Japanese Kanji Any Special Tricks?

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Sk8More Thursday 08th of September 2005 05:41:28 AM
Kanji - Is there any special tricks you guys use to help yourself from getting confused between kanji?

Psy Friday 09th of September 2005 12:29:39 PM
- Yup. The Heisig method. Study it fully and you will advance beyond comparison; study it halfway and you will fall behind. It [i]does[/i] work-- you will not confuse similar characters-- but don't misinterpret that... it [b]isn't[/b] easy. You have to be tenacious. For instance, observe the following five kanji:

”¢Ò”I–´‰G

All of these belong to the area of difficult/obscure kanji. None of them are taught in Japanese grade school, and 99% of intermediate level students will not be able to recognize them, much less understand their readings and writings. Yet with this method, I can do all three. Hence, for serious students of kanji, comes my wholehearted recommendation for it. Just remember: [i]you must be tenacious.[/i]

Sk8More Friday 09th of September 2005 07:07:33 PM
- Darn! I guess I have to wait till I get some money.

Psy Friday 09th of September 2005 11:05:19 PM
- [i]Money, money, it makes the world go 'round...[/i]

Wowza! Looks as though the books are becoming hard to find, and with that prohibitively expensive. I mean, $40 is a lot to pay for a paperback, but $160 for book 2 on Amazon!? Insane! Unreasonable! Makes me glad I picked 'em up when I did. It is possible to download samples of the first few chapters of the books (a quick search on google should find them), so look around to see if the method will work for you.

There are other methods out there (usually rote memorization, mnemonics, or association with pictures), many of which can be found for free on the 'net, so you don't [i]have[/i] to shell out any cash to study kanji. But I implore you, [i]learn the stroke order![/i]

Sk8More Saturday 10th of September 2005 02:32:35 AM
- What do you "implore" for learing the stroke order?

laxxy Saturday 10th of September 2005 10:11:35 PM
- As Psy noted, the first chapters are downloadable. Also, if money is an issue, I'd suggest checking used books: e.g. www.addall.com finds books 1 and 2 for $26.5 and $31 respectively.
Also, you may want to check your local library.
btw: I find a program KingKanji for Palm really useful; it has flash cards for the Heisig book, and you can find an older used Palm quite cheap on ebay. It also has stroke orders for many characters. And if you go this way, you may also check a free dictionary PADict.

Psy Sunday 11th of September 2005 06:07:14 AM
- Was actually planning a thread on just that, laxxy! I have a palm loaded with a bunch of free Japanese dictionaries-- it's a truly remarkable tool, better by far than any [i]denshi-jisho[/i] you could buy. One of us should post up a thread with the details.

By [i]implore[/i], Sk8More, I advise picking up either a good [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0804820775/qid=1126391037/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3814233-9881460?v=glance&s=books&n=507846]learner's Kanji book[/url] (not a dictionary!) or browsing the net for kanji stroke order, and as you learn a character, you also learn how to write it. It's easy enough to figure out how to write ˆê, “ñ, ŽO... but once you get past them, will you be able to easily write ˆ«, ‘˜,—í, ‹c, Œµ, or simple but oddball kanji like Š¢ and ‰š? After you learn the writings of around 1,000 characters, those of all but the most obscure symbols will start to unlock in your mind... but only if you practice. Otherwise you'll start to confuse similar looking kanji.

It's a long and perilous road, but don't lose heart. Good luck!

laxxy Sunday 11th of September 2005 05:28:48 PM
- [quote][i]Originally posted by Psy[/i]
Was actually planning a thread on just that, laxxy! I have a palm loaded with a bunch of free Japanese dictionaries-- it's a truly remarkable tool, better by far than any [i]denshi-jisho[/i] you could buy. One of us should post up a thread with the details.[/quote]
I haven't tried too many dictionaries, really -- just PADict; I would appreciate if you wrote about the others you know. PADict has a lot of very nice features, it is especially good as a kanji dictionary, but I feel it is a bit lacking for English-Japanese. I also have KingKanji, which I can write about, and I have looked a bit at Dokusha.
Yesterday, btw, I downloaded your list of 100 nouns to KingKanji, it was actually pretty easy (I used Excel to format the list and JWPce to save it in the right encoding).
One note about KingKanji and Heisig's book: I found it necessary to split the lessons manually for review; some lessons have well over a hundred characters and are best reviewed part by part, IMHO.

