Reading RTK, a quick question. :)
 

So, I am reading RTK and doing my things I do to study, and I came across 吾 which is shown to mean "I". I, however, have never seen or heard this (but I haven't been to Japan), so I was wondering if anyone could clarify when it is used, or why it is used?

どうもありがとうございます！

I don't know what RTK is but I'm surprised they teach you 吾 at all. You will only see it in old literature. Don't worry about it.

What you should worry about is the use of どうもありがとうございます in your post. You only say it when you have received a service (in this case, an answer), not before. Say よろしくお願いします.

Ah, ok. ありがとう！ RTK is Remembering the Kanji :P

Also, thanks for the help with どうもありがとうございます and よろしくお願いします

Another weird one, is this used often?
朋 - companion

If I'm not wrong, RTK is that Remember the Kanji... that book is bloody useless hence why they are teaching you useless characters.

朋 is the alternative character of 友, both read とも. Again hardly ever used. It is derived from
朋友（ほうゆう）meaning friend, but it is almost never used in modern Japanese.

My biggest gripe with Remember the Kanji is the way Heisig describe the characters, is complete non-sense. I think 漢字源 is a MUCH MUCH better resource.

I wouldn't worry too much about what his keywords are, some mean what they are supposed to mean but most are either in-accurate or completely off the mark.

The general idea of the keywords is just so you have a handle to remember and recognise kanji until you can replace them with proper meaning and readings etc. so at the end of the day it doesn't really matter that much.

You'll start seeing the more used and common kanji later on in the book, why it was done in this order i don't know but if you complete the whole book then it doesn't really matter.

RTK is only useless if you try to use it for something that it's not supposed to do.

For example it's not supposed to teach meaning, just how to write and how to remember, if you use it for this and only this then it's a great way to learn stroke order etc. of all the kanji in a stupidly short amount of time.

So anyway, the point in my post is just to check that you aren't trying to learn his keywords as the actual meaning of the kanji, since most of them aren't anywhere close to the proper meanings anyway, and to let you know that a lot of the first part of the book contains a lot of kanji that aren't used very often or not at all from what i've seen.

Sorry if i mis-understood, it's just that a lot of people who try RTK go into it not reading the introduction and thinking that his keywords are the actual meaning of the kanji, and thinking that all of these kanji are used in every day life, which as you have seen from 吾 that they aren't :p

And this is why I wanna buy it.
I dunno what method I'll use, but I'd like to study it alongside with Genki and Kodansha's Essencial Kanji Dictionary (and later with "an integrated Approach to Intermediate japanese") so that I learn the kanji in context.

I really liked the way that 日or 目, appear together in 冒. And it was surprisingly easy to memorize it thanks to the story the guy gave, but then again, this is an easy kanji : P

At the moment I'm aiming to finish Genki 1 during easter vacations (2 weeks) studying like 4/5 hours a day. Today I'm finishing lesson 8 (I'm doing the workbook exercises now). After finishing it, I shall buy it, but still have a lot to read about it.

I really wanna be the best in college. Glad my country doesn't have that many experts in japanese :D

I am one of those who is wasting a bunch of time memorizing kanji with their readings (I lost the count of people who tried to have me change way of study LOL). Anyway...kanji can become difficult to recognize because they are very similar. However if you get to know the very basic kanji (the one with very few strokes) you can recognize kanji easily.
I will give you an example that actually happened to me while reading some examples in a dictionary.
In an example I saw a kanji which was 教 and at first I thought it was the one for number since back then it was the only one I knew with that radical. But it looked a little bit different so I thought at how it was the kanji for number and realized I was wrong. What helped me was that I new number (数) has in it a woman and the rice (女 and 米).

I actually do not know the system you are using, but instead of trying to learn by heart what they look like, try to learn the parts a knaji is made of.
So for example if you find 休 you can remember it is made by a man near a tree (which gets you close to "rest") and if you see 体 think that it is made by a man and the kanji for base/origin (thus it helps you as the base of a man it's his body). Not all kanji might have a logical explanation (at least not to us foreigners), but if you know what they are made of you can recognize them. 鳴 a bird and a mouth, 聞 gate and ears and so on.

Some are more difficult and some are easy...then of course up to you to find the method which helps you more.

Just thought that i'd add my 2 cents as i'm studying RTK at the moment,

i use kanji.koohii.com aswell as an outside resource as an accompanyment..

you wanna know why your learning companion?.. but its' never used?

why your learning "I" and it's never used?

well.. think of it as building blocks.

currently i'm using heisgs method. i've been taking it SLOW at about 10 - 15 new kanji a day for 4 months and i know 800 kanji at the moment with a 90% retension rate.

