Yes, I have it too. Mostly rare words Heisig chose to distinguish kanji from other similar ones and plant names. Helps to read Merriam-Webster articles for semi-known words too to reinforce knowledge of their meaning (and link alternative meanings you never encountered). Plants I look up at google images.

I did have to look up Decameron, even though Hesig gave a little blurb about it... but in a slightly related "having to look something up" moment... I  had to watch several videos on Cricket from YouTube just to figure out what the game was about so I could employ Hesig's cricket story on the Kanji for "Smash".

I probably look up more than the rest of you... probably only less than non-native speakers, heh. I'd like to think my vocabulary isn't so bad but it's amazing how many words I can't define. Putting them into a sentence correctly is easier, but I need to *know* what the word means before I can base a story around it. Of course there have been several that I outright didn't know at all.

Last edited by Jawful (2007 March 18, 6:10 pm)

Nice topic. I'm glad I'm not alone in this. After going through RTK3, my confidence in English diminished a bit, as I was pressed not only to recall the kanji but also what the keyword meant in the first place. Some words, even if I knew the meaning, I couldn't use in a sentence. On that note, what verbs can you pair with "vendetta" to make a sentence?

mantixen wrote:

Nice topic. I'm glad I'm not alone in this.

I would be surprised/impressed if anyone could go through RTK1 and know the meaning of all the keywords (without using a dictionary of course). While sticking with the Heisig keywords, there are a few that I just have to link to a Japanese word to get my story out. Off the top of my head, catalpa => あずさ and butterbur => ふき。Heisig's use of ri and rin etc show that there's no real need to struggle with obscure words that you'd have to learn in your own language. Going straight for the Japanese word is a good shortcut.

mantixen wrote:

On that note, what verbs can you pair with "vendetta" to make a sentence?

Dunno. From the online concordancer I looked at, personal seems to be the most frequent collocate. Just added a story for vendetta. Seems pretty straight forward.

Same here.

On a sidenote, I enjoyed researching the keywords as I learned all sorts of trivia while looking up the keywords.

As others have suggested I found very helpful to lookup images for the various plants and trees. Sometimes I drew a blank on "wisteria", but I could see all the little blue flowers in my mind and recall the story and kanji nevertheless. The image is much more important than the keywords.

In fact I think for the various trees and plants in RTK1, the job is easier, because you just need to lookup some images, and you're dealing with a tangible object. Each tree/plant has some characteristic that can be used for a mnemonic if yo uread some trivia about it.

For "non things", keywords about concepts, it's more difficult to have a proper image that conveys the keyword. When I recall from kanji to keyword sometimes I have the story but it still don't remember the proper idea behind the kanji, those stories I woud have to adapt but I can't bother now.

Also some keywords are helpful, either the origins of the words as found in the dictionary or the sound of the words make them interesting enough. For example I thought it was fairly easy to remember that "Japanese Judas-tree".

So in a way I think unusual words are not more difficult to remember than common ones. Take "rather", it still gives me trouble. But "wisteria" or even "catalpa" (a tree/plant with heart-shaped leaves) is easy as pie.

I'm not adding much, but I have to post anyway. I think it is normal to have to look up keywords. Godown is not a common English word, but after storehouse and warehouse, what other words exist to describe a "large place to keep/store things"? We could always use Japanese words, but that gets away from the intention of RTK.

Kanji have roots in an agrarian culture and the naming of animals and plants is very important (look at English bull, beef, cow, steer, heifer, etc. all describe the sex, use, and age of an animal most of us just call a cow). Living in Japan is a benefit when doing RTK. Not many people in the US grow wisteria, but it is here everywhere. The purple and blue flowers are everywhere at the right time of year. I learned the word for crepe myrtle (sarusuberi (monkey slip)) when I lived in Georgia (USA) because they are everywhere.

Look at measurement words, too. Japanese only use inches for measuring TV screens. English still keeps its antiquated measurement words; look up furlong.

And silage- I have cousins that live in southern Tennessee. Growing corn there is difficult because the weather can be tempermental- too much rain or too little. A lot of time the corn never matures so they have to harvest the stalks and leaves and cut them into silage to put into silos for cattle feed in winter. The silage ferments (like natto or kimchee) in the silo so it keeps a long time.

And Decameron. There is an old English story by Geoffrey Chaucer (or should I write olde English- I think he actually wrote in middle English) called the Decameron. A group of people travel around for 10 days. Each person has a story on one of the ten days. Anyone remember high school literature classes?

I'm sure there are words I've had to look up other people know right away. That is the nature of memory, vocabulary, and experience.

The Decameron was actually written by an Italian, Boccaccio. A highly entertaining collection of ribald tales that I would recommend to anyone.
Chaucer was said to have used it as inspiration, but it was not his opus.
As for not knowing English keywords (or primitives), I confess that Mandala got the better of me. RTK is an education in more ways than one.

Last edited by naniwa (2007 September 19, 10:05 am)

I never used the english keyword decameron, instead just using the Japanese concept of dividing the month into beginning, middle, and end parts (which is what this kanji is mostly used for). I don't see much of a point in learning an unused English word when the Japanese will do.

The tree issue is a frequent topic here. The people that fall into the "they're useless since 'I' will never use them" usually turn out to be people not living in Japan, or who have never spent significant time in Japan (and in my opinion are not only ignorant, but also incurious, a trait I couldn't despise more). The tree kanji became kanji because of their importance to Japanese life and culture. And more significantly, the Japanese government just a few decades ago decided these kanji were important enough to be included on a list of essential daily use kanji. These trees and their kanji are important!

Just last weekend I again encountered a tree kanji in a significant situation, 桐 paulownia tree. I was in Kanazawa in Ishikawa prefecture which is famous for their paulownia wood products.

The tree kanji naysayers would laugh and say that's not daily use. But the Wikipedia article reveals how much more important the Paulownia tree is to Japan: amongst other thing, it's the badge of the Japanese government!

The other tree kanji produce similar understanding. In fact, I love one tree kanji in particular, 椿 camellia. That's because I knew of the tree long before I knew the name of it in English or Japanese. Heisig taught it to me. Come to Japan sometime to see the shockingly pink camellia flowers bursting forth from every corner in early Spring.

dingomick wrote:

The tree issue is a frequent topic here. The people that fall into the "they're useless since 'I' will never use them" usually turn out to be people not living in Japan, or who have never spent significant time in Japan (and in my opinion are not only ignorant, but also incurious, a trait I couldn't despise more). The tree kanji became kanji because of their importance to Japanese life and culture. And more significantly, the Japanese government just a few decades ago decided these kanji were important enough to be included on a list of essential daily use kanji. These trees and their kanji are important!

I couldn't agree more!  I've been in Japan for about two months now.  I visited some friends in 四国 (shikoku) and we went to the beach.  We were looking around and all of a sudden I saw the kanji 桂！  I knew it meant Japanese Judace Tree only because I had to memorize it.  But when looking at the actual tree and thinking of Heisig's story and it all of a sudden made total sense.  Back in that states I would have just written this off as a Kanji that only belongs in names or what not and probably isn't that important.  But Kanji is also a big reflection on Japanese society and culture, where I think things such as holding knowledge about nature is highly regarded and therefore requires a written form.