And one more general note: I sometimes wish Heisig included more than those 2000-smth characters in book 1 (although I understand it is never obvious where to draw the line). For one, I can't believe ’N (dare) didn't make it (#2712)... Maybe it used to be written in hiragana when the book was written? because now I can see it everywhere, in textbooks, etc... (I wonder if the advent of the PC and the IMEs could result in some kanjis gaining in popularity... I understand how no one would want to write@ãY—í (kirei) by hand, but if the computer does it, it becomes another matter...) Also some characters, e.g. Ñ (#2090),appear as a part of several characters in book 1, yet are themselves out. But this was probably unavoidable...

Psy Monday 12th of September 2005 02:21:38 AM
- [quote][i]Originally posted by laxxy[/i]
I haven't tried too many dictionaries, really -- just PADict; I would appreciate if you wrote about the others you know. PADict has a lot of very nice features, it is especially good as a kanji dictionary, but I feel it is a bit lacking for English-Japanese. I also have KingKanji, which I can write about, and I have looked a bit at Dokusha.
Yesterday, btw, I downloaded your list of 100 nouns to KingKanji, it was actually pretty easy (I used Excel to format the list and JWPce to save it in the right encoding).
One note about KingKanji and Heisig's book: I found it necessary to split the lessons manually for review; some lessons have well over a hundred characters and are best reviewed part by part, IMHO.

And one more general note: I sometimes wish Heisig included more than those 2000-smth characters in book 1 (although I understand it is never obvious where to draw the line). For one, I can't believe ’N (dare) didn't make it (#2712)... Maybe it used to be written in hiragana when the book was written? because now I can see it everywhere, in textbooks, etc... (I wonder if the advent of the PC and the IMEs could result in some kanjis gaining in popularity... I understand how no one would want to write@ãY—í (kirei) by hand, but if the computer does it, it becomes another matter...) Also some characters, e.g. ??Ñ (#2090),appear as a part of several characters in book 1, yet are themselves out. But this was probably unavoidable...[/quote]

There is a bunch of software available, but some of it ended up crashing my Palm. The programs I use are JEDict, WDIC and KDic, with a bunch of dictionaries installed for each of them (including a handy English dictionary for KDic!). The kanji handwriting-recognition program is only useful for the í—pŠ¿Žš (good luck finding Œç), but it's still cool. I'll soon write a thread detailing my configuration, as well as (if I can remember/find them) provide links to the software and dictionary files.

Regarding Heisig, ’N isn't part of the í—pŠ¿Žš, though I have noticed (naturally I can't recall a specific instance!) a few of the í—p set that he left out, as well as a few minor errors in the book. The underlying purpose of his method is to gain the ability to dissect characters part by part, to be able to write them effortlessly without a reference, and thus develop a logical way of learning new characters. I, for one, studied by making small index cards (frightful number of them, too... I call it "the pile."), and it has paid off enormously. If the number of characters is your only issue, be aware that RTK3 covers the "primitive element" kanji, ’N, and hundreds of other characters that you will surprise Japanese natives by knowing. Pick it up while you still can.

You might well be right about ’N's modern usage, though, as the first edition of RTK1 was written in '77. It's a fact that the digital age has made difficult kanji accessible to those who have not studied them. Until recently, only the greatest scholars would have had any idea what you were talking about if you wrote ŸEŸG. ;)

laxxy Monday 12th of September 2005 08:13:13 AM
- [quote]The underlying purpose of his method is to gain the ability to dissect characters part by part, to be able to write them effortlessly without a reference, and thus develop a logical way of learning new characters. I, for one, studied by making small index cards (frightful number of them, too... I call it "the pile."), and it has paid off enormously. If the number of characters is your only issue, be aware that RTK3 covers the "primitive element" kanji, ’N, and hundreds of other characters that you will surprise Japanese natives by knowing. Pick it up while you still can.

