Heisig

Hi is the Heisig method good? I think the idea of learning a stupid little story for every kanji is pretty absurd, but maybe it work somehow? Also is it really a good thing to learn the meanings before the readings.

I did it, but forgot everything.

I did it in three weeks and I think it's amazing, but many people dislike it. Some give up or stop reviewing, and then they lose it. You really need to use it along with flash cards or, better, an SRS program, otherwise it'll be kind of a waste to do it.

Basically, the only question is about whether or not you think what Heisig does for you will help you. You will be able to write the kanji from seeing an English keyword, and after a while or reviewing, you'll be able to do it the other way around without problem. This works, and people aren't really disputing that.

If you want more proof, here's my Anki graphs (my SRS program I use to review)
When I was starting out: bayimg - image: anki-stats-2012-11-08@10-06-52.p - free uncensored image hosting
Now: bayimg - image: anki-stats-2012-12-02@16-12-04.p - free uncensored image hosting

As for the absurdity of the mnemonics: That's a wrong assumption. Many people use mnemonics to remember other things than kanji, but most don't do it with a system. If you want to find out if it's your thing, there's a sample of Heisig's book floating around somewhere. Just google for the remember the kanji sample pdf, you should find it if you look around some.

Now, again, many people argue against Heisig saying that after you're through with it and keep reviewing, you still won't know Japanese. That's very true. Only doing Heisig, you won't know any. But on the other side of that argument are university students who, after five years of study, can write 500 kanji because they used the brute force approach.

As for my personal experience, I love how easy Heisig made learning Japanese for me. I can already read manga without too much trouble (though I've done Tae Kim now as well) and I'm starting to get into the Super Robot Taisen video games, which don't have furigana. That is slow, but it's fun enough to be sustainable. Without Heisig, I'm 100 percent sure I couldn't do this.

I thought it was cute, but it did nothing for me, and I quit that method early on. I preferred to learn the meaning of parts and think them through. I bought a lot of the drill books the kids here do, specifically the kanji-kentei series, and ploughed through them, reinforcing them by playing the kanji-kentei game on Nintendo DS.

I think Heisig is for casual studiers.

I tried Heisig early on and found it to be too much of a hassle. I learn all of my Kanji now in context of vocabulary, rather than in isolation.

You might be opening Pandora's box with this thread. Before Heisig-lovers and Heisig-haters rush in to start flaming each other, I'll post my 10 cents and disappear again.

The idea of the Heisig method is that you use stories to remember kanji, and then forget the stories as writing and using the characters becomes natural to you. A potential problem is that you end up mixing up stories in your head and everything goes downhill from there. You will also have the problem that you can't actually read anything in Japanese after you finish Heisig's first book. You'll need to do his second book afterward. Seems a bit roundabout.

With the first book done, you would see 受身使役形 and think of "accept somebody use duty shape" since those were the keywords. Yeah..... it's actually うけみしえきけい and means Causative-Passive form.

To my knowledge, you will not find a single educational institution (at least in Japan) that teaches or recommends using the Heisig method. The general approach used here for adult learners is to learn kanji as compounds. You would not, for example, learn 値 and 段 separately, but instead learn 値段 together as ねだん.

A long time ago, I asked people on the Anki mailing list how to best learn kanji. Their advice was to make a deck that prompts for reading and writing kanji compounds... and to add enough compounds to cover all the readings. That worked for me. For really difficult to remember kanji, they advised I use the book "A Guide to Remembering the Japanese Characters" by Henshall, which explains the origins of the characters. In practice, I didn't need it.

After six months in Japan, I've recently deleted the recall cards from my deck and only do writing cards, as I find that I can remember how to read kanji if I can successfully write them. That essentially halved the workload. As for adding enough kanji compounds to cover all readings, the worksheets we get and the 日本語総まとめＮ３ kanji book I use right now provides enough.

Another effect I noticed is that I became able to guess the reading of unknown compounds that contain known kanji and end up being correct ~60 percent of the time.

One thing that helps is if you learn kanji for words you're currently using in class, or if you make it a point to use what you've just learned.

nameless said:

To my knowledge, you will not find a single educational institution (at least in Japan) that teaches or recommends using the Heisig method. The general approach used here for adult learners is to learn kanji as compounds. You would not, for example, learn 値 and 段 separately, but instead learn 値段 together as ねだん.

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Hm. That's how I learned kanji in school, and I've found that it's more effective for me to actually learn them separately, instead of just in compounds.

After six months in Japan, I've recently deleted the recall cards from my deck and only do writing cards, as I find that I can remember how to read kanji if I can successfully write them.

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Yeah, me too. I realize reading is more important, but I think if I can write them I can at least recognize them... though not necessarily all of the readings.

dwcarless said:

I tried Heisig early on and found it to be too much of a hassle. I learn all of my Kanji now in context of vocabulary, rather than in isolation.

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Where kanji are concerned, the problem I had with the learn-as-you-go approach was the sheer length of time it was taking me to look up the characters. As soon as I tried progressing beyond baby Japanese, I found that nearly every sentence contained about ten kanji that I didn't know, and looking them up was taking about five minutes per sentence, which was a bit ridiculous...

Heisig is a joke. Why learn made up meanings instead of the actual meanings? You may recognize a Kanji as familiar, but what's the point if there is no information coupled with the recognition?

By far, the best method I have experienced is simply reading a Manga or a light novel without any Furigana. I would suggest getting an electronic dictionary that you can input Kanji into so you can read at a decent rate (I use a program called 漢字そのまま楽引辞典 for my Nintendo DS, but I would bet that there are cheaper ways now using a smart phone). Reading is by far the best way to learn vocabulary, Kanji and grammar, because the context will feed you more information than any study list or crazy brain washing system.

The only reason to supplement with cards or other programs is if you need to fill in the gaps for proficiency testing.

I do use a Kanji card system, because I am planning on testing next year. However, I have to say, anyone that only learns 500 Kanji in 1 year is not trying very hard. Make a long term plan and divide that plan into short term ones. You shouldn't have much trouble memorizing 2000 Kanji in a year or two if you put the effort into it.

Yeah I wasn't really planning to make up a story for every one. I wonder though if it would be good to learn the meanings before readings as Heisig does?

Brian, that's not "reading"; that's "decoding".