Questions about Heisig Method

[area99999999]

From what I understand, Heisig's Method will teach you how to write the jouyou kanji. But there's little need these days to write even in one's native language, so wouldn't it be a bit much to try and learn to write in a foreign tongue?

Or perhaps learning to write them will drastically improve your ability to recall and identify them? Is it worth it?

 

[Glenn]

I enjoyed it. It helped me a lot to distinguish similar characters and retain the meanings and shapes. I think there's something to be said for working the active memory to aid in the passive memory, particularly when you're paying that much attention to the details -- they jump out at you more than otherwise. That was my experience, anyway.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

Heisig teaches you how to write each kanji from memory based on an English keyword that is 'a' meaning of the kanji (that is, each keyword is a definition of a word that includes the kanji. In a few cases, it's a really obscure word, and in a few cases most people would consider the meaning to really belong to another kanji in the word, but in most cases it's a meaning for a common word using the kanji.)

The technique involves breaking the kanji down into constituent parts that repeat, which he calls 'components'. Some but not all components are radicals, some but not all of the non-radical components are kanji in their own right (which is why Heisig includes some obscure kanji - they are subparts of other more complex kanji.)

Obviously, while you've only learned to 'write' the kanji, the ability to write a character from memory makes it easy to recognize. The semi-meaningful keyword makes it easy to remember when you see it used to spell words - the closer the word's meaning is to the keyword, the easier, but even when it's not close you still have a 'name' to hang on the kanji and a detailed knowledge of its structure, making it easier to remember.

It's a little indirect, obviously, but I found it highly effective. Also, being able to write the kanji really is -very- useful -- almost every IME has a handwriting input, so when you don't know how to pronounce a word you can still write the kanji into your IME.

 

[area99999999]

Heisig teaches you how to write each kanji from memory based on an English keyword that is 'a' meaning of the kanji (that is, each keyword is a definition of a word that includes the kanji. In a few cases, it's a really obscure word, and in a few cases most people would consider the meaning to really belong to another kanji in the word, but in most cases it's a meaning for a common word using the kanji.)

The technique involves breaking the kanji down into constituent parts that repeat, which he calls 'components'. Some but not all components are radicals, some but not all of the non-radical components are kanji in their own right (which is why Heisig includes some obscure kanji - they are subparts of other more complex kanji.)

Obviously, while you've only learned to 'write' the kanji, the ability to write a character from memory makes it easy to recognize. The semi-meaningful keyword makes it easy to remember when you see it used to spell words - the closer the word's meaning is to the keyword, the easier, but even when it's not close you still have a 'name' to hang on the kanji and a detailed knowledge of its structure, making it easier to remember.

It's a little indirect, obviously, but I found it highly effective. Also, being able to write the kanji really is -very- useful -- almost every IME has a handwriting input, so when you don't know how to pronounce a word you can still write the kanji into your IME.

So you think it's worth it? Should I start my kanji learning by using Heisig's method first? I just want to know that it will meaningfully assist my future kanji learning before I go ahead and spend 3 months working through it.

By the way, would you advice against learning kanji meanings and readings while using Heisig's method? I mean, if I get through the first 100 kanji in the book, for instance, why shouldn't I simply allot some of my day studying the readings and actual meanings of the kanji I've already learned to write?

Thanks for your time.

 

[Glenn]

I think that reading text with furigana along with studying with the Heisig method is not only not a problem, but may actually be a good idea. That way you get readings in the context of words, and you get to see how the characters actually behave in the wild, so to speak. I didn't actually do it (and don't know of anyone who has), but it seems like a good way to get a deeper understanding of the characters you're learning in tandem with getting the hi-res analysis from looking at them as parts you already know put together.

 

[area99999999]

I love the idea of using stories to remember the kanji (it's how i learned the kana in a couple hours), but I hate the idea of learning fake meanings for kanji (fake may be too strong a word) and disregarding readings, but maybe if I use Heisig's method while learning kanji the normal way, I can find a balance of sorts.

 

[Glenn]

I don't believe there are any fake ones. The only thing that could be considered fake are some of the meanings he attaches to primitives to aid in learning, but I've found they've pretty much been spot on as I've looked them up in actual kanji dictionaries.

