1. Hopeless. I knew the kana but that was about it.

2. I did nothing but RTK. I knew they were gonna be a big problem so I devoted all of my time on it, ignoring other aspects of Japanese.

4. The meat of a newspaper article I couldn't (still can't?) understand, but headlines on the other hand are sometimes clear as day. That is a huge confidence booster for me.

It helps with reading because I can distinguish between characters without much effort, which means I can identify what they mean or what their keyword is and breeze onto the next word.

5. I'm doing this solo and the only other Japanese students I know are here. Most people haven't really been interested in the method, they're just bemused by all these A4 sheets of paper with Chinese scribbling all over it...

1. How advanced were you in Japanese studies before, and after completing RTK1?

I was fairly advanced I guess. I started RTK1 about 2 months before I passed the JLPT 2 and I completed it about a year after I started.

2. Did you continue to study Japanese whilst studying RTK1, or did you pause it until you have completed RTK1?

Yes, I did. But that explains why it took my quite a while to get through it. I had a few periods where I concentrated on RTK and a few where I concentrated on other studies but generally RTK studies and non-RTK studies went on in tandem.

3. If you did study Japanese (grammar, vocabulary, kanji the "traditional way, ...) did you find RTK helped or hindered your Japanese study (self study, or classwork)

Both. I think that RTK has advantages and disadvantages. The huge advantage is that it is an excellent method for remembering the writing of the kanji. Despite the assurances on the front of the book, I don't think that it's the best method for remembering the meaning. I got frustrated that when I was reading newspaper articles in the classes I was attending, English words would be popping out at me. I felt that this was quite disruptive and I spent a lot of time (and I'm still working on it), removing English keywords but keeping the stories and imagery that helped me remember the shape and writing of the character. For example, for 池, I still remember the scorpion slowly dripping its poison into a pond but I don't associate the word with 'pond', I associate it with いけ. This may be a bad example because いけ and 'pond' are synonymous but for many of the kanji, especially ones that don't represent simple nouns, the keyword and the Japanese words are very different.

4. Now that you have completed RTK1, how much did it help your Japanese? Ie., can you read newspapers? How well?

It helped a lot but it doesn't help you read newspapers. To read newspapers or anything else, you need vocabulary just like any other language. You can make educated guesses about headlines and street signs but in order to read sentences, you need to know what the underlying word means. And that's not even mentioning grammar. RTK helped me to remember the shape of the characters, not their reading or meaning. However, this is not a bad thing, remembering the shape of the characters with confidence is wonderful.

5. Do you get strange looks from other Japanese students and Japanese teachers when you describe a kanji in terms of Heisig primitives? (This is a kind of "joke" question, but feel free to answer if you have a good anecdote!)

Many of Heisig's primitives derive from their actual meaning like grass and hand etc. However many of them, like ketchup, don't. I've had a few occassions when I've tried to find out which is the case by asking Japanese people. I got weird looks sometimes and confused looks other times. Not the best anecdote, sorry!

Last edited by wrightak (2007 August 15, 2:50 am)

Christine_Tham wrote:

1. How advanced were you in Japanese studies before, and after completing RTK1?

I had lived in Japan for a total of 6 years, though I had moved back to the states some 20 years back.  I have a Sanseido Daily Concise Dictionary, and I could open to any page in the dictionary and find that I just knew several of the words on those 2 facing pages.  I could read all the kana, and knew the "alphabetical order" used in dictionaries.  I'd tried to learn kanji several times before, and knew the 1st and 2nd grade kanji, along with a smattering of family names, and city names, prefectures....some you just pick up from maps and street signs and business cards.  I could hold a basic conversation on a few limited topics.

2. Did you continue to study Japanese whilst studying RTK1, or did you pause it until you have completed RTK1?

I did.  I would visit a list of Japanese related sites every day.  Kanji-a-day, About's phrase of the day, TheJapanesePage's How-to-wow page.  I am a frequent visitor to the AJATT site.  But I'd have to say that RTK is still the focus.  I'm trying to read some Japanese books (translations of Harry Potter, for example).  It's very slow going.