You might well be right about ’N's modern usage, though, as the first edition of RTK1 was written in '77. It's a fact that the digital age has made difficult kanji accessible to those who have not studied them. Until recently, only the greatest scholars would have had any idea what you were talking about if you wrote ŸEŸG. ;)[/quote]

I agree; what I wanted to say was that, imo, the character set could be increased a bit with a very small increase in overall difficulty. I know about part 3, but I'm not yet half way through part 1 to worry about that too much. I also wanted to start with flash cards at first (actually I even have a pdf file with printable flash cards for Heisig-1 somewhere), but I found KingKanji a lot more convenient.
Another program some ppl seem to like and which also has pre-made cards is SuperMemo, but, at least on my device, it is no good because it has no high-res fonts.
I have used KDic for English<->Russian some time ago, maybe I should really try it for Eng-Jap...

laxxy Monday 12th of September 2005 08:53:37 AM
- One other thing: I am wondering if adding some compound words to Heisig-1 could improve the method... If, say, one took a list of say 500 or maybe at most 1000 most popular words (which one should really aim to learn concurrently with RTK-1, imo), and then ordered it so that when a new kanji appears, it would be accompanied by a compoud or two that consist of that kanji and something already known... preferrably with examples...
With a good compound word list, it wouldn't be hard to write a program which would do that. I wonder if there is such a list in public domain somewhere ...

Julianita Friday 30th of September 2005 05:42:58 AM
- i just wanted to say that a good tip would be [b] don't try to skip any stroke order[/b], also learn the[b] hiragana equivalent and it's ideom,[/b] i.e. the meaning wich corresponds to a word. , and finally what i think its the most important thing,[b] practice each of the Kanjis very well[/b], dont hesitate to learn the next one becoz at the end u r gonna end up with a soup of kanjis in ur head and then it will get complicated lol:D...so yea i think that was my point.

cheers! ---Juli---

Psy Friday 30th of September 2005 02:41:31 PM
- [quote][i]Originally posted by Julianita[/i]
i just wanted to say that a good tip would be [b] don't try to skip any stroke order[/b],[/quote]
Cheers to that one. :)

[i]Privet.[/i]

Russian KDic? Interesting. I studied Russian a time ago, but at this point remember little more than "I don't understand Russian." I wouldn't have guessed that you were a native speaker, as your English is completely flawless. Anyway, you can find some Japanese KDic files here:

[url]http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/00INDEX.html#pilot_r[/url]

Back to Heisig, I'm going to contradict you again: While I agree it can feel frustrating to fight your way through 2,042 frames without gaining any knowledge of [i]on'yomi, kun'yomi[/i], compounds, alternate meanings and the like, the point of the first book is to provide an accelerated method to learn, recognize, and remember the meanings and writings of the í—pŠ¿Žš-- by far the most difficult part of mastering them. As you make your way through, there will be times (as I well know) when it becomes easy to lose sight of that purpose, but is important [b]not[/b] to do this. If you focus on other aspects besides the meanings and writings, the time it takes to learn effective recognition of the symbols will increase astronomically-- this is stated very clearly on the first page of the introduction. It's your choice, though.

I will also contest that "convenient" is not the ideal slogan for studying a foreign language. If you want to learn kanji, you will have to devote time to it-- there are no fast solutions, only those faster than others. Making your own cards provides not only additional practice and exposure, but a certain sense of accomplishment to know that, as you gaze over the growing mountain of paper, it was in fact [i]you[/i] who drew all of them. It did for me, at least. :)

Julianita Friday 30th of September 2005 10:57:29 PM
- he he he...cheers!

btw, dude, you should be one of the moderators here :D

laxxy Thursday 06th of October 2005 06:43:55 AM
-
[quote][i]Originally posted by Psy[/i]
[i]Privet.[/i]
[/quote]
privet-privet :)
[quote]
Russian KDic? Interesting. I studied Russian a time ago, but at this point remember little more than "I don't understand Russian." I wouldn't have guessed that you were a native speaker, as your English is completely flawless.
[/quote]
ah, it sure isn't, but thanks a lot for the links :)