 

[area99999999]

It's just hard to motivate myself to learn these keywords when they aren't real definitions. Most of the people who've used Heisig's method claim it helped them immensely, but I'm not really sure I really get it. I'm doing it right now, and, yeah, it's not hard to remember the kanji using the stories, but at the same time I'm not actually learning anything. That's what it feels like, anyway.

I'd rather use a more direct approach, but I'm impressed by all the people who claim the method gave them a much greater ability to learn and remember new kanji.

 

[Glenn]

What do you mean by a "real definition"? What would an example of that be?

 

[area99999999]

Okay, so I I went through the first 50 kanji in RTK and one was 早. The keyword is early, but that doesn't really tell me anything about how to use the kanji, ya know? if I just learned the word 早い I could write it down in my notes: はやい, adjective, fast, early, soon, easy. But with the keywords I'm just getting a general meaning, which is probably one of many meanings -- and, according to what I've read, may not even be accurate -- and It doesn't seem as though I've learned anything valuable.

Maybe I'm just not getting it yet.

 

[Glenn]

It means "early", actually. That's the primary meaning, I would say, like in 早い and 早速 ("soon", "quickly", "ASAP") and 早婚 ("early marriage") and 早朝 ("early morning") and... Well, in 早速 it's probably more like "fast", and is essentially the same meaning as 速 there. Some words are constructed that way, with homophonous morphemes put together. Anyway, you just listed three other glosses, not definitions. I don't see how "early" is any different from "fast, early, soon, easy" quantitatively.

Also, in what words does it mean "easy"? That can't be too common, can it?

 

[area99999999]

Yeah, it was a bad example, and you're right. I guess I just have trouble trusting Heisig to provide an accurate keyword. At any rate, I'll keep going along with the method and perhaps after a few hundred kanji I'll begin to understand the purported benefits it yields. There's nothing to lose, anyway.

I think, though, that there are a few words on the list that even advocates of the book admit are simply inaccurate.

 

[Glenn]

Hmm... well, I had an older edition, and there were a few I did find off (can't recall them atm, though). They were then changed in a later version. At any rate, it ceased mattering to me quite some time ago. Remember, it's just the first step, not the end of the journey.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

You should not expect keywords to be 'accurate'. In the first place, most kanji cannot be pinned to 'a' meaning anyway - they are symbols used to spell words. Those words tend to have similar meanings... most of the time, but not always. The only 'meaning' a kanji has is... the meaning of every word it is used in. And obviously, you can't learn every word a character is used in when you learn a character, so it's not reasonable to expect to learn the total 'meaning' of a character when first encountering it.

The point of RTK is exactly the opposite of giving you a complete understanding of the character - it's giving you a tag to hang on the character, and the ability to recognize and reproduce the character. If you've never struggled with trying to distinguish words spelled with similar-looking but different characters, the importance of that may not be obvious.

The reason that doing RTK is relatively quick and easy is because it limits your focus. If you try to learn everything about every character before going on to the next character, you'll never get very far. I -never- recommend learning the readings of characters. I recommend learning the readings of -words-.

I also would recommend playing around on Erin's Challenge WEB版「エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。」サイト閉鎖と新サイトのご案内 | WEB版 エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。 whenever you want to study some 'actual language' instead of 'just characters', but RTK itself is a study of 'just characters' and that is it's power. It's a divide-and-conquer strategy, studying just one aspect of a subject first.

 

[area99999999]

@SomeCallMeChrist

I just hope the familiarity Heisig's method will give me with kanji will be worth the effort. I plan to study "actual" words while going through RTK.

 

[Timelyn]

I've used that method with several books on my own long before I started learning Japanese with teachers. I have to agree on the general idea that it helps.
It is a lot of information that will never be actually used, since you don't really need to learn an artificial definition for each and every component and I get the frustration it creates.

Still, it helped me A LOT when I had to write them on my own and also when having to read two kanjis that are only a couple of dashes apart from each other. Since I've read about the components through this method I automatically find myself thinking: well this one has the 'leg' component, while this one has a totally different component, matching the meanings I'm studying. Without having used the method I would have to learn them telling myself: this one goes with one stroke more than the other one, even though they have no relation whatsoever in meaning.

I don't know about you but I find it much easier to spend a lot more effort on the components at the beggining and fly through the "real" ones than having to memorize them from scratch.