3. If you did study Japanese (grammar, vocabulary, kanji the "traditional way, ...) did you find RTK helped or hindered your Japanese study (self study, or classwork)

I didn't do it in a traditional way.  RTK is good for what it's good for, but I would not really agree that it hindered Japanese study.  Yes, I too, get English popping into my reading when I don't know the vocab in Japanese.  Sometimes the pair of Heisig keywords DO suggest the meaning of the word, but there are as many times as not that the "hint" doesn't succeed in letting me guess the right English word, let alone the correct Japanese word.  I think that's going to happen whether or not you're using RTK to learn the writing of kanji.

4. Now that you have completed RTK1, how much did it help your Japanese? Ie., can you read newspapers? How well?

Learning the Kanji in Japanese acquisition is such an important, but fundamental basic baby step.  I think it's really too soon for me to have RTK help my Japanese, but I have the notion that, after this step comes learning vocab connected to the kanji, and then to extensive reading of kanji in context.  THAT will help my Japanese.  But, this is just that first step, and by itself, it doesn't do much (other than help complete that first step).

5. Do you get strange looks from other Japanese students and Japanese teachers when you describe a kanji in terms of Heisig primitives? (This is a kind of "joke" question, but feel free to answer if you have a good anecdote!)

Here in Cusseta Georgia, there are no other students that I'm aware of, so I don't get that at all.  About the only thing that impacts me that way, is when I'm using JWPce to look up a kanji that I don't know the reading of, so that I can look it up in the dictionary (also in JWPce), I always look for Heisig primatives among the list of Japanese radicals, and (whatdayaknow) they're not there.  I'm frequently stuck with one radical and a stroke count, or worse, just a guess at a stroke count, and then scanning thru the many possible matches.  It's still faster with JWPce than with (say) Nelson's kanji dictionary.

In a way, I'm not actually a "graduate".  I've got about 550 failed kanji still (gradually whittling that down), and I won't really FEEL like a graduate, until all the RTK1 kanji are in that right-most box.

Chadokoro_K wrote:

Would you give some examples of the Japanese words that you used to replace English keywords for the kanji that don't represent simple nouns? Thanks.

Sure, here's a few. It goes kanji, replacement word, reading, example/explanation.

淡　淡い　あわい　あわいピンク色のひざかけ - A faint pink coloured (lap) blanket
斉　一斉　いっせい　This is from the いっせいの！ which you say when you want more than one person to do something simultaneously.
宜　宜しく　よろしく
勧　お勧め　おすすめ
凝　凝らす　こらす　目をこらしてみたが、亘にはよくわからない。 Wataru strained to see but he couldn't make out anything. (taken from the book I'm reading - Brave Story)

There's also some English keywords that are easy to confuse with several kanji eg. 町　and 村, village and town. Making the keywords Japanese goes towards removing the confusion.　

The only thing I did prior to RTK1 was study the kana: RTK is the bulk of my Japanese education sadly.

I'm taking a Japanese summer class right now (final is on Friday: wish me luck), but I fortunately finished RTK1 (and a good portion of RTK3) before starting, so I can't speak about the results of RTK1 on any attempts to study something else simultaneously.

I showed how RTK works to one of my teachers (using donkey, 驢馬, which the teacher assistant, a native, apparently didn't recognize), but she didn't comment on the Heisig names for the primitives.

Because my own skills are so elementary, I can't comment on the newspaper reading part: I've never actually attempted to read a Japanese newspaper.

Last edited by Megaqwerty (2007 August 15, 2:44 pm)

Christine_Tham wrote:

I would like to hear from anyone who has completed RTK1 in terms of their experiences. Specifically:

1. How advanced were you in Japanese studies before, and after completing RTK1?

I'm still in the beginners area in terms of grammar. Before I came to study Japanese, I knew some Chinese/Kanji from Chinese chess and did a year of it in high school, but then gave up on the thing because it was too difficult at the time (This was back in 2001). On Dragonball Z/GT there were some cool looking kanji so I memorized those still not knowing why I knew them (red green white blue dragon(old) black and orange). I started studying Japanese this year (2007) since I liked the Anime. I was quite annoyed with the writing system since you had to learn Chinese. Anyway, I began a beginner's course "COLLOQUIAL JAPANESE" just to learn the Kana script. However, there was no escaping the kanji in the book since they were in every chapter (15 in total) The first chapter had 7 so I thought I should try memorize them, by rote, and some silly mnemonic. I got through the book with a solid basis of the 200 kanji introduced in the course, which gave me the confidence and I've whited out all the furigana readings of characters. There were some characters I knew in the book (blue, horse, car, white) I knew its meaning and writing and the readings of those characters were so easy since I knew the meaning and writing. I tried studying the grammar to further my Japanese but was driven away by the language because of the kanji.  Still not knowing how I memorized some Chinese characters, I looked around on sites on articles on how to study the kanji. I came across kanjiclinic.com reading about Heisig's interesting adventure and tried out the sample contents of RTK1. It was through Heisig's introduction why I knew these few kanji. The fog cleared and I finally understood why I knew them and why the few characters I knew never left my memory despite how much I tried to forget them, they simply won't go... Anyway, I'm a lot more confident now thanks to the book and this site and the supportive environment.