You learn the weird kanji like "I" and "companion" because later on they become sort of a "primative" in the kanji later on.

such as the kanji for 崩 = crumble.

it has the kanji for mountain and companion there.

so my silly story for it is.

"Sam and Frodo (Lord of the rings reference there) remained faithful COMPANIONS as Mt. Doom (mountain) CRUMBLED above them"

so thats why you learn stupid kanji that you'll "never use" because they back up the kanji that you WILL use and help your advancement of stories and mnemonic aids!

keep going with the book.

lots and lots of people will say "I never got that heisig crap, I think it's rubbish"

but it works for some people, it doesn't work for others.

plus about 80% of people who say they don't like it have never tried it.. and/or don't need to try it as they've done it the hard way and don't want to feel "cheated' out of the effort they put in.

i think it's increadibly effective when used in conjunction with an SRS such as ANKI and I should know all the jouyo kanji in 6 months.. my goal is all 2042 taught to be completed by the 1st of june before I leave to japan on 9th of june.

then I get to teast my kanjiknowledge in real-time ;-)

never give up! kanji is a hurdle you need to learn to jump!

|L.p.

Wow, 800 kanji in 4 months, that is wonderful. I barely know 200 and took me like 6-7 months (+ another 100-150, but just 1 reading or 1 single way of using it).

Wow, that's awesome Paul. I too am using RTK, however I just started yesterday so I only know 15 xD but I would just like to vouch what Paul said, how the only people that say it doesn't work are usually people who have never tried it. I think it's an amazing method of learning Kanji but then again it works with some people and not with the others

Are you sure your using heisigs mnemonic method? or are you just using rote memory?

my routine with heisig is..

1. Wake up and review the kanji I learnt the night before (between 10 - 25).

2. Go to uni / work

3. Review my kanji "mature pile" (I split my reviews between "newly added kanji" and "mature" kanji)

4. Have a cuppa/watch some japanese T.v. or something.. whatever you want. homework/coursework/play guitar/eat potnoodle.

5. Start adding my new kanji. so. Write out all the kanji you want to review by hand leaving about 5 or 6 lines between them for your mnemonic.

write down the primative elements of the kanji.

sit and ponder for a bit on the stories i'm going to write.

write the stories (see sam and frodo mt. doom above)

also, if the kanji is especially difficult. imagine a scene. such as... imagine the mountain literally crumbling ontop of the "companion" kanji and squashing the two 'figures' (the 2 moons) into a mushy pulp of over the top gore on the floor.

your brain works in images. so feed it lots and lots of images!

and tada, the kanji is stuck in my head and can be recalled from memory. (aslong as i keep reviewing my cards daily for the next 3 weeks or so)

Good luck! as i said before. kanji is a hurdle most learners trip up on and decide to stop learning asian languages.

push through the kanji hurdle and your well on your way to sucess in your desired language!

hope it helps!

|L.p.

No I don't use your system, mine is selfmade hee hee.
I make my own flashcards, physycally cut thick paper into small rectangles. I write on the front the kanji and then turn it around. I divide the back side in 2. On the left side I write all the the 音読み I can find amongst 4 dictionaries with the translations. On the right side I write all the 訓読み with all the translations. Every night at work I spend my lunch hour looking at the kanji and by heart saying all the back side (this is only about kanji, at home I study other stuff).
Now way I could learn in 1 day 10-15 kanji :O Certaing kanji took me weeks to be perfectly memorized...kanji like 下, where you have a long streak of reading like カ、ゲ、した、しも、もと、さがる、さげる、くださる 、くだる、くだす、おろす、おりる...and who knows how many I have missed LOL. Not to mention kanji which have tons of meanings like 付く or 作る just to name a couple. I am about to have to divide in 2 my flashcards since my lunch hour is almost no longer enough to study all the kanji :)

EDIT: Tho I admit that it is a huge satisfaction when I look up a word in the dictionary, and I see the examples given for that word and I read it smoothly because I know how to read the kanji used in that phrase. ;)

So with Heisigs method, the general goal is to be able to see a Japanese sentence and be able to read it in English, then later learn how to actually read it?


Why would you even want to do that? It's really not that hard to just learn the Kanji along with the readings and sample sentences. I don't even bother trying to learn all of the readings, but just learn from examples.

How does it even work when you learn things like 新 for 'new' and later 聞 for 'listening' or something, how do you even know what 新聞 is?