[quote]
Back to Heisig, I'm going to contradict you again: While I agree it can feel frustrating to fight your way through 2,042 frames without gaining any knowledge of [i]on'yomi, kun'yomi[/i], compounds, alternate meanings and the like, the point of the first book is to provide an accelerated method to learn, recognize, and remember the meanings and writings of the í—pŠ¿Žš-- by far the most difficult part of mastering them. As you make your way through, there will be times (as I well know) when it becomes easy to lose sight of that purpose, but is important [b]not[/b] to do this. If you focus on other aspects besides the meanings and writings, the time it takes to learn effective recognition of the symbols will increase astronomically-- this is stated very clearly on the first page of the introduction. It's your choice, though.[/quote]
Well, here's the thing. It is true that if one's target is to do what the book title says as soon as humanly possible, then this is the way to go.
However, I doubt many (or even any) people _actually_ go about it that way, and there are good reasons for it. Even if one (like me) discovered Heisig at the very beginning of their studies, I doubt he'd wish to restrict his studies to just this book until he's done with all the 2000 characters (and if he really, really takes what Heisig says to heart he should finish book 2 before starting anything else as well).
So, the Heisig's book is going to be used concurrently with some other course that will teach some grammar and some vocabulary. And he will be learning some vocabulary from other sources, too. As he well should. This vocabulary will be presented primarily in hiragana, of course.

Now let's say someone who has done first ~900 Heisig characters learns what 'ちかてつ’ is. If he also knows that it is written 地下鉄, he will learn the word (BOTH in kanji and hiragana) AND three kanji readings -- all with an effort _smaller_ than that required for _just_ learning the word in hiragana, all for the very same reason that the Heisig method works in the first place: it is easier to remember something if there is some logic behind it.
Of course for this to work he should know all the kanji in the compound. Unfortunately there are no books that I know of that introduce vocabulary in Heisig's order. But if one had an extra list of essential compounds to accompany Heisig 1, it would work: for the words that one already knows by the time he sees the kanji, he'll have instant recognition (which is the best way to remember the words, in fact), and the essential words that one does not know yet but which are composed of known kanji could just be added to the vocabulary drill list.

[quote]
I will also contest that "convenient" is not the ideal slogan for studying a foreign language. If you want to learn kanji, you will have to devote time to it-- there are no fast solutions, only those faster than others. Making your own cards provides not only additional practice and exposure, but a certain sense of accomplishment to know that, as you gaze over the growing mountain of paper, it was in fact [i]you[/i] who drew all of them. It did for me, at least. :)[/quote]
Sure, that's great if it worked for you. I also keep notes of the kanji I studied, but I am doing this in a notebook. One big reason is, I guess, that it is a lot easier to just use my cell phone to flip cards than to carry a stack of paper cards with me at all times.

