Has anyone used James Heisig's Learning the Kanji System?

stephenmunday · 8 Jun 2004

I would like to think that I am a fairly advanced learner of Japanese. But, although I can recognise pretty much all Joyo kanji, my writing ability trails substantially.

Recently, my interest has been piqued by James Heisig's Learning the Kanji method. I was thinking about whether it would be worth me starting again at the beginning with this system, really memorizing the kanji and the using Heisig's third book to go from 2000 to 3000. (The latter is something I would not really want to contemplate without some sort of killer app for the brain to help me get there.)

Does anyone out there have experience of this method? Particularly people in my position, who have spent a lot of time slogging away using unimaginative methods who have then gone back and used Heisig to achieve a igher level of performance.

Glenn · 9 Jun 2004

I have used it, and I will say that I found it to be more effective than the standard rote memorization tactics. Of course, there are problems for me sometimes in coming up with good images and stories for all of the kanji, because there are so many of them and there are quite a few that share similar key-word meanings. I did up to 1400 in the first book, but haven't done any more because I've been lazy. I will say that the books are a good method, but they aren't a "cure all" per se, and they do require you to do a fair amount of work. Once you get to around 500 you have to start making up your own stories, which, like I said, can be difficult. I have some really bad ones, and as a result I have problems remembering the characters to which I affixed them. The up-side is that I know way more kanji than I did previously (around 500), even though I can't always read them.

stephenmunday · 9 Jun 2004

Thanks for the useful post, Glenn.

Can I ask you a couple of follow-up questions?

1) Although this method takes a lot of work, would you say that you have retained the information well, or was it just of short-term benefit?
2) Do you think there is greater impact if you make your own stories? (If not, I have seen that there is a program called "Kanji Can" based on the Heisig system that already has stories for all Joyo kanji, so I am wondering about that as an alternative to the books. The page is here KanjiCan by KanjiSoft Systems)

If anyone reading this thread has not heard of the Heisig approach to Kanji study, you can read large portions of his books online here - nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji.htm.

The downloadable files are in pdf format.

Glenn · 11 Jun 2004

stephenmunday said:
Thanks for the useful post, Glenn.

Can I ask you a couple of follow-up questions?

1) Although this method takes a lot of work, would you say that you have retained the information well, or was it just of short-term benefit?
2) Do you think there is greater impact if you make your own stories? (If not, I have seen that there is a program called "Kanji Can" based on the Heisig system that already has stories for all Joyo kanji, so I am wondering about that as an alternative to the books. The page is here Account Suspended)

1)For most of the kanji I can remember what they mean and how to write them even though I haven't looked at my cards in quite some time. Seeing them in daily reading also helps a lot, but there are a few that I haven't seen in readings or that I rarely come across and I still remember them. Those are the ones for which I have good stories. Some of the others are a bit harder to recall.

2)I think so in some cases. I know that I certainly have some strange ones, and that helps me remember better. There are sometimes that I could use some help, though. I suppose it all depends on how creative you are when you are creating the stories. I seemed to have run my well dry. One thing that I will suggest to you: don't try to rush it. I think that that is from where most of my bad stories came, just wanting to give something a quick image so that I could move on. I can be extremely impatient at times.

Anyway, I think that this is perhaps the best method for learning kanji that I have seen or heard of, and I think that Heisig's argument for this method is also very good. Perhaps it is a lot of work, but perhaps it isn't as much as would be required from using rote memorization.

stephenmunday · 11 Jun 2004

Thanks for your input, Glenn. It is always useful to hear from someone who has actually got some experience. I think I was most encouraged to ty this system by what you said about retaining your kanji knowledge. I do know a lot of kanji, but sometimes I am frustrated with the vagueness with which I can recall. It sounds like Heisig could firm up that memory for me.

forspank · 30 Jun 2004

I been using heisig's book for a little while, didn't know much of kanjis when I begun but it has been really helpful, especially for remembering how to write the character.

