RTK whilst undertaking a Uni course

[jkid]

I had to stop working with RTK to focus on my Japanese university course. I have been hesitant to pick it up again whilst still studying the Japanese course at Uni because Heisig seems to specifically advise against doing so in the introduction of Vol. 1. I am wondering if others have been in a similar situation and have still been able to use RTK with no problems and benefit from it?

Thanks

[Yoshiko]

What's RTK?

[jkid]

Sorry, I guess I should've made that clear. RTK stands for Remembering the Kanji, it's the title of a book. Find out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji_I

[QuackingShoe]

I'd just keep doing it. But you might consider asking at kanji.koohii.com , since that entire community is based around the book, and you'll get more varying opinions.

[Belton]

I had a similar problem with RTK I think.

My frustration with the method was in applying it *now* and seeing his "lies to children" and shortcomings in keywords and stories that too often seemed to be passing themselves off as the etymology of a character. That is where the conflict may be in doing it in parallel with a university course. The kanji you need *now* and the detail you need will not be immediately given through RTK1. Ideally you'd do RTK1 before embarking on formal studies, I think, however catch22 or chicken and egg that seems.

However I keep on coming back to RTK. And have a little more success each time, but usually because the Japanese I know has expanded and I am able to make more use of the characters I'm learning in the RTK sequence. And the keyword is never enough for me, I'm happiest when I can put Japanese to a particular kanji. That's probably why I keep going away from RTK.

Also, Heisig's blather to one side, the base system of mnemonics and breaking the kanji down is a perfectly valid one, I'd say it could work even outside Heisigs rigid order. (a bit more difficult perhaps but doable) Because with the *traditional* method there is rarely any advice or method on how to learn a given character; you are usually just given it to learn. At the very least I'd research and identify the radicals for any given kanji and start to group kanji by shape and radical when learning them. I also think there's no harm in knowing the Japanese terminology for the radicals.

Back to Heisig. Yes he's pretty adamant that "using it to supplement the study of kanji in the classroom... ...has an adverse influence on the learning process. The more you try to combine... the method outlined... with traditional study of kanji the less good this book will do you. I know of no exceptions." Humility isn't Heisig's long suit. (Show me the studies please -- anyone can give anecdotes. )
As I don't believe he is that great a teacher, I'm inclined to disbelieve this guff as well. But as the books focus on meanings and reading seperatly and have their own peculiar order that has nothing to do with usefulness or frequency of use, I can see how useless it could be to normal kanji learning.

You may have to separate your kanji learning into Heisig kanji and Uni kanji, and find extra time to pursue Heisig but I don't think anything you learn would be wasted knowledge somehow.( or attempt it over a vacation.) I do think it would take some time for you to reap benefits from Heisig in the classroom. But everyone's mileage differs it appears.

[Javizy]

Assuming you're getting along with the Heisig method, then I think you should just make the commitment and get it out of the way. You're letting one of the biggest advantages - the potentially short time period it takes to finish - slip away. It can also be hard to get back into it after a long break, and you're going to struggle more if you haven't been reviewing. On the other hand, if you just like the idea of it, but you're not making much progress with it, then maybe you should think about something else.

Doing both at once isn't ideal, because you're likely to form some sort of mnemonic with your course studies, and there's a very good chance it'll conflict with whatever image you come up with using Heisig afterwards. Depending on the nature of this conflict, it could affect other characters with similar meanings and especially ones using the same radicals. You're really asking for trouble, in my opinion.

This might depend on whether or not you have any exams coming up in the next six months or so, but you can forget about the kanji on your course, and just study Heisig in parallel with the grammar, vocabulary, etc, as a separate "unit". Surely your teacher would understand if you explain. If you look at the progression of the JLPT character sets, then you won't even be able to think about approaching anything without furigana for years, or however long it takes to gain Level 1 proficiency. On top of that, your progress with reading and vocabulary will be much greater when you have a memory bank of 2042 characters, and no longer have to spend time learning them.

[Taurus]

I have to say that I made most progress with RTK when I sort of suspended my other Japanese-learning activities - but that's mostly because I don't have a huge amount of time to dedicate to Japanese studies each day. So I don't see why you couldn't just learn 20-50 Heisig kanji every day, and do a few flashcard drills alongside your university course. I don't think that would add a huge amount of time to your studies, and actually I find learning kanji the Heisig way is a bit of a change of pace from learning vocab and grammar.

It's something you might be able to fit in small bursts, when you're on a bus, or when you're waiting for another internet page to load, or while you're watching telly or whatever. like Javizy says, it's something that really benefits from daily attention, so I figured I'd just stick with it - and I'm glad I did. I actually resumed my other Japanese-learning activities before completing RTK, and you really start to see the benefit once you've learned them a fair few. If you're also learning kanji by different means as part of your course, I'm sure those benefits will be even more apparent because whereas other students will be learning how to recognise and write those kanji, whenever you come across a Heisig kanji that you've already encountered you will simply be associating the readings with kanji that you've already learnt.

So I would vote for trying to stick with it - maybe not as intensively as before, but by trying to do a little every day.

[jkid]

Thanks all. i think I will resume study with it. Even the few Kanji I learned through Heisig before coming to Japan I still seem to recognise in comprehension passages etc. I think I am unfortunately going to have to start again from the beginning but this time hopefully there will be no reason for me to drop it.

[Taurus]

Thanks all. i think I will resume study with it. Even the few Kanji I learned through Heisig before coming to Japan I still seem to recognise in comprehension passages etc. I think I am unfortunately going to have to start again from the beginning but this time hopefully there will be no reason for me to drop it.

Good job! And while I'm almost certain you're already aware of it, I would heartily recommend http://kanji.koohii.com/

[louis89]

The way I use RTK now is just to help me remember certain characters I'm having difficulty remembering. I'll find out its number in the book, look it up, and remember his story for the primitive elements it contains. I haven't actually gone through it systematically from beginning to end. I started back in the beginning, but drifted away from it and at the stage I'm at now (~JLPT3) there doesn't really seem much point.