Phrasebase Archive
	Sk8More	Thursday 08th of September 2005 05:41:28 AM
	Kanji - Is there any special tricks you guys use to help yourself from getting confused between kanji?
	Psy	Friday 09th of September 2005 12:29:39 PM
	- Yup. The Heisig method. Study it fully and you will advance beyond comparison; study it halfway and you will fall behind. It [i]does[/i] work-- you will not confuse similar characters-- but don't misinterpret that... it [b]isn't[/b] easy. You have to be tenacious. For instance, observe the following five kanji: ”¢Ò”I–´‰G All of these belong to the area of difficult/obscure kanji. None of them are taught in Japanese grade school, and 99% of intermediate level students will not be able to recognize them, much less understand their readings and writings. Yet with this method, I can do all three. Hence, for serious students of kanji, comes my wholehearted recommendation for it. Just remember: [i]you must be tenacious.[/i]
	Sk8More	Friday 09th of September 2005 07:07:33 PM
	- Darn! I guess I have to wait till I get some money.
	Psy	Friday 09th of September 2005 11:05:19 PM
	- [i]Money, money, it makes the world go 'round...[/i] Wowza! Looks as though the books are becoming hard to find, and with that prohibitively expensive. I mean, $40 is a lot to pay for a paperback, but $160 for book 2 on Amazon!? Insane! Unreasonable! Makes me glad I picked 'em up when I did. It is possible to download samples of the first few chapters of the books (a quick search on google should find them), so look around to see if the method will work for you. There are other methods out there (usually rote memorization, mnemonics, or association with pictures), many of which can be found for free on the 'net, so you don't [i]have[/i] to shell out any cash to study kanji. But I implore you, [i]learn the stroke order![/i]
	Sk8More	Saturday 10th of September 2005 02:32:35 AM
	- What do you "implore" for learing the stroke order?
	laxxy	Saturday 10th of September 2005 10:11:35 PM
	- As Psy noted, the first chapters are downloadable. Also, if money is an issue, I'd suggest checking used books: e.g. www.addall.com finds books 1 and 2 for $26.5 and $31 respectively. Also, you may want to check your local library. btw: I find a program KingKanji for Palm really useful; it has flash cards for the Heisig book, and you can find an older used Palm quite cheap on ebay. It also has stroke orders for many characters. And if you go this way, you may also check a free dictionary PADict.
	Psy	Sunday 11th of September 2005 06:07:14 AM
	- Was actually planning a thread on just that, laxxy! I have a palm loaded with a bunch of free Japanese dictionaries-- it's a truly remarkable tool, better by far than any [i]denshi-jisho[/i] you could buy. One of us should post up a thread with the details. By [i]implore[/i], Sk8More, I advise picking up either a good [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0804820775/qid=1126391037/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3814233-9881460?v=glance&s=books&n=507846]learner's Kanji book[/url] (not a dictionary!) or browsing the net for kanji stroke order, and as you learn a character, you also learn how to write it. It's easy enough to figure out how to write ˆê, “ñ, ŽO... but once you get past them, will you be able to easily write ˆ«, ‘˜,—í, ‹c, Œµ, or simple but oddball kanji like Š¢ and ‰š? After you learn the writings of around 1,000 characters, those of all but the most obscure symbols will start to unlock in your mind... but only if you practice. Otherwise you'll start to confuse similar looking kanji. It's a long and perilous road, but don't lose heart. Good luck!
	laxxy	Sunday 11th of September 2005 05:28:48 PM
	- [quote][i]Originally posted by Psy[/i] Was actually planning a thread on just that, laxxy! I have a palm loaded with a bunch of free Japanese dictionaries-- it's a truly remarkable tool, better by far than any [i]denshi-jisho[/i] you could buy. One of us should post up a thread with the details.[/quote] I haven't tried too many dictionaries, really -- just PADict; I would appreciate if you wrote about the others you know. PADict has a lot of very nice features, it is especially good as a kanji dictionary, but I feel it is a bit lacking for English-Japanese. I also have KingKanji, which I can write about, and I have looked a bit at Dokusha. Yesterday, btw, I downloaded your list of 100 nouns to KingKanji, it was actually pretty easy (I used Excel to format the list and JWPce to save it in the right encoding). One note about KingKanji and Heisig's book: I found it necessary to split the lessons manually for review; some lessons have well over a hundred characters and are best reviewed part by part, IMHO. And one more general note: I sometimes wish Heisig included more than those 2000-smth characters in book 1 (although I understand it is never obvious where to draw the line). For one, I can't believe ’N (dare) didn't make it (#2712)... Maybe it used to be written in hiragana when the book was written? because now I can see it everywhere, in textbooks, etc... (I wonder if the advent of the PC and the IMEs could result in some kanjis gaining in popularity... I understand how no one would want to write@ãY—í (kirei) by hand, but if the computer does it, it becomes another matter...) Also some characters, e.g. Ñ (#2090),appear as a part of several characters in book 1, yet are themselves out. But this was probably unavoidable...
	Psy	Monday 12th of September 2005 02:21:38 AM
