My Experience with Remembering the Kanji

Interesting approach to RTK. :laughing: You waited until you’re WK lvl 31. I had bad unfit experience with RTK before I seriously made up my mind to use WK (I was WK lvl 1 to 3 at that time).

Besides learning Japanese Grammar, what’s your plan for Kanji beyond WK lvl 60? I mean, I use Kitsun 10k, and somehow words often overlap, thing that is high level on WK like level > 45 or so, I got that early on some basic decks I use on Kitsun, like N5. It’s like facing the N4 Grammar Point I had learned on BunPro, but I found that Grammar Point is discussed in 日本語総まとめ N5 book. I mean, I’m spoiled, I still rely a lot on WK Mnemonics and/or WK Communities’ Mnemonics (and writing practice too sometime) to really absorp new kanji I found from Kitsun. I saw there’s a deck on Kitsun “Kanji beyond WK” but I know nothing about it, I haven’t tried using it, maybe once I hit lvl 60, I’ll just learn kanji beyond WK through Exposure and make my own mnemonics. (I’m not the type who make my own mnemonics a lot when I’m still < WK lvl 60, unlike some other WK users here).

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Come on, you know me and my sarcasm by now. As I recall one time you even said I had been too harsh (with some snappy sarcastic remark).

Neat reading trick, though! : )

But, to be more accurate, I was also just pointing out a fact; having to look everything up in Jisho or another dictionary besides would get tiresome - I can do that anyways without buying another book. (I almost said as much originally.)

So…

The idea behind that is quite interesting, Mat vs. Japan talked about it in this video. but in practice it did next to nothing for me.

The order is great for writing, but I don’t think the book encourages writing that much. the illustrations don’t even show you all the strokes, if a primitive/older kanji is used it will just write it in one step

That was one of the reasons I used RTK, if i have a basic idea of what a kanji means then it’s enough to encounter it through exposure and learning its reading along the way. but I think I will give the book another chance after level 60, maybe by then all I need is really a simple keyword for each kanji i didn’t learn in WK.
and yeah I can’t make any mnemonics by myself either, it’s unfathomable to me how Koichi manage to come up with all of this

I think I know you longer than Leebo and I still don’t get you sometimes

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You should hang out with @AnimeCanuck at Sushi on Bloor several times and then you two will become fast friends!

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As some other user pointed out, RTK is a great resource to be used AFTER WK. You can go fairly quick and will make you order Kanji in you mind much more focused on radicals and how to to differentiate similar looking characters. It will go from simple characters to more complex ones (from a writing perspective).
It doesn’t follow frequency so you can’t really compare doing the first chapters of the book with the first levels in WK for example, the focus is totally different. I think the book is much more suited for going fast and quickly put into use the connections you make with real content.

I think for those thinking in doing a second run with WK after reaching level 60 can result in a great alternative; doing it in 3 - 4 months is totally possible, specially 'cause those kanjis aren’t new anymore. :ok_hand:

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Hah!!! :rofl:

Here’s a quick guide:
I am made up of sarcasm. So…

  1. Does it sound helpful? Encouraging? Like I care? → It’s genuine.
  2. Does it sound unhelpful, sassy, witty, or rude? → It’s 99% of the time sarcasm. (Occasionally, I am witty without being snarky.)
  3. Anything else? → Assume sarcasm?

I hope that helps. (Not sarcasm… Or is it? ^_~)

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Wait, is @abdullahalt in Toronto? Really?

That would be the place to meet the other Torontonians I know on WK… Except Riya… When I met her and brought her sushi (from that very restaurant) she didn’t like it. Turns out, she doesn’t like sushi… \(O.o )_/

But you should have learned how to write the kanji or primitive before. There are also ways to enhance using the book. I made an anki deck that has 4 types of fonts for each card. Two fonts that appear on computers and two that are written. This way I can see the kanji in different ways and one of the written fonts has the stroke order. This method makes it extremely easy to focus on just writing.

My experience after burning out with RTK at 500 kanjis was “So what exactly did I learn?” and this feeling was further reinforced by my second trip to Tokyo.

Amount of useful kanjis by that point was surprisingly small and kanji by itself doesn’t portray the concept until you learn different vocab around it.

I blame AJATT for going with illusion that RTK1+3 and Tae Kim would set me up for native approach with ease.

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Yeah I’ve done all of the first part (no readings, but meanings for something like 2000 kanji) of Remembering the Kanji years ago with the help of the kanji koohii site. Those unique keywords are killer

I’m an absolute beginner, but it seems to me that this is a major limitation to the Heisig approach.

Learning kanji on its own seems to have very little use (at least to a beginner) since you don’t learn anything about how it is actually used in the Japanese language.

Everything from pronunciation to meaning can change depending on the context, and ultimately that nuance is what you really care about.

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong here. Again, I’m a total beginner so I could be way off.

for example:
foot 足 あし on: そく
to be sufficient 足りる たりる
to add 足す たす
fast runner 俊足

I don’t think foot is right concept here even though it means that by itself

In mathematics or economics, we use these words all the time.

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I think this is a difficulty with learning any language. I mean, you have to start somewhere. And no matter where you start, you’ll always be missing context and use in the actual language. This is made much more difficult with kanji.

I don’t really buy this as a major limitation of Heisig. It’s just a different approach.

The thing about Heisig is, you shouldn’t really be using the book. If you’re using an app like Anki, then you can add, or use pre-made decks that already have vocabulary in it. That way you’ll always learn the keyword together with the most common meaning that word takes when coupled with other kanji, and it’s not actually any extra work, when learning a Kanji, to learn 2-3 words instead of just one. Your brain will just group them all together and you’ll usually know the overall meaning when you recall it.

Heisig is fast, but the study procedure isn’t actually lightning fast as simply reading his description and then moving on. You should take your time, look it up in a dictionary, write it out if you want/can, and preferably, do it in an SRS app.

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What? That is the only thing RTK teaches (plus a general meaning).

I think it makes much more sense using RTK when you’re already fluent. Then you can use Japanese keywords and breeze through it.

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Easy for you to say. You’ve been studying Classical Chinese since the 2nd century AD.

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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: nearly took me out!

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