This is a great idea, I totally ditched the Heisig deck I had in favour of cramming vocabulary and grammar sentences.  I could have written them all out as I tested them, but I would rather just get as many words into my head in as short a time as possible.  I have a filthy amount of reviews each day though.

One reason for which I've decided to use Japanese keywords is that I wanted to make my reviews finally self-consistent, that is, fully Japanese-Japanese. I had long since gone J-J with my sentences and dictionaries, and my kanji reviews were the only part that still had English in it.

PS

LloydGA wrote:

nac_est, i've seen you over at ajatt many a time and nice to see you here, too

Really? I must be spamming too much... See you there!

leosmith wrote:

There are an awful lot of characters per reading. Your time may be better spent practicing writing out compounds, per Heisig's suggestion, than switching out keywords. Also, when practicing writing, you may be better off relying on your visual memory of the compound rather than the mapping of the character to the yomi. For writing out compounds, I find I rarely need to use keywords.

What I meant by the reading was the reading for a Japanese word, and not a solitary kanji. The situation I was describing was when I'm writing out a sentence in Japanese, which I do often at work. For example, if I write out the note ＿＿さんに連絡, I already know the word 連絡 but I need to recall how to write it. When recalling how to write it, I don't want to have to remember the English keyword for 連 and 絡. So in my flashcards, I don't put English words in because I need to be able to write out the Japanese word, given the kana prompt alone. Hopefully this helps explain the rational for the Japanese keywords project a little better but of course, each to their own.

I would like to promote this project so that more people can make use of the work that I and others did but I feel I've done a pretty bad job of it in my dialogue with you Leo! I've been interested in your views though so I hope you don't mind.

I had an interesting email discussion with one of the contributors to the spreadsheet, who mentioned that the phrase 'Japanese Keywords' didn't accurately describe the nature of the project. A better description might be 'Japanese prompts' because the aim, as I stated on my web page, is to change the standard Heisig flash cards so that the question part contains only Japanese.

I think you're absolutely right about not thinking about keywords when you're writing or reading in Japanese. I wouldn't recommend that at all. All I am saying is that I am able to write much more fluently now that all of my Heisig flashcards have Japanese prompts rather than English ones. When I am writing a sentence, I don't think about my 'Japanese Keyword' for each kanji in the sentence. I think about the reading and the meaning and thanks to my efforts with this project, the shape of the kanji appears quite readily in my mind. Before this project, I would have the reading and the meaning in my mind, then I would have to recall the English keyword in order to remember my story and write the kanji.

The keywords were never meant to be permanent, they are merely mnemonics that melt away when you start to read/write

I don't know whether you've finished RTK 1 yet or not but if you have, how are the keywords going to melt away when they're still in your flashcards that you drill every day?

Also, if you write with a pen and paper regularly in Japanese (not on a computer), do you find yourself thinking about words like 'abdomen' and so forth in order to remember how to write the kanji? As I mentioned, I found that I did and I'm just wondering if I'm unique in this.

Last edited by wrightak (2008 June 30, 12:04 am)

Dragg wrote:

Wrightak, I haven't had the same luck as you in being able to consistently reproduce handwritten characters without keywords/stories.  However, when reading, I usually don't have any problems.

I agree with everything you said except that I think that 1. and 2. are very similar. The Japanese prompts are just vocab and sentences that have been chosen carefully. (Or at least an attempt at this)

I suspect that for many members of this forum, the vast majority of the writing practice that they do is with Heisig flashcards (be they with English prompts or otherwise). Everyone's really hungry to understand, and those who are in Japan want to be able to speak but motivation for (non electronic) writing is pretty low. Just as everyone aims to read, listen and speak in Japanese as well as they do in their native tongue, I think that people should also aim to achieve the same goal with writing.

I can read magazine articles and novels in Japanese but if someone sat me down with a pen and paper and asked me to write a short story in Japanese like I did in English as a kid, I'd struggle. It's definitely the weakest of the four disciplines for me and I suspect that I'm not alone. My efforts with this project have helped enormously though.