	- [quote][i]Originally posted by laxxy[/i] I haven't tried too many dictionaries, really -- just PADict; I would appreciate if you wrote about the others you know. PADict has a lot of very nice features, it is especially good as a kanji dictionary, but I feel it is a bit lacking for English-Japanese. I also have KingKanji, which I can write about, and I have looked a bit at Dokusha. Yesterday, btw, I downloaded your list of 100 nouns to KingKanji, it was actually pretty easy (I used Excel to format the list and JWPce to save it in the right encoding). One note about KingKanji and Heisig's book: I found it necessary to split the lessons manually for review; some lessons have well over a hundred characters and are best reviewed part by part, IMHO. And one more general note: I sometimes wish Heisig included more than those 2000-smth characters in book 1 (although I understand it is never obvious where to draw the line). For one, I can't believe ’N (dare) didn't make it (#2712)... Maybe it used to be written in hiragana when the book was written? because now I can see it everywhere, in textbooks, etc... (I wonder if the advent of the PC and the IMEs could result in some kanjis gaining in popularity... I understand how no one would want to write@ãY—í (kirei) by hand, but if the computer does it, it becomes another matter...) Also some characters, e.g. ??Ñ (#2090),appear as a part of several characters in book 1, yet are themselves out. But this was probably unavoidable...[/quote] There is a bunch of software available, but some of it ended up crashing my Palm. The programs I use are JEDict, WDIC and KDic, with a bunch of dictionaries installed for each of them (including a handy English dictionary for KDic!). The kanji handwriting-recognition program is only useful for the í—pŠ¿Žš (good luck finding Œç), but it's still cool. I'll soon write a thread detailing my configuration, as well as (if I can remember/find them) provide links to the software and dictionary files. Regarding Heisig, ’N isn't part of the í—pŠ¿Žš, though I have noticed (naturally I can't recall a specific instance!) a few of the í—p set that he left out, as well as a few minor errors in the book. The underlying purpose of his method is to gain the ability to dissect characters part by part, to be able to write them effortlessly without a reference, and thus develop a logical way of learning new characters. I, for one, studied by making small index cards (frightful number of them, too... I call it "the pile."), and it has paid off enormously. If the number of characters is your only issue, be aware that RTK3 covers the "primitive element" kanji, ’N, and hundreds of other characters that you will surprise Japanese natives by knowing. Pick it up while you still can. You might well be right about ’N's modern usage, though, as the first edition of RTK1 was written in '77. It's a fact that the digital age has made difficult kanji accessible to those who have not studied them. Until recently, only the greatest scholars would have had any idea what you were talking about if you wrote ŸEŸG. ;)
	laxxy	Monday 12th of September 2005 08:13:13 AM
	- [quote]The underlying purpose of his method is to gain the ability to dissect characters part by part, to be able to write them effortlessly without a reference, and thus develop a logical way of learning new characters. I, for one, studied by making small index cards (frightful number of them, too... I call it "the pile."), and it has paid off enormously. If the number of characters is your only issue, be aware that RTK3 covers the "primitive element" kanji, ’N, and hundreds of other characters that you will surprise Japanese natives by knowing. Pick it up while you still can. You might well be right about ’N's modern usage, though, as the first edition of RTK1 was written in '77. It's a fact that the digital age has made difficult kanji accessible to those who have not studied them. Until recently, only the greatest scholars would have had any idea what you were talking about if you wrote ŸEŸG. ;)[/quote] I agree; what I wanted to say was that, imo, the character set could be increased a bit with a very small increase in overall difficulty. I know about part 3, but I'm not yet half way through part 1 to worry about that too much. I also wanted to start with flash cards at first (actually I even have a pdf file with printable flash cards for Heisig-1 somewhere), but I found KingKanji a lot more convenient. Another program some ppl seem to like and which also has pre-made cards is SuperMemo, but, at least on my device, it is no good because it has no high-res fonts. I have used KDic for English<->Russian some time ago, maybe I should really try it for Eng-Jap...
	laxxy	Monday 12th of September 2005 08:53:37 AM
	- One other thing: I am wondering if adding some compound words to Heisig-1 could improve the method... If, say, one took a list of say 500 or maybe at most 1000 most popular words (which one should really aim to learn concurrently with RTK-1, imo), and then ordered it so that when a new kanji appears, it would be accompanied by a compoud or two that consist of that kanji and something already known... preferrably with examples... With a good compound word list, it wouldn't be hard to write a program which would do that. I wonder if there is such a list in public domain somewhere ...
	Julianita	Friday 30th of September 2005 05:42:58 AM
	- i just wanted to say that a good tip would be [b] don't try to skip any stroke order[/b], also learn the[b] hiragana equivalent and it's ideom,[/b] i.e. the meaning wich corresponds to a word. , and finally what i think its the most important thing,[b] practice each of the Kanjis very well[/b], dont hesitate to learn the next one becoz at the end u r gonna end up with a soup of kanjis in ur head and then it will get complicated lol:D...so yea i think that was my point. cheers! ---Juli---
	Psy	Friday 30th of September 2005 02:41:31 PM
