James W. Heisig

Part one of a complete course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese characters. These self-teaching methods help you remember and write by harnessing the power of the imagination.

A Complete Course on Houw Not To Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters

Remembering the Kanji

Leafling

I finally did it. It only took me four years to really commit to it haha.

There's so much back and forth about whether or not RTK is a valuable method. After many years of dipping in and out of learning Japanese with different techniques, I'm at this point around an N3 level (per my iTalki tutor's assessment), though it's hard to judge because I learn a lot of random stuff out of "order" through immersion. I had almost decided against RTK entirely after hitting roughly 600 kanji a year or two prior to when I started to focus on learning Japanese in a sustainable way this year (consistency over intensity, with a focus on fun immersion learning). But as I was working through native content (books, games, websites), I realized how helpful it was when I ran into a word I didn't know but I already knew what the kanji meant. And I realized how helpless I felt staring at a string of kanji whose lines were completely meaningless to me. Because of this and because rote memorization feels like absolute torture, I decided to finally focus and pursue the completion of this book alongside the kanji.koohii.com story database & flashcards (yeah, yeah, I should use anki, whatever). I'm so so happy I stuck to it.

Only reason it's not five stars is because damn sometimes Heisig is so weird in how he decides how to present things.

The aim of this book is to provide the student of Japanese with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of how to write the kanji and some way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing because--contrary to first impressions--it is in fact the simpler of the two. He abandons the traditional method of ordering the kanji according to their frequency of use and organizes them according to their component parts or "primitive elements." Assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that result. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements. In this way, students are able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their pronunciation in Japanese, they are now in a much better position to learn to read (which is treated in a separate volume). For further information and a sample of the contents, visit http: ///www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji_l.htm.

Remembering the Kanji A Complete Course on Houw Not To Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters

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