Perhaps when one's sentence deck gets so big as to contain all of the RTK kanji (maybe even multiple times, covering more than one reading for each), then one could stop drilling individual characters without risks.
It's either that or keep on reviewing till you die... What do you think?

wrightak wrote:

I would like to promote this project so that more people can make use of the work that I and others did but I feel I've done a pretty bad job of it in my dialogue with you Leo!

Not at all. I'm sure many others find your work useful, and you should be commended for it. There are a lot of methods I don't find useful, but it doesn't mean they are wrong in any way.

wrightak wrote:

I think you're absolutely right about not thinking about keywords when you're writing or reading in Japanese. I wouldn't recommend that at all.

I see. I apologize for misunderstanding.

wrightak wrote:

All I am saying is that I am able to write much more fluently now that all of my Heisig flashcards have Japanese prompts rather than English ones.

That's great. I'm glad it works for you.

wrightak wrote:

When I am writing a sentence, I don't think about my 'Japanese Keyword' for each kanji in the sentence. I think about the reading and the meaning and thanks to my efforts with this project, the shape of the kanji appears quite readily in my mind.

I haven't written a sentence for a long time. But last time I did, in a class last December, I would hear the pronunciation, and an image would flash in my mind. No thinking about reading, meaning, or keyword. That's thanks to my reading and typing. The typing ability comes mostly from my reading ability. My reading ability comes mostly from RTK1.

wrightak wrote:

Before this project, I would have the reading and the meaning in my mind, then I would have to recall the English keyword in order to remember my story and write the kanji.

I tried a little bit of everything when I began reading and writing, and sometimes had similar problems. I never have these problems with my current method.

wrightak wrote:

I don't know whether you've finished RTK 1 yet or not but if you have, how are the keywords going to melt away when they're still in your flashcards that you drill every day?

I finished a long time ago. Unfortunately, my studies have been on hold for a while. So I've decided to continue drilling RTK1 since I enjoy it, and it's good practice. When I read, write, listen or speak, I don't think of keywords, or translate. In that sense, they have melted away. The exception is when I get new material, I sometimes end up translating/thinking of keywords a little, until I ged used to it. Then they slip away again.

wrightak wrote:

Also, if you write with a pen and paper regularly in Japanese (not on a computer), do you find yourself thinking about words like 'abdomen' and so forth in order to remember how to write the kanji?

Only sometimes when I do my RTK1 drills.

Wrightak-- I've been messing around with your Japanese keywords worksheet in Excel...

First, I listed everything by RTK1 number. Then I added all of the "missing" kanji. Then I added the RTK1 English keywords-- I got those from the RTK deck in Anki. Just exported it to tab-delimited, then imported to a worksheet.

Then I had an idea-- I grabbed my old copy of RTK2, went to the back, and started adding the RTK2 frame number to the worksheet. (It lists the kanji in RTK1 order in the back, with the corresponding RTK2 frame number... sort of. It skips a few hundred, for whatever reason.)

So then I saved it as a different file, because it's no longer just JP keywords, is it?

Then I took the RTK2 frame numbers, and resorted the list by RTK2... and you know what? If you really want to do the JP keywords thing... isn't it just easier to go with RTK2? (If you've finished RTK1, anyway.)

I think I'm still going to plunder JLPT and other vocab lists to replace some of Heisig's more questionable choices, but this way, you can use the RTK2 pure, semi-pure, impure, and downright nasty groups of radicals to just buzz through...and then you won't really need this site to review, and you'll have replaced all of the RTK1 keywords with proper Japanese.

I know this sounds sort of obvious, but, well, I just sort of realized this as I was messing around, ya know?

The only things that need to be done are to finish resorting the ones that for some bizarre reason didn't get frames in the index, and to change the vocab... Okay, changing the vocab to make sure you get the readings to work out is going to be a pain, but in the end, well, I hope it'll work.

I figure I'll create a sheet full of 2級, 3級, and 4級 JLPT vocab, and try to find good vocab out of that, first. I'm also going to skip using sentences for this, for now. I'll keep doing KO and other sentences, but this is just going to be my "RTK1" deck of sorts.

I think. >_>a

Keep in mind that RTK2 deals with *on*-yomi only. It barely touches kun-yomi. Okay, they get a chapter in the back, but for the most part, you'd be replacing RTK1 keywords with on-yomi keywords. (Hmm.)