	- [quote][i]Originally posted by Julianita[/i] i just wanted to say that a good tip would be [b] don't try to skip any stroke order[/b],[/quote] Cheers to that one. :) [i]Privet.[/i] Russian KDic? Interesting. I studied Russian a time ago, but at this point remember little more than "I don't understand Russian." I wouldn't have guessed that you were a native speaker, as your English is completely flawless. Anyway, you can find some Japanese KDic files here: [url]http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/00INDEX.html#pilot_r[/url] Back to Heisig, I'm going to contradict you again: While I agree it can feel frustrating to fight your way through 2,042 frames without gaining any knowledge of [i]on'yomi, kun'yomi[/i], compounds, alternate meanings and the like, the point of the first book is to provide an accelerated method to learn, recognize, and remember the meanings and writings of the í—pŠ¿Žš-- by far the most difficult part of mastering them. As you make your way through, there will be times (as I well know) when it becomes easy to lose sight of that purpose, but is important [b]not[/b] to do this. If you focus on other aspects besides the meanings and writings, the time it takes to learn effective recognition of the symbols will increase astronomically-- this is stated very clearly on the first page of the introduction. It's your choice, though. I will also contest that "convenient" is not the ideal slogan for studying a foreign language. If you want to learn kanji, you will have to devote time to it-- there are no fast solutions, only those faster than others. Making your own cards provides not only additional practice and exposure, but a certain sense of accomplishment to know that, as you gaze over the growing mountain of paper, it was in fact [i]you[/i] who drew all of them. It did for me, at least. :)
	Julianita	Friday 30th of September 2005 10:57:29 PM
	- he he he...cheers! btw, dude, you should be one of the moderators here :D
	laxxy	Thursday 06th of October 2005 06:43:55 AM
	- [quote][i]Originally posted by Psy[/i] [i]Privet.[/i] [/quote] privet-privet :) [quote] Russian KDic? Interesting. I studied Russian a time ago, but at this point remember little more than "I don't understand Russian." I wouldn't have guessed that you were a native speaker, as your English is completely flawless. [/quote] ah, it sure isn't, but thanks a lot for the links :) [quote] Back to Heisig, I'm going to contradict you again: While I agree it can feel frustrating to fight your way through 2,042 frames without gaining any knowledge of [i]on'yomi, kun'yomi[/i], compounds, alternate meanings and the like, the point of the first book is to provide an accelerated method to learn, recognize, and remember the meanings and writings of the í—pŠ¿Žš-- by far the most difficult part of mastering them. As you make your way through, there will be times (as I well know) when it becomes easy to lose sight of that purpose, but is important [b]not[/b] to do this. If you focus on other aspects besides the meanings and writings, the time it takes to learn effective recognition of the symbols will increase astronomically-- this is stated very clearly on the first page of the introduction. It's your choice, though.[/quote] Well, here's the thing. It is true that if one's target is to do what the book title says as soon as humanly possible, then this is the way to go. However, I doubt many (or even any) people _actually_ go about it that way, and there are good reasons for it. Even if one (like me) discovered Heisig at the very beginning of their studies, I doubt he'd wish to restrict his studies to just this book until he's done with all the 2000 characters (and if he really, really takes what Heisig says to heart he should finish book 2 before starting anything else as well). So, the Heisig's book is going to be used concurrently with some other course that will teach some grammar and some vocabulary. And he will be learning some vocabulary from other sources, too. As he well should. This vocabulary will be presented primarily in hiragana, of course. Now let's say someone who has done first ~900 Heisig characters learns what 'ちかてつ’ is. If he also knows that it is written 地下鉄, he will learn the word (BOTH in kanji and hiragana) AND three kanji readings -- all with an effort _smaller_ than that required for _just_ learning the word in hiragana, all for the very same reason that the Heisig method works in the first place: it is easier to remember something if there is some logic behind it. Of course for this to work he should know all the kanji in the compound. Unfortunately there are no books that I know of that introduce vocabulary in Heisig's order. But if one had an extra list of essential compounds to accompany Heisig 1, it would work: for the words that one already knows by the time he sees the kanji, he'll have instant recognition (which is the best way to remember the words, in fact), and the essential words that one does not know yet but which are composed of known kanji could just be added to the vocabulary drill list. [quote] I will also contest that "convenient" is not the ideal slogan for studying a foreign language. If you want to learn kanji, you will have to devote time to it-- there are no fast solutions, only those faster than others. Making your own cards provides not only additional practice and exposure, but a certain sense of accomplishment to know that, as you gaze over the growing mountain of paper, it was in fact [i]you[/i] who drew all of them. It did for me, at least. :)[/quote] Sure, that's great if it worked for you. I also keep notes of the kanji I studied, but I am doing this in a notebook. One big reason is, I guess, that it is a lot easier to just use my cell phone to flip cards than to carry a stack of paper cards with me at all times.