KANJI - Learning writing

[labelau]

dear all,

I am starting learning Japanese.
This website is amazing... it motivates me evenmore!
But I have a problem. I do not know how to write kanjis and I do not find any help on japanesePod 101. Could anybody recommend a good website to learn the kanji writing?

Dear Peter,

Do you plan to have a section on JapanesePod101 to learn writing KANJI... pleazzzzzzze.

LA

[sweetneet]

hi
there's an EXCELLENT book, called "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig (you can google it or look it up on amazon.com). I used this book and memorized all the ~2,000 general-use kanji in 9 MONTHS. Granted, this book doesn't teach you the pronunciation but it does teach you how to write.

Anyway, a great companion to this book is the online flashcard system, at:

http://kanji.koohii.com

That site was especially made to accompany the Heisig book. I use this site almost everyday and have no problems with the kanji anymore! I highly recommend it!!

[Jackleit]

Here's a link to the first 125 pages of Heisig's book, if you want to check it out:

http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RK4/RK4-00.pdf

[Javizy]

I thought learning only the meanings of the characters would only delay things , but I just read the introduction and first lesson contained in that book, and it sounds very interesting, and I'd be willing to put in the effort to go through it if it accomplishes what it claims.

He says learning pronounciation has an adverse affect on the kanji learning process. I've been learning kanji for verb stems to help me remember new verbs and characters in one go. Is Heisig suggesting that associating the characters with Japanese words should be left until the course is complete?

So if it took me 9-months, would I have to write words strictly with kana during that period? Or would it be okay to write words like 音, if the associated Japanese word directly corresponds with the Heisig keyword?

[seanolan]

Here's the thing...once you learn the meanings of, say, 200-300 kanji, you're going to start recognizing them in words, and being able to figure out the word, if you already know it, by the meaning. As you do this, you will learn pronunciations of the more common kanji. There is no need to memorize the 20 or so readings for 上 when many or most of those readings are only in one or two words, especially since many of those words are common words that you can't help but learn in studying Japanese.

I've been using the Heisig method for 1 month so far...and I have 350 kanji I can easily recognize. Out of those, I'd say there's about 50 or more that I can READ because of my vocabulary and puzzling the meaning from the kanji itself. I was very against the Heisig method for the reasons many people suggest, wanting to learn everything together, but I've learned more in a month than I had in a year before, so I am a convert now (although I HATE some of his STUPID stories for the kanji, dammit! Nonetheless, they work)

Sean

[sweetneet]

i very much agree with Seanolan. At first I was skeptical about the Heisig method, especially since some of the stories I saw in the free sample sounded pretty ridiculous to me. However, THEY DO WORK! I'd rather use a lame story to remember a kanji than have to write it out hundreds of times before I start to memorize it.

And although it took me ~9 months to complete the first Heisig book, i'm sure it could be easily done in 6 months or less. During the time. I took *several* weeks off of studying kanji to attend to various other things (like work on my thesis, TA a class, plan my wedding, take summer/winter vacations), so it probably only took me ~6 months to finish.

[Javizy]

I could never remember all the readings, meanings, and stroke orders of a set of 25 or so characters in a week, and the way I've currently been attempting to associate a character with a single Japanese word hasn't been working out to well either. So, I'll definitely give Heisig a go.

The problem is, it's between £50-60 ($100-120) on Amazon . I very much doubt any of those proceeds are making their way to Heisig so I won't feel guilty about downloading it (if I can) until I find a cheaper copy.

[Bueller_007]

I've never used Heisig, but from what I've heard, for some reason, he arbitrarily decided that "every kanji represents a different concept, so when I assign English keywords to each of them, I will assign each kanji only ONE English keyword, and THERE WILL BE NO DUPLICATES".

That means that 空 gets assigned the single meaning of "empty" or something, whereas normally you'd learn that it means both "empty" and "sky" in a traditional text.

Also, as I recall, the kanji 旦 gets assigned the definition "nightbreak" (an English word that Heisig *invented* just to stick to his arbitrary "every-English-keyword-must-be-unique" rule) because he had already used the word "daybreak" for 暁 or something...

Plus, again, from what I've heard, you don't get the readings, at least in book one, which means that if you see the word 上紙, you know that they mean "up" and "paper", and you might possibly guess that it means "wrapping paper"/"book cover", but you have no idea how to read it, and therefore can't look it up in a (paper) dictionary.

[seanolan]

Bueller, what's funny is I thought the same thing about the "keywords" he assigned to each kanji (nightbreak especially) but if you look up the kanji in a dictionary, almost every single time, that "keyword" is one of the first meanings given to that kanji. While I could imagine that some dictionaries use Heisig's keywords, so far, I've only found two kanji that don't use the keyword as a definition - 況 (which he uses for "but of course") and 条 (which he says is "twig") out of 350 I've studied so far. As long as you familiarize yourself with the other meanings, it really helps.

Also, let's say you memorize the readings for a kanji, then need to look it up in a compound. Is it really easier to look it up by the reading, since it might have a dozen or more, than by strokes or radicals? Japanese is really not set up to be looked up in a dictionary, honestly. You can do it, but it's not the simple thing looking up an English word might be.

Not to mention that there is "Remembering the Kanji II" where he does go into the readings of all the kanji you learn from "Remembering the Kanji I"...

Sean

[Jackleit]

I had the same concerns about only one keyword and not learning the pronunciations, but I found his book was the only method that worked. Everything else I tried, I would give up after 100 kanji or so, cause it got too confusing. With time, assuming you are also using other material for your studies, the pronunciations and other meanings just start falling into place. And eventually you start forgetting the silly stories, and just learn the meanings- but the stories help get you there. When I see 空 now, to be honest, I forget if the Heisig keyword was "empty" or "sky", but the keyword sure helped me at the time.

I wouldn't bother with books 2 or 3... Book 2 covers pronunciations, but doesn't do anything special to help you remember them. Book 3 goes takes you up to 3,000 kanji, but after learning 2,000, I think it's easier to just look up anything you don't know in a kanji dictionary.

P.S.- The link I previously listed for the first 250 pages of the book came from www.kanjiclinic.com, which Heisig is familiar with (he previously posted an answer to a question I had submitted to the site), so I assume it's a legal copy.