The point is not to be able to read anything at all, but to learn to write and tell similar kanji apart easily in a short amount of time, you still have to learn to read via seperate method.

Edit: that being said there's nothing stopping people from learning the readings as they go through heisig either

This is something I have always being told (I mean about learning all the readings). Everyone has its own way to learn and I respect them all. But the same way I could tell you what if you find 新しいXXX or 新なXXX? You will have to look up for the word in the dictionary. Then you will find for the first time　新聞 and you have to go and look up in the dictionary again, but this time first 新 then 聞 and look up in the dictionary trying different combinations of their readings. My advantage is that if I find the kanji as single element I already know the meaning and if I meet it in a compound I know the different readings already and my research is cut in half. Moreover, this is not always true and I agree, but in many cases knowing the meaning of the single kanji you can figure out the meaning of the compound. I always use as example the first time I have found the word 心電図. I figured out what it was before looking it up and to search it in the dictionary I guess the reading at the first try. Not to mention that, since it is a word I don't use much, to remember it (like I did now) all I have to do is remembering the electric picture of the heart and it comes out naturally.

The wat i see heisigs method is just..

divide and conquer.

once i know how to write all 2042. i can learn to read all 2042.. and their compounds..

in context.

and the best way to learn the meaning of kanji in my opinion is..

contect :)

|L.p.

Except that learning the individual meaning of Kanji doesn't necessarily help you read the compounds...

I guess I understand the method, but I don't get why anyone would want to learn a couple thousand individual Kanji meanings in English and then attempt to go back and learn the readings for all of them. It makes more sense that you would just learn the readings along with them (as some of you are doing.)

well.. when you were 4... you could say "radio" but you couldn't write it..

i'm just doing it in reverse. i'm learning to write the symbol for radio and then learning the word.

same for the kanji compounds aslong i can write the words for the kanji compounds, all i need to do then is add the words and the context.

if you want a more complete summary of the idea's behind this system.

go to: All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency.

and read his blogs. they're awesome!

|L.p.

Exactly my thought. Kanji by itself is useless without reading or compounds. I guess Heisig's method is alright as a SUPPLEMENT to remember how to write Kanji but if you rely on his method to boost your vocab, you are screwed.

ok ok... i'm getting frustrated... so i'll spell it out.

Heisig is nothing to do with learning the readings OR the meanings OR speaking japanese overnight.

it's simply... learning the general way to write the characters and how to write them.

then... after you take this knowledge... you turn it into the japanese meanings and learn it that way.

Heisig is the equivalent of turning yourself into a native chinese and learning japanese

you CAN WRITE all 2042 jouyo kanji, and have a general understanding of how they work...

you then take that knowledge and apply it to japanese... therefore.. you'll learn japanese kanji at 500% speed.

It's not an overnight 2000 word vocabulary increase.

it's not superior to learning kanji AND their meanings..

it's simply superior in learning to write all 2042 characters ACCURATELY

AND

get this

AND

Discern them from one another.. so your not confused between similar kanji.

therefore.. makes the whole learning process smooth.. and easier for said person.

i mean. i'm sure i could have people who are ignorant to actually trying the method argue with me until they're blue in the face.

but at the end of the day.

we all learn different.. and this way works for me.

|L.p.

Thanks for the response and I'm glad to hear of others' success with this. I am using the mnemonics that he provides to help me with remembering them, but I am using Wakan as a supplement to get the readings, definition, example sentences, etc. I made some flash cards last night before going to bed, and in the morning, I was able to remember what all 25 of them were using his methods (which I think is amazing). So, I am using his methods for memorizing stroke orders and his fun stories about them to help me retain them in my memory.

Thanks for all of the replies, and I hope I can continue to benefit from RTK! :D

That's taking it a bit too far. Native Chinese has the following advantages over Heisig:

- Vast vocabulary of Kanji compounds and ideas which are common between Chinese/Korean/Japanese.
- Ability to identify Sino-Japanese words from native Japanese words
- Ability to identify which compound words uses Onyomi and which uses Kunyomi (basically any compounds that makes sense in Chinese takes Onyomi, and anything looks completely random uses Kunyomi)
- Ability to remember Onyomi effortlessly due to patterns between native Chinese Pinyin and Onyomi. (i.e. anything starts with J in Pinyin starts with K in Japanese, anything ends with N in Pinyin also ends with N in Japanese etc.)

I can't believe how controversial RTK is. Here is what people need to know before trying this method.

