Remembering the Kanji, by James Heisig

[snarp]

It is not, in general, my practice to praise educational materials - I mean, I'm not a good teacher. I can recognize something that's clearly awful, but I have trouble distinguishing the gradations between mediocre and good.

That said, Remembering the Kanji is incredible. I studied Japanese for five years using other books, and in the four months I've been using RtK regularly, I've doubled the number of kanji I know. It's utter madness.

And I'm spending way less time studying this way, too. People who have used mnemonic techniques before will not be surprised by this, but I was! I had a really bad teacher in elementary school who explained them to us, and after that I associated them with her for years and so decided they must suck. So this whole thing may seem obvious to some people, but it was a revelation to me.

I'm honestly a little angry with my college Japanese department and with Yamasa for never discussing this as a possible study method for kanji. Because the traditional Japanese method is Copy Over And Over And Over, that's what we were taught - but that's a method intended for little kids, not for adults. For most adults it plainly doesn't work well.

For me, it doesn't work at all. To say that I'm bad at spatial stuff is a substantial understatement - I have no visual memory. (I will spare you the anecdotes, but if you are familiar with Ranma 1/2, you may safely imagine me as Hibiki Ryouga.) Several times I seriously considered giving up on Japanese, because I just thought that I was never going to be able to learn kanji. I never did give up, but I went on with the assumption that I'd always be at a serious handicap reading-wise.

Basically, if I'd known about this technique in college, I think I would have passed the JLPT 2 in December. I might even have passed it two years ago. That thought annoys me.

Comments

[dancing_serpent]

Thanks for this, I'm always looking for good study material.

[royalarchivist]

Thank you! I put it on my "to-buy" list! :D

[scribbled_lore]

I'm going to recommend this to my partner. He's been struggling with his Japanese studies because of this very issue and he's close to just giving up.

Also, Ryouga? .. Ouch, I'm so sorry. ^^;;

[snarp]

Tell him not to! The book is magic! (Well, maybe not for everyone. The book is sometimes magic!)

I cannot be depended upon to find my way anywhere beyond the fifteen-minutes-from-my-house range. This is not an exaggeration; I have literally gotten myself lost seventeen minutes from home.

[lacrimawanders.livejournal.com]

Yamasa's a Japanese institute, right? Something like RTK is antithethical to Japanese study-techniques. RtK only caught on at my college because one professor who is really into it finally got time to teach a Heisig class. Saved my Chinese grade, too.

[snarp]

Yup, Yamasa is these guys. One of the kanji teachers did teach us a couple mnemonic devices, but she was very self-conscious about it because it wasn't The Approved Method.

[lacrimawanders.livejournal.com]

Japan needs to loosen up. >.>

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe I should look into this! Learning new kanji was always a weak point of mine as well -- which is a shame, because the kanji I DID know were my most valuable tool for navigating Japan.

[snarp]

It's so much easier to get stuff done when you start being able to read signs and paperwork without getting the dictionary out. I was confused and slow all the time at first.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should try it after all...I may have it somewhere; I just have an irrational prejudice against it because it sticks fake etymologies in your head (if it's the one I'm thinking of). But who cares; it's not like I'm going into Japanese linguistics, I guess. :p I couldn't remember the kana until my second Japanese teacher taught them to us using silly drawings instead of just having us copy them (like, と is your toe from the side, with a little thorn sticking out).

(Notably, she got her master's in teaching Japanese as a second language from San Francisco State University.)

[snarp]

it sticks fake etymologies in your head (if it's the one I'm thinking of)

I'm pretty sure it is the one you're thinking of! But if you already know some kanji, I think it's usually visible where Heisig is making associations that shouldn't really be there. I think you can use it without messing up your ability to learn reality-based etymologies.