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So I have heard some success with Remembering the Kanji, a few from here. It’s a lot of kanji they have learned too, so, I thought there was no harm in trying it.
From what I have read, and heard, this will be very boring, but I really want to learn my kanji!
Anybody have any suggestions, possibly anything you would have known of before starting?The WaniKani thread answered quite a few questions I had about RTK, so it might be worth looking. As for boring, I can’t say, because I just started (and I don’t tend to find studying Japanese boring), but I already have around 40 kanji under my belt with around 1 hour of study. Not to shabby. So go for it, it can only help :D
Oh, and since this is probably going to become the new RTK related thread I might as well ask. Does anybody have any edition of ‘Remembering The Kanji I’ that they aren’t currently using. I would really like to have the book in paper form for the duration of my study, but I’m really low on ‘study funds’. So, I was wondering if anybody would be willing to let me borrow one for however long it would take me to complete it (my guess is less then 2 months, as I’m a pretty dedicated worker).
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This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by
Tom Jensen. Reason: I'm dumb
I’m still quite bitter about doing it. I know it definitely helped me learn a lot of kanji quite fast but it was so boring and I learnt very little (aside from kanji) during that time so I sometimes I feel I could have done so much more by learning grammar and posting on Lang-8 a lot.
One tip, if you do it and use the koohii website don’t be lazy like me, fill in the stories on the website when doing reviews. I started doing it at around kanji #1300 and it helped a lot, definitely wish I did that to begin with. Oops.
Read the intro twice, and then figure that Heisig says stories are fine to have on the card’s front after reaching like 700 cards….
YeahI think you have to ask yourself, based on where you are right now with the language, what is holding you back? What is preventing you from understanding Japanese?
Here is a way to test yourself:
* Put on a Japanese TV show. Can you understand it?
* Pick up a children’s book. Can you understand it?
Now consider two skills you might acquire.
Skill A:
* see English keyword
* remember mnemonic
* write kanjiSkill B:
* hear sentence
* understand meaning of sentenceNow, if you think Skill A would be more valuable, then do RTK. If you think Skill B would be more valuable, then practice listening comprehension using a sentence deck. The Textfugu sentences (over on the downloads page) will get you started, and then you can move on to the Core 6000 sentences.
Okay, so I tried RTK with a longer sample I found online and got about 61 Kanji down in 30 minutes.
It was somewhat boring, but I felt good after recognizing them and stuff.@Tom: Yeah I went and looked on that thread that is where I decided to try it.
Personally, I would just like to learn a lot of kanji as possible at the moment, I have a pretty good understanding of grammar but Kanji is preventing me from really going online and finding articles, and Rikaichan gets a little tedious. I will do the stories thanks for telling me.
@jkl: What I want to learn right now is kanji, I can understand things and grammar just kind of clicks in my mind and it isn’t very much of a hassle. Probably the only problem I have with watching things or listening things in Japanese is, not enough kanji learned, and not enough vocabulary.
Thanks!
@jkl: The “skill A” you describe isn’t even a skill. What you’re describing is the *process*, not the actual benefits you acquire from completing the course. It’s like telling a guitarist not to do finger exercises because “all that does is teach you how to exercise your fingers”. Or (more appropriately), it’s like saying that you shouldn’t use flash cards to learn vocab because “all that does is teach you how to use flash cards”. I know you’re just trying to make RTK look bad for whatever reason, but you could at least do it in a way that’s not so obvious ;)
@Yggbert: Why are you bitter? You’d still have to spend time learning kanji at *some* point; is it not better you just got it out of the way in one go?
@Noah: Once you’ve got the method down, go to kanji.koohii.com to get your mnemonic stories. Heisig’s can be a bit… terrible at times :P The kanji-learning community is much better at writing funnier, more interesting/memorable ones :D Still read the book though. Also, it’s not fair to say flat-out “this will be boring”: parts of it will be boring and parts will be awesome! :D The first time you recognise out in the wild some complex kanji you’ve learned, it’s like nothing else :D “HEY! I KNOW THAT ONE! :’D”. Then when you get to the end you’ll be like “HELL YEAH! >:D”. The start of the book is especially fun :P
@Tom: Just mentioning what you said in the other thread. When I did RTK, I just did it and nothing else until I was done. Yeah, it got tedious around times, but I finished it a lot faster than I would have had I studied grammar at the same time. I think when Heisig says it’s best not to use it in conjunction with classes, it means that the two different methods of learning kanji will clash. You’ll more than likely be studying kanji in the “regular” order in class, which is totally different to the “building-up” order the book uses. Something like that.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by
Don’t be too proud of this technological method that you are praising. The ability to remember a mnemonic, is insignificant, next to the power of vocab.
Whats the best way to review cards you’ve already learned in RTK?
I haven’t looked at RTK yet – is it learning by mnemonics?
@Tom: On the website, kanji.koohii.com you can sign up for a free account. They have a SRS on there that you can add cards by the number on the kanji inside the book; they also have stories and reading practice. It’s very helpful.
@missingno15: I know it really means nothing, I really like how I can recognize the kanji though, I’m planning on trying the second book that focuses on the on’yomi. I think it would be easier and faster to learn vocabulary with a lot of different methods when I know a lot more Kanji and their on’yomi.
@Mister: Yeah, I signed up for the site and really like it, it’s a little bland, but I seem to be learning pretty fast.
@vanandrew: RTK, or Remembering the Kanji, is basically that. It is just jammed with tons of kanji, so the website helps for review. The second book focuses on the on’yomi (I think there is some kun’yomi) of the kanji you have learned to recongnize. Then, I think, the third book focuses on the more recently added kanji and kanji simplifications or complacations.
@Noah: I tend to agree with people who have said, here and elsewhere, that the 2nd book isn’t as effective as learning the readings through vocab and such. I’ve tended to replace hirgana with kanji in my vocab decks as I learn the appropriate kanji. You can also add the readings to RTK flashcards as you go along. If you can, I suggest looking at a copy or a sample of the 2nd book before committing to buying it. Everyone learns differently and it may work for you.
I think whether RTK works depends entirely on people’s learning style. For me, the 1st book has been extremely useful (I’m not quite halfway through) because I could never remember kanji from simply encountering them unless they were fairly clear pictographs or were extremely common with very few strokes. It’s helped me figure out words I don’t know via English keywords, which then lets me look things up in dictionaries more efficiently and then add that vocab to a flash card deck. I’m more focused on reading and writing at the moment, so what I’m doing would likely be less useful for someone whose focus is speaking and listening.
For those of you considering trying RTK, check out the sample chapters online and check out koohii. Even if I’d known about all the awesome free stuff earlier, I’m enough of a luddite that I would probably have bought the book anyway.
Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, missingno15. Your sad devotion to vocab has not helped you conjure up the stolen Idol PVs, or given you clairvoyance enough to find AKB48′s hidden fort…
@Michael You make a fair point. It just feels like I’d have gotten more from learning grammar instead, but having said that knowing most of these kanji is helping a lot now that I’m getting a ton of compounds thrown at me via vocab!
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This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by
Luke.
@missingno15
Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, missingno15. Your sad devotion to vocab has not helped you conjure up the stolen Idol PVs, or given you clairvoyance enough to find AKB48′s hidden fort…
I love you
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This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by
missingno15.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by
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