1. It's primary goal is not to teach you the reading, or the meaning for the most part. It is to allow you to distinguish between kanji and memorize them efficiently.
2. If you want a full understanding of the language, you NEED a supplement, I use Wakan and look up the kanji in it, then write down the onyomi, kunyomi, and definitions. I also jot down example sentences.
3. Don't use this book alone to learn the language, you will need other books with grammar rules and other kanji books as well.

It is a very good book to start you off, as it provides you with great building blocks and a good understanding of how kanji came to be and works, but I recommend supplements for anyone who uses it.

I see what you're saying here but in the book Heisig actually says that using other books to learn kanji will only mess up Heisig's method? I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just throwing this out there because I'm kind of confused by it.

I have not had ANY problem at all using Wakan to help me. Using other books may make you take a different path, but while following the order of his kanji, and just using supplements to aid in the reading, definitions, and example sentences I am finding it to work amazingly.

Ok, that makes sense, I think what Heisig was talking about was using supplements to help learn the stroke order and the basic Kanji before others.

and tap their head whilst rubbing their belly at the same time too?

jesus man... lighten up!

I'm pretty sure that Kirakira and I both understand the whole point of RTK, but some of the claims that are being made don't make sense...
Not exactly... When i was 4 I could say "radio", but I could also understand what I was saying. What you are doing is like learning how to recognize a picture of a radio, but having no idea how to actually say the word for it. Again, I understand that RTK isn't supposed to teach you how to say the word for it, but it just seems sort of counterproductive to spend that much time learning how to read Kanji in English, especially when it becomes completely useless in many compounds. As I posted before, just because you can understand the English equivalent for 新 and 聞 doesn't help you read 新聞 at all unless you want to understand it as "new listen" or "new understand" or something equally useless.

I question the entire method of AJATT + RTK when the entire point of AJATT is supposedly about learning Japanese just as a child would through immersion, when children certainly don't process new information in any way comparable to RTK. Children don't translate Kanji in their heads when they see them any more than we translate English words into Kanji to process them, and children usually don't come up with cleaver stories in order to tell Kanji apart - they just rely on the fact that 犬 and 大 are not the same despite the fact that they look similar.

I think that if RTK works for you then that's great and you should continue that method, but there's no reason to think that it is clearly superior to the "useless" textbooks and language classes, regardless of what AJATT tells you. Different people learn things differently, and I can promise you that I will never look back and regret not using RTK to increase my learning speed by 500% or whatever garbage number you want to throw out.

Well the way natives learn Japanese as babies, their parents would point to something, like, newspaper and say thats しんぶん. It's not until MUCH later in their lives that they learn how to write 新聞. The RTK thing is the complete opposite. You learn Kanji, with no context whatsoever, no reading, nothing, just pictures... ??? ... profit!!... 500% speed up. I have no idea.

To RTK's credit, the way native Japanese processes new Kanji is similar to RTK's method where complex Kanji is pieced together from common body parts. So when a native sees the Kanji 語 and want to remember it, it would be 言＋五 with 口 down the bottom.　望 would be 亡＋月 with 王 down the bottom etc. Although the description in RTK is VERY imaginative indeed.

Anyway as I said, I don't think RTK is a bad thing as long as you used it with other books that teaches you compound and reading. You can't only rely on RTK (although in the book, they tell you the exact opposite which is where all the contraversy lies).

Wooo wooo woooo, slow down every one. That the method is good or not I don't know. That what I am doing is useless or not, I am not sure...I like it and I do it. But I would like to mark a couple of points here:

1: who the heck keeps talking about Japanese kids? Guys realize something, a 4 year old kid speaks Japanese 100 times better that than the average student in this forum. I live in the USA and my daughter has 100% full immersion of English and her English is better than mine. I am also trying to teach her my native language (Italian), but I would never compare her to an Italian kid of same age because they are 2 completely different things. Do not compare how Japanese kids learn kanji and how you learn kanji because you are 2 completely different things...not to mention that a kid doesn't know any other language so doesn't have to go through what it is normal for us: translating!

2: who said one way of learning kanji is the only thing people do? You keep talking about 新聞 and how you know what it is by just knowing the readings. I am not sure how you study/studied Japanese, but I doubt you went on the dictionary and started looking up compound in order to learn them by heart. I, and I am sure other students in here too, study grammar, do exercises and read books. We do come across compound kanji just like you do. The difference is that when it is a new compound I go straight to the dictionary and look it up without having to go and look up the single kanji first. Moreover... 彼は魚の骨が咽に刺さった...五時に私を呼びに来て下さ い, there are many phrases that don't use compounds.