and culturally ignorant. Japanese isn't English, don't shoehorn it.

In other words, don't believe a word that this book says if you want to understand etymology or anything else really. If it helps you read kanji more power to you though.

I'm really tired of Japanese books for English speakers that treat the reader like a moron and make up "good-enough" explanations. Type I and Type II verbs ugggh.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 June 06, 12:52 am)

drivers99 Member

From: Alamogordo NM Registered: 2009-03-31 Posts: 141

Yup.. I agree. The book is basically crap because you can't tell when he's bullshitting you and it loses all credibility. One thing though: You said "冊 is a picture of old style binding, where strips of engraved bamboo are joined by string. It is NOT a stack of books, which didn't even exist when this kanji was made." Actually, that is what the book says too. It explains the whole bamboo strip thing. Also, it explains that the way they showed distant perspective was only by putting one thing above the other, but then the examples they had didn't seem to really make the point after all. If you feel like spending any more time on it, grab the PDF and skim through it. There are only 8 examples per chapter, and the intro to each chapter is only a couple of paragraphs.

"I'm really tired of Japanese books for English speakers that treat the reader like a moron and make up "good-enough" explanations. Type I and Type II verbs ugggh"

I'm honestly curious what you mean about the verb types. I have "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" by Makino and Tsutsui / Japan Times. It talks about Group I and Group II (and Group III - irregular) verbs. Is there more to the story?

Last edited by drivers99 (2009 June 06, 1:45 am)

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

Later Chinese art did develop into showing distant objects higher in the 'canvas' (such as on landscape ink paintings), but hanzi evolved from cave paintings by cavemen. There was NO such arrangement at all when these were getting made. Unfortunately the only premodern Chinese art text I still have on me focuses on bronzework and pottery or I'd have a scan of what I mean. There is no three dimensional depth to hanzi/kanji.

I hate those verb group names because they are meaningless. They tell you nothing about the verbs contained in the groups.

The correct names are 上一段 (ex見る), 下一段 (ex蹴る), カ変 (来る), サ変 (する), and 五段 (everything else) There used to be more groups but they merged to form godan. The names of the groups tell you how it conjugates.

Ex: 上一段 is translated as upper first grade, but it just means that it uses the vowel above the center of the vowel column (あいうえお, with the center being う). In other words, every conjugated form ends in an -i vowel.
見る
i み.ない imperfective form (aka negative form)
i み.ます conjunctive form (aka the form used to join with another word)
i み.る predicative/attributive form (aka dictionary form)
i み.れば hypothetical form (aka conditional)
i み.ろ imperative form (aka command form)

五段 is the fifth grade, which means that it uses all five vowels in its conjugation, one for each type of conjugation that verbs can take.
書く
a かか.ない
i かき.ます
u かく
e かけ.ば
o かこう

etc.

I have no idea why they (and other many other books) dumbed that down, especially in an otherwise great series (dictionary of ___ japanese grammar). It's much easier to remember the way it was.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 June 06, 4:39 am)

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

Having Jarvik7 on this forum is a gold mine.

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

Yeah no Japanese knowledge recession here

Jeromin Member

From: Ireland Registered: 2008-12-14 Posts: 68

ファブリス wrote:
The japanese and english text side by side is great, the pictures however remind me of the well intended, but flawed, Kanji Pict-O-Graphix book/method.

Which I nearly ended up studying, as it was in my college library. It's a relief knowing that I am on the right track, with all the best available Japanese tools ever and a whole community telling you every possible pitfall to avoid.

magamo Member

From: Pasadena, CA Registered: 2009-05-29 Posts: 1039

Jarvik7, you should have taught me that when I was a little kid so I could have aced every Japanese test at school.

erlog Member

From: Japan Registered: 2007-01-25 Posts: 633

Jarvik7 wrote:
I have no idea why they (and other many other books) dumbed that down, especially in an otherwise great series (dictionary of ___ japanese grammar). It's much easier to remember the way it was.

Yeah, it seems like most English-language Japanese textbooks do the verb group thing which is shitty labeling because I've taken tests where the teacher asks you to write what group a verb is in. I never knew, but I could conjugate them perfectly. This was because I had a good teacher right before having a bad teacher. The good teacher taught it as you wrote it, and the bad teacher tried to teach us the group method.

ahibba Member

Registered: 2008-09-04 Posts: 528 Website

Jarvik7 wrote:
hanzi evolved from cave paintings by cavemen.

Are you referring to what is called "Jiahu symbols"?

Some archaeologists doubt that the markings represent systematic writing at all.

The origins of Chinese writing are obscure and debated. Some people believe that the rebus principle was borrowed through the trade routes from Sumeria to China!

For example, ten of the first characters of Chinese writing, the T'ien Kan or "heavenly stems", were supposedly developed by one of Huang Ti's ministers. But they actually look much like that of Sumerian script from the Uruk period:

There are many other similarities between the Sumerians and the Chinese. Both used the same sexagesimal time (24 hours, 60 minutes, etc.) The belief in interrelation and correspondence of five elements, of five colors and the harmony of numbers, the astrological superstitions, cannot be explained as merely coincidences.

liosama Member

From: sydney Registered: 2008-03-02 Posts: 896

Jeromin wrote:
ファブリス wrote:
The japanese and english text side by side is great, the pictures however remind me of the well intended, but flawed, Kanji Pict-O-Graphix book/method.
Which I nearly ended up studying, as it was in my college library. It's a relief knowing that I am on the right track, with all the best available Japanese tools ever and a whole community telling you every possible pitfall to avoid.

You would have realised you were heading into a pitfall yourself anyway regardless of you coming here to ask.

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iSoron wrote:

drivers99 wrote:

ahibba wrote:

ahibba wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

driver99 wrote:

ファブリス wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

Jeromin wrote:

ファブリス wrote: