Haha I was wondering where you’d come from all of a sudden.

Good work on the teamspeak btw!

Aw thanks for the kind words! Glad it was helpful!

I actually meant to add (and totally forgot) that some of Heisig’s mnemonics that he gives you in the book are just completely effing stupid. He makes a lot of pop cultural references to things that are no longer relevant, like using song lyrics or referencing old TV shows. For some of that I recommend checking out http://kanji.koohii.com/ – they bridge the gap pretty well.

And when you don’t find anything good on koohii, and RTK has let you down, get smutty ;)

Think about it like this:

Move, dove, grove. Same -ove ending, totally different pronunciation.

English has weird pronunciations that honestly can only be learned by using the language and making a bunch of mistakes. Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8jw_-Vh9Z0

Hello + Welcome!!

You seem to have a pretty solid plan/dream worked out. And you already seem to know quite a lot. I get the impression that you’re a lot further along than I am, so if you have any questions, I probably won’t be able to help but I’m 100% sure other folks here will be able to!

Good luck and I hope you make it to Japan!

• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by  Justin.

Hey Jason!

Don’t fear the kana! When you get going it’s really not bad at all! The R sound is definitely a bit of a pain. I’ve got some musical training so I’m used to practising until things start to hurt, and I always recommend that approach to anyone. Practise the sound until your tongue hurts! It’s also not a bad idea because Japanese just generally requires more tongue movement than English does, so you’ll have to build up some strength there anyways :D

Hope you have a good time! If you get stuck on anything, give us a shout. There are answers to be found here!

I think it largely just comes down to learning style. For me, personally, it’s easier to go in smaller chunks. I love Wani Kani and I think it’s great, but for me it’s just too much all at once. I’ve got too much of a scatterbrain for it.

And as michicachan said, it can bring you down pretty hard when you’re getting stuck on all those readings.

:) That’s a really sweet ending to your story. I bet Koichi would like to hear that.

From what I understand, the cities in Japan are remarkably liveable if you don’t speak Japanese. Not to mention, you would both learn pretty darn quickly if you lived there. Just saying ;)

And for what it’s worth, I would never have guessed you were dyslexic unless you said so (this coming from somebody whose best friend is dyslexic, and has worked with dyslexic kids).

Anyways, welcome to the Textfugu party. I hope you and your husband find what you’re looking for here! If you’ve got any questions or anything, there are a ton of smarties here that will know how to help. And on an unrelated note, I’m starting to feel like the official welcoming committee with this recent influx of new Textonian Fugunites :P

So, Heisig = RTK (Remembering the Kanji)

I’ve been at it for a bit over a month, and because of a variety of factors I haven’t been as productive as I’d like to be but I’m at exactly 400 right now. It’s very manageable to do 20 per day.

The book is like 50 or 60 bucks on Amazon, and then you just need some alone time. You can also download an Anki deck to study from. Or you can make your own cards. RTK is the basis for the WK method though, so it will be very familiar to you.

Always the fan of the occassional #shamelessplug I do have a video coming soon (possibly tonight, possibly tomorrow) about how I study kanji. My sig has a link to the very lovely teaser that I made.