The "stories" in Remembering the Kanji.

[Per Magnusson]

Hi.
I'm about to try out Heisig's approach on the Kanjis, but there is one thing i'm wondering about.
What is the purpose of having the "stories"? Would'nt it be more efficient to keep it short and just use the "keywords" as building blocks?
This is how Heisig writes about 早.

早
Keyword: Early
Story:
This kanji is actually a picture of the first flower of the day,
which we shall, in defiance of botanical science, call the sun-
flower, since it begins with the element for sun and is held up
on a stem with leaves (the pictographic representation of the
final two strokes). This time, however, we shall ignore the pictograph
and imagine sunμowers with needles for stems, which
can be plucked and used to darn your socks.
The sense of early is easily remembered if one thinks of the
sunflower as the early riser in the garden, because the sun,
showing favoritism towards its namesake, shines on it before
all the others (see frame 10).

Why make such a long story instead of just keeping it short?

My example:
Keyword: Early
Story: day+ten ▼
For those who don't know, in RTK the keyword for 日 is day and for 十 it is ten.


EDIT> Seems like there was a sub-forum for Japanese textbooks. If a moderator sees this, please move the thread.

 

[Rei Yahya]

I find it best for me to learn kanji in their word contexts rather than going by stories and other tricks. Just by studying them in words and practicing writing, I've been able to determine new words AND their meanings and pronunciations just by looking at the kanji.

 

[Per Magnusson]

Yes, that's what I thought as well, but when i came back from Japan and stopped being exponated to the same extent as before, I realized how i was unable to recall the complicated ones when i tried to write them.
That's why I'd like to give Heisig's method a shot.

 

[BrianLewis]

I never understood why people would spend the time on this. I do identify with your problem of forgetting elements of complicated Kanji, however I would opt for studying radicals and paying attention to the combination of different elements that comprise a Kanji, rather than reading a long winded story that distracts from my studying. It also seems so much quicker to just look at a Kanji dictionary and remember 214 radicals than it would be to remember 2000 stories.

Another think I could point out is when you get confused on similar Kanji, it would be extremely effective to do a compare and contrast study of those. Furthermore, there are a good percentage of Kanji that share a non-radical element that also share the same pronunciation. So, comparing them will help you remember both how they look and how they sound. That's not something that you can get from these books.

There are some Kanji elements that look identical to another, so that's one reason you could use a stroke count, but mostly you need to know the stroke count of a radical to look it up in a dictionary.

 

[Mike Cash]

Is that a representative example of the stories? My God....

 

[FinancialWar]

I did the Heisig RTK, I eventually forgot all the stories but memorized how to write to most of the Joyo kanji.

 

[Chidoriashi]

Stories won't help you remember crap. Who cares... mother is "woman with breasts".. or some **** my first Japanese instructor told me, even if it is true, it's not the most effective way to remember (for me anyway). I learned by, "shock" studying!" For me the biggest thing was recognizing the same or similar kanji in practical words, and then building from there. No tricks, just determination. The bottom line I feel people gotta know is there is no rosetta stone, no shortcuts for learning as adults, do the work, don't give up, live there few years (cuz I would have thrown in the towel realizing "why does this matter for me in my country?"), or you will probably go nowhere..that is just the facts..