Remembering the kanji (heisig)

[rpgherogaz]

The book is great, thank you for everyone who told me to get it!

Just a question though.

I notice (for example o-naka ippai) the kanji used is stomach, however the readings on or kun is not naka.

So kanji can be used purely on its meaning alone sometimes?

I'm sorry if this sounds a very silly question to you experts, but without asking, I will never know.

Thank you!
Gareth

[QuackingShoe]

Kanji sometimes have different readings than their official on and kun, yes. Particularly set words used with お. For instance, essentially all the family words. I don't why this is, but does it really matter?

Also, I'm not trying to sound snotty, but what does this have to do with Heisig?

[Belton]

What happened with kanji was something like this.

Japan had a spoken language but no writing system.
China had a very strong cultural influence so Japanese scholars imported the writing system from China and imposed it on the Japanese language. This could work because a kanji character primarily represents an idea not a sound. It's more of a picture rather than a word.
(This is why Heisig works. You can put the English meaning to a kanji and start to read in a rebus fashion.)
However Japanese grammar is different to Chinese grammar and needed extra information for verb endings. A set of kanji were used for their sound rather than their meaning. These eventually evolved into hiragana and katakana.
So you have all these kun readings of kanji.

On readings (so-called Chinese readings) of kanji are when the whole word was imported from China, as a by-process of the introduction of Buddhism and presumably trade with China. This happened in about 3 waves over several hundred years hence the different on readings. Although within each wave the kanji had only a single sound Japanised from whatever spoken dialect of "Chinese" was prevalent at the time.
(similar to how various words of French, German, Latin and Greek origin are used in English)

I suppose onaka could be お中、but お腹 is used because rather than middle it has to do with one's stomach. In effect naka is a special reading for 腹 in this one instance. As it is used in this way I don't know why it isn't listed as an additional kun reading. It might depend on the dictionary.

Readings have no place in RTK1's scheme. Apart from the kanji themselves there is no Japanese in RTK1. According to the introduction it is best to do one thing at a time and RTK1's thing is learn the English meaning. I know there is a great desire to completely use the kanji, but if you're going to do Heisig it might be best to do it on Heisig's terms and postpone worrying about readings until you've mastered the meanings.

In the interests of a very practical and immediate goal, Heisig has ignored and simplified a lot of things about kanji, in my opinion.
The usefulness of this extra information is debatable but the logic of how kanji work and the actual etymologies are interesting.

[rpgherogaz]

Thank you so very much!

This answered my question completely.

So special readings, really are logic based and are used when it can become obvious what is trying to be explained. Such as you said stomach instead of middle.

I recently did get vol.2 of Heisig and now more makes sence as to the on and kun readings, im also going to get vol.3

I used his books before to learn Hiragana and Katakana, and it really does work.


Thank you again jPOD101.

[rpgherogaz]

Kanji sometimes have different readings than their official on and kun, yes. Particularly set words used with お. For instance, essentially all the family words. I don't why this is, but does it really matter?

Also, I'm not trying to sound snotty, but what does this have to do with Heisig?

As such, I was not slating him at all, I think he is great! I was just pointing out really that this does not seem to be covered (special readings) or that I have not found it yet, hence me asking this question.

Thank you for your time once again!

[Javizy]

If you study Japanese, then you're going to learn words with kanji, and they're going to sink in because you recognise the characters. The important thing is not to force this aspect, and devote that kind of effort to get Heisig out of the way. By the time I finished, I was able to read a good percentage of the words I knew. I don't think there's anything stopping you from reading whatever you want. It was my understanding that Heisig, when it comes to forced memorisation, wanted to move away from flashcards like the first one to flashcards like the second:

上: above, up
ジョウ、ショウ、シャン、うえ、かみ、うわ、あ~、のぼ~, etc

上: above

When you've got over 2000 flashcards like the first one, you're going to be there for YEARS. You want to know enough to keep them all in your mind at once, not a full biography on each character; you can learn as much as you want about them after you know them, and at a much quicker pace, without the need to learn them over and over.

On top of that, I couldn't be more critical of the first approach, if there are actually people who use it (I'm not exactly sure what the anti-Heisig approach is). Learning readings like that is incredibly inefficient, frustrating, mindnumbing, and heavily susceptible to mixups and just plain forgetting. I could name a word for each of the readings above, and I haven't looked up that list before now.

[Javizy]

Just a note about the book itself. I went through the first 400 or so characters without really doing it properly. So this is some advice I would have given to myself:

- don't feel that you need to use Heisig's ideas. The sun and some sort of shellfish for 日 and 貝 weren't working for me. I found Pacman and Dr Zoidberg much more memorable and easier to work into other images. It's important to go with what you find best.

- stop to think for a second if the image of the simple characters you choose can be used in more complicated ones. For example, if I decided to choose the image of a fish market for 貝, it's going to be difficult to work into other images with multiple elements.

- the word 'story' is mentioned a lot, but it's very difficult to remember a sequence of events, whereas a still image that encompasses everything is very easy. If you've got any artistic talent, you might even want to draw some of the more difficult ones first.

- if you don't have Anki already: get it. I didn't start reviewing until frame 1700, which was the worst kanji mistake I've ever made. SRS gives you a chance to see if your images stick and are easy to recall, which gives you a chance to amend them. It also helps you remember them in its own way.

[rpgherogaz]

Just a note about the book itself. I went through the first 400 or so characters without really doing it properly. So this is some advice I would have given to myself:

- don't feel that you need to use Heisig's ideas. The sun and some sort of shellfish for 日 and 貝 weren't working for me. I found Pacman and Dr Zoidberg much more memorable and easier to work into other images. It's important to go with what you find best.

- stop to think for a second if the image of the simple characters you choose can be used in more complicated ones. For example, if I decided to choose the image of a fish market for 貝, it's going to be difficult to work into other images with multiple elements.

- the word 'story' is mentioned a lot, but it's very difficult to remember a sequence of events, whereas a still image that encompasses everything is very easy. If you've got any artistic talent, you might even want to draw some of the more difficult ones first.

- if you don't have Anki already: get it. I didn't start reviewing until frame 1700, which was the worst kanji mistake I've ever made. SRS gives you a chance to see if your images stick and are easy to recall, which gives you a chance to amend them. It also helps you remember them in its own way.

This is really great advice.

I do have anki, and have downloaded many packs, hopefully i can play around with it so i only have the heisig deck.

So with Above,up for example, all the kun readings mean the same to that effect?? and are just read differntly dependant on the word or context?

Is that right?