Also, the JLPT vocab I picked up here: http://www.spurrymoses.com/jlpt/
is *not* a complete list, and the author does *not* vouch for accuracy. And the whole thing comes out at ~6700 words. 

That monstrosity is in a separate sheet. I'm using it simply as a place to search first for a possible word to replace an RTK2 word that has the same sound-reading. So if I'm looking for a reading for チュウ, then the replacement word has to have the same reading (or else the whole thing is kind of pointless.)

When(ever) I finish, I'll have a deck like this:

RTK2 frame number
RTK1 frame number
Kanji
Example Word
Example Reading
RTK1 Keyword

Now, real problems are starting to pop up now that I'm dealing with the structure of RTK2 as well. The groups only work for so long... then readings are just based off of learning vocab. And some frames have 2 kanji, and other kanji have 2 readings in one frame.

It's kind of a mess.

It's going to take some time to finish indexing all of the kanji, too. And I still have Wrightak's chosen words/readings/sentences in there as well. Some are on-, but the kunyomi ones will throw the RTK2 thing off. So those will have to be replaced as well.

The main problem is that I have to go through the list and the book, frame by frame to find all of the RTK1 kanji that Heisig DIDN'T put in the cross-reference index. (Lord knows why, but it's starting to really irritate me.) I've got about 500 or so kanji to place, and then there are kanji that show up in multiple frames... bleh.

I wonder if the new version of RTK2 fixed that... that would definitely make life easier.

Heh, yeah. I just figure that getting RTK2 out of the way on-yomi wise and also getting away from using English keywords would kill 2 birds with one stone. Combine that with a little vocab I can use on the JLPT, and it looks like a winner to me.

I understand the urge to want to find the "holy grail" of decks, but I think I'm already adding enough complexity to the task as it is. I don't want to overwhelm my poor brain.

I figure I'll pick up the important kun-yomi through KO, and KO can also reinforce on-yomi I pick up while doing that. It should help me pick up the pace in KO, too.

That's part of the reason I was thinking about this, too-- my progress in KO has been slow for a while, and I want to try to find a way to make things go faster. I also want a better shot at JLPT 2 this December. I don't think my chances are good, but with a little extra effort, I might get close enough to hope. It doesn't matter much either way to me-- my ultimate goal is JLPT 1, so if I flunk 2, I won't sweat it too much. I just want more experience points.

And yeah, RTK3... *shudder* I have no idea how I'll approach that. That can wait for a year. Or two.

EDIT: And yeah, Wrightak's work has helped me a lot, because it will keep me from omitting any RTK1 kanji that either don't have on-yomi or aren't treated sufficiently in RTK2.

Last edited by rich_f (2008 July 05, 8:09 pm)

@Wrightak

Yeah, I used that file on your site as the basis. Then I added in "missing" kanji, keywords, etc. I started debating how to tailor the JP vocab in the cards to my needs, and then I started messing around with RTK2 frame numbers.  That's when I realized that this could be a "two birds/one stone" deck to get through RTK2.

The process for now will be to keep reviewing RTK1 while I do RTK2 with this deck, then once I have this deck down, stop reviewing RTK1, because the RTK2 deck will contain all of the RTK1 kanji.

At first I wasn't too thrilled at the approach of RTK2, but the pure and semi-pure groups are very compelling arguments for the method. The whole "signal primitive" idea intrigues me. It's not perfect, but with Anki, it should be good enough. I'm not using it for sentences, just for keywords.

For sentences, I'm going to keep mining from KO, and use that to focus on kunyomi.

Ah, yeah, I used the old excel spreadsheet, and didn't use the google doc at first, so I created a lot of unnecessary work for myself.

I just finished adding all of the on and kunyomi from the master list on google.

I resorted everything by RTK1 numbers on my sheet, but forgot that I had multiple entries for some RTK kanji that show up 2-4 times in RTK2. So I had to do a lot of cut/paste/copy work to get everything lined up correctly. Still faster than typing it all in again.

Anyway, everything matches up now, but I still have another 500 or so kanji to index for RTK2. I'm tempted to order the new edition of RTK2, to see what has changed.