I'm just ahead the 600 kanjis right now and what I can point you out is to really try to make the stories the way they serve you the most, since the beggining of the book I felt that some stories wasn't related to me so I changed some of them and for the ones I did change were some of the kanjis that stick with me easiest, so be careful about using someone else's stories.

And just something more that may help you figure out if this method is for you, latter when I finally begun studying kanjis readings in school, I started with many kanjis that I hasn't seen before in heisig's book and what happened was that using the component based system of heisig was useful but I couldn't really remember how to write those kanji (even tough I could always recognize them when I saw them) until I learn them with heisig method for the writing, so what I'm trying to say here is that it did improve my knowledge of those kanjis that i knew the readings and meanings.

Anyway for me right now the headache is in the readings of those I only know the writing and meaning... haven't figure out a good method for readings yet

hope it helps some

stephenmunday · 30 Jun 2004

Thanks for sharing your experience, forspank.

I have just started using the system and am changing some of the stories as well. Since I am already pretty familiar with Joyo kanji, I am using this more as a way to really get them down 100% and to learn the system so that I can use book 3 to go from 2000 to 3000.

BTW, it is my understanding that book 2 deals with how to remember the readings. Maybe your problem is that you are only part way through book 1 that only helps you with remmebering shape and readings. My opinion is that you read more than you write, and you read to yourself much more than you read out loud. Therefore, if you can recognize the character and know it's meaning, that is 80% success as you will not need to know the reading very often in real life.

Of course, if you are preparing for tests, then you need both....

Glenn · 30 Jun 2004

stephenmunday said:
BTW, it is my understanding that book 2 deals with how to remember the readings. Maybe your problem is that you are only part way through book 1 that only helps you with remmebering shape and readings.

This is accurate. Book two outlines a method for remembering the Sino-Japanese (on) readings by using what he calls "signal primitives" (from what I remember). It basically works by saying that the signal primitives represent a sound, and many times you will find that kanji with them all share the same reading. For example: 生, 性, 姓, 星, 醒, and 牲 all have the reading セイ, and all have the signal primitive 生. This is just an overview of the method, it gets more in-depth than this.

sushiman · 30 Jun 2004

All of the above comments are accurate (especially that one about not needing to read something aloud in this society). The Heisig method is probably the best out there, and far more time-efficient than others involving rote memorization.

When I got to Japan I had about 300 kanji under my belt from 2.5 years of college Japanese classes, with another 200 that I had been supposed to learn but then forgotten. I searched around and came up with Heisig's book. Within a year I had an additional 1,000 memorized, and I have retained them without much problem. I would estimate that I now can read somewhere around 2500-3000 kanji, and write most of those as well (although I don't really do much writing).

It's true about the story having to be vivid in order to work. Spend the five or ten minutes that it'll take to come up with a really good one, and then you won't have to worry about it again. (This as opposed to spending one minutes 20 times over and still not remembering the thing.)

RTK Volume One should be on everyone's bookshelf, as should his books on katakana and hiragana, if you haven't learned those yet. I found Vol. II to be more or less worthless personally, and I haven't talked with anyone who's really liked it. Vol. III is hit-or-miss.

HTH.

Erikku~ · 1 Jul 2004

I've read many reviews and shared opinions about Heisig's books. However, I've always thought about buying it, because the method he uses seems to fit me perfectly. At the same time I've also been a little sceptic due to some of the bad comments I've heard of it. I guess it's a matter of personality and the way your thinking works.

But now it's settled, I'll buy it. Thanks for your opinions and good arguments on it.

David Hallgren · 1 Aug 2004

For those of you that use this method and need a simple way to test yourself:
davidhallgren.se/nihon/kanjiHeisig.asp

Glenn · 1 Aug 2004

That's really nice; thanks for posting!

stephenmunday · 2 Aug 2004

Great site, David. Simple design but a really useful tool for practice.

Has anyone used James Heisig's Learning the Kanji System?

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