Glacial
Member
Registered: 2011-04-23
Posts: 10
I'm nearly done RTK1 (~250 new frames), and I'm wondering if all the trees that Heisig has included are really common words, or if he is just a bit of a tree nut. Are they joyo, or his personal inclusions?
If I deleted them from the deck, would I be missing out on all that much?
Codexus
Member
From: Switzerland
Registered: 2007-11-27
Posts: 721
Which ones will be more useful will vary depending on what your interests are.
For example, yudantaiteki did not find 桂 (Japanese Judas tree) useful but to me it was very common as it's used to write 桂馬 (keima) the piece equivalent to the knight in shogi, it's also a very common go term and it's a kind of wood frequently used for making equipment for both games. Also it's used in names (for ex. 桂正和, a famous mangaka).
So my point is just because it seems to refer to some obscure tree you don't know, doesn't mean it won't be useful. But also it will depend, some kanji you might encounter a lot some you won't, but it's hard to know which ones in advance. Since you're doing the Heisig method rather than going by frequency or grade, I think you might as well learn those extra few kanji.
Last edited by Codexus (2011 May 08, 11:56 am)
Codexus wrote:
For example, yudantaiteki did not find 桂 (Japanese Judas tree) useful
Actually that's not what I said; in fact I encounter 桂 quite a bit in my own research. What I said is that if you are still at the RTK 1 stage, you don't need to spend a lot of time learning them. Obviously you may later find that some of the kanji are actually useful to you, but I think that by the time you get to that stage, it will no longer matter which kanji you spent time learning in RTK 1.
As I've often said in the past, if you complete RTK 1 and are still unable to learn new kanji on your own, you did not use the book correctly and seriously screwed up along the way. If you don't make an equal effort to learn every single kanji in the book, it shouldn't have any real effect on your long-term ability.
nadiatims
Member
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 1676
Thora wrote:
nadiatims wrote:
... repeated exposure takes care of the memorisation (including writing ability).
Not writing, unfortunately.
edit: whether SRSed or not.
If I know a word well enough to recognise its meaning when I read it then that word's spelling will eventually shift its way into my memory, without me having to go out of my way to learn it's spelling. This happens simply by virtue of have been repeatedly reminded of it, just as is the case for words in english. I don't have trouble spelling english words (with the odd exception) despite having never systematically learned to spell every single one. Learning the alphabet and then learning to (and continuing) to read was enough. Think about it, when you learn new english words do you go out of your way to practice their spelling? Even for words with oddly spelled phonemes, silent letters etc we eventually learn them. I don't recall having to check with a dictionary each time I had occasion to write an English word for the first time. The kanji primitives are like letters, and even rare ones that don't appear in RTK1 can be learned quite effortless once you've developed the skill to break kanji down into component parts.
Last edited by nadiatims (2011 May 09, 10:11 am)
Thora
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2007-02-23
Posts: 1691
nadiatims wrote:
[stuff about English]
Irrelevant. English and Japanese aren't at all analogous in this regard. If you're curious to know how they're different, you should do a little research. Some differences seem obvious, but other differences surprised even the researchers. The types of kanji errors native speakers make are not the same as spelling errors English speakers make. It has something to do with the role of frequency of lexical neighbours in morpheme prediction. Primitives and letters are not analogous and don't affect "spelling" the same way.
[...]and even rare ones that don't appear in RTK1 can be learned quite effortless once you've developed the skill to break kanji down into component parts.
I didn't say anything about learning rare primitives (or kanji). I said that reading (repeated exposure) doesn't ensure writing ability. (By that I mean both getting the right kanji and the right components). I don't see this as a controversial idea. Don't assume everyone is endowed with your unique ability. ;-)
Last edited by Thora (2011 May 10, 3:08 am)
nadiatims
Member
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 1676
I assure you I'm not pretentious enough to assume I'm endowed with any unique abilities...unless you count moving clasped hands from behind your back to in front over your head with out unclasping them.
Perhaps Japanese and English indeed are not exactly analogous in regards to spelling (writing difficulty). But the question is does any of this research account to much more than the simple conclusion that Japanese people forget how to write uncommon words slightly more often than native english speakers forget word spelling? And to this I suspect the answer is no. We can agree to disagree on this one I think.
I disagree that anyone who occasionally handwrites japanese words and repeatedly encounters the word キリ written in its kanji form is going to have any particular issues remembering that it's the tree written with 木 and 同. Sure if that word never or extremely rarely pops up in daily life then it will be harder to recall, but how is this any different than for any other word you don't know well? If you asked me to spell some random unfamiliar word like paulownia (I had to check the spelling in this thread) I'd also make mistakes. Likewise for random chemical compounds because I don't spend enough time reading the backs of shampoo bottles, and presumedly the same for obscure animals because I'm not a zoologist.
Anyway my answer to the OP doesn't change. Just finish RTK and move on. If you have familiarity with the radicals, you can keep the kanji distinct and tackle the problem of reading and learning actual words. If the tree kanji seem obscure or difficult now don't worry about them, they will not be be any particular barrier to you later once you can actually read semi proficiently.
Last edited by nadiatims (2011 May 10, 5:25 am)