2. Did you continue to study Japanese whilst studying RTK1, or did you pause it until you have completed RTK1?
At the time I began with RTK1 (Part one), I tried studying "COLLOQUIAL JAPANESE" and I understood why combing the study of the written kanji in Heisig's book had an adverse effect. So I abandoned learning the stuff in the book and committed myself to learning the first part of RTK thoroughly. I didn't have the remainder of the book. I was quite annoyed on what to do afterwards so I decided to transcribe every other kanji onto flash cards, reordering them to the order that suited my memory (different from Heisig's order) and followed what was outlined in lesson 11. The next best resource for remembering the kanji was Henshall's guide to remembering Japanese characters; his guide gave me the skeleton of forming my own stories. I worked with that guide from 2nd July to 2nd September. Before those two months were up, I had completed my kanji adventure (2059 kanji including the ones from Part 1 of RTK).

3. If you did study Japanese (grammar, vocabulary, kanji the "traditional way, ...) did you find RTK helped or hindered your Japanese study (self study, or classwork)

RTK wiped the floor with those traditional methods. I personally don't see how anyone can learn a traditional course without first having gone through RTK. For those who are advanced students, you must be extremely good if you can get to that level before you did RTK, you guys are amazing in being able to survive traditional courses and essay writing. I self study, but RTK has helped that words cannot describe the power. Until you have completed your journey to 2042 kanji, then I don't know what more you can do... With RTK, forget every reading of the kanji and go from a beginner's perspective of knowing absolutely nothing. The readings come back to you and you'll almost have no chance of forgetting them. You'll be stunned by how rapid the progress is once you're done. I skipped to RTK 3 with those printable flash cards you can get, since I want to let the reading take care of itself when I come to study grammar and also to polish what I've done with RTK1 and also, to review old characters from RTK1. 

Instead, I would rather not know the reading of kanji and concentrate exclusively to the meaning and writing from RTK 1 and 3 and not the reading at all. Let the readings take care of themselves with a Japanese teacher. Let them do what they do best, you just concentrate on the meaning and writing. The more you do so, the easier the reading.

4. Now that you have completed RTK1, how much did it help your Japanese? Ie., can you read newspapers? How well?

It helped greatly. The shrouded fog has cleared and the radiant sun shines on you. It's much more user friendly environment and I don't feel alienated by the kanji now, I just have to learn how to read them.

5. Do you get strange looks from other Japanese students and Japanese teachers when you describe a kanji in terms of Heisig primitives? (This is a kind of "joke" question, but feel free to answer if you have a good anecdote!)

Japanese students yes. My cousin does advanced Japanese. Speaks with native proficiency and yet cannot read a newspaper.


Just a question of curiosity. My cousin, who is advanced in Japanese speaking, says that there is no point to learning the general use kanji because people in Japan only care about how well you speak the language (She's been there a few times). She speaks Japanese at native proficiency and says that there's NO POINT IN LEARNING THE KANJI WITHOUT KNOWING ITS PRONUNCIATION.  She also mentions that there are Japanese in Japan who don't know a quarter of the kanji and that half the number of Japanese CAN'T READ NEWSPAPERS. IS THIS TRUE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN OR LIVE IN JAPAN??????

JimmySeal wrote:

WHY ARE YOU TYPING IN ALL CAPS?

lankydan wrote:

half the number of Japanese CAN'T READ NEWSPAPERS. IS THIS TRUE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN OR LIVE IN JAPAN??????

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would think that's not even remotely true.  I've lived in Japan for two years and have yet to discover any Japanese adult who can't read at an adult level.

I believe that Japan has one of the highest rates of literacy in the world, despite the 'complexity' of their reading/writing system. Wiki list.