Heisig, RTK Experiment

[Dustin]

Hmm, well i learned the last of the entries in the book and I am now using the SRS to keep them in my memory.
I think it was definitely worth it, and I am glad i put my studies on hold to take in what the book had to offer. It's not for everyone, but I know now that I am a serious student and am in this for the long term, so get past my biggest obstacle now, and the rest will hopefully flow nicely now


I will go back to my textbook now, and go pretty nuts with some compounds/vocab studying to learn to really use these ( grammar of course too )

As per advice in here, I probably will start a blog, hopefully I can stir up 2 or 3 readers
We'll see how my learning career goes from here!

[jcdietz03]

Congratulations!!!
おめでとうございます！！！
I am on frame 1400 or so.

[sei]

Congratulations Dustin!

And I want to see that blog too!

[Dustin]

Alright, my blog is in it's baby stages but it is now up and running, and I should throw the tag into my signature I guess

Anyways here it is

http://korynthius.blogspot.com/

I hope to get at least a couple of people watching it!

Thanks!

I will post all of my AFTER-RTK progress there, so that anyone will be able to see where it takes me!

[Juukyuu]

Are you planning on going through RTK 3 aswell, perhaps at a later stage for the other 1,000 or so kanji? (From what i've read/heard RTK 2 isn't all that great)

[Dustin]

Are you planning on going through RTK 3 aswell, perhaps at a later stage for the other 1,000 or so kanji? (From what i've read/heard RTK 2 isn't all that great)

I have not decided yet, there are useful kanji in RTK 3, but there are a lot of ones i will never come across as well. I may just take the important ones and then continue learning kanji as I come across them. Time will tell.

I am NOT doing RTK 2

[Jack W]

This thread is very interesting to me, since I have a copy of RTK 1 and gave up after the first few lessons about nine months ago. I modified the system heavily, which I know you're not supposed to do. My reasoning was that the RTK critics were at the very least right that many of the "keywords" had nothing to do with the actual meaning of the kanji, insofar as any single kanji "means" anything. It also bothered me that I wouldn't be learning the on and kun readings, nor any compounds, some of which I already knew anyway.

So I made these big flashcards with the kanji on one side, and repeated on the other side, with the on and kun readings in one corner. I reasoned that, at the very least, this would get me practicing writing kana. In another corner I'd put the keyword, plus the breakdown of the primitives if need be. For instance, for 朝 I wrote "morning (mist-moon)."

In another corner I'd write other meanings, if I thought the keyword was missing a significant part of the meaning. So for 中 I wrote "center, middle" in addition to "in." And in the fourth corner I'd put some compounds that I thought were useful, or at least interesting, when I found them on the WWWJDIC website, along with their readings and meanings. For instance, on the card for 呂 I've included 風呂 and 風呂場, which were words I knew but had no idea that was how they were written.

What I left out was all the "stories," which I know are really one of the main parts of the Heisig method.

Needless to say, this was a ton of information, and really slowed me down, which was probably why I gave up. But now I'm thinking of getting back to it -- I just need to decide whether to start over with smaller flashcards and using the Heisig method unaltered, or continuing with what I was doing. I am leaning toward the latter, but first I will read this thread in its entirety.

[Dustin]

I'm glad to have been able to provide the information to you

I hope it helps in your quest in mastering the Kanji!

がんばって

[furrykef]

I just need to decide whether to start over with smaller flashcards and using the Heisig method unaltered, or continuing with what I was doing.

I very strongly recommend using Reviewing The Kanji. It'll automatically manage your flash cards as well as have a lot of pre-made stories for you to choose from if you can't be bothered to think of them on your own.

- Kef

[Dustin]

I very strongly recommend using Reviewing The Kanji. It'll automatically manage your flash cards as well as have a lot of pre-made stories for you to choose from if you can't be bothered to think of them on your own.

- Kef

Definitely agree here, I am pretty sure I mentioned it in the thread on a few occasions, but that's ok, it's good enough to be repeated

[TokyoWarrior]

Congratulations on completing RTK1!

Just a couple of questions.

Are you planning on going through RTK 3 aswell, perhaps at a later stage for the other 1,000 or so kanji? (From what i've read/heard RTK 2 isn't all that great)

I have not decided yet, there are useful kanji in RTK 3, but there are a lot of ones i will never come across as well. I may just take the important ones and then continue learning kanji as I come across them. Time will tell.

I am NOT doing RTK 2

I would have thought that upon completing RTK 1 it would be logical to then progress to RTK 2. Any particular reasons why you prefer not to?

Secondly, does RTK 1 feature all kanji that JLPT levels 2,3,4 require one to know?

Thanks in advance!

[Dustin]

I would have thought that upon completing RTK 1 it would be logical to then progress to RTK 2. Any particular reasons why you prefer not to?

Secondly, does RTK 1 feature all kanji that JLPT levels 2,3,4 require one to know?

Thanks in advance!

RTK actually covers a surprisingly large number of the Kanji covered in the JLPT exams.
Up to JLPT 1 is basically the General Use character list with a few minor exceptions, and RTK covers all except for 1 General USe character as well. On kanji.koohii.com there is actually someone that made a script that will cover only the kanji in the JLPT2, and it seems quite comprehensive. I am Fairly certain that it covers up to 99% of JLPT 1

The great thing as well, even if there are a couple of Kanji that are not covered ( though I am doubtful ) the book gives you the tools you need to easily break any new Kanji you come across into components and make it easier to remember just the same as the rest of the book. Every time I see a new Kanji I immediately recognize the PARTS of it, making it much easier to remember as a whole.

The reason I am skipping RTK 2, is that it simply seems to be a list of readings and one piece of Vocab for each kanji presented in RTK 1. I would rather learn Vocab as I come across it, and with context, like in a sentence so that I get the nuance of how it is used rather than just a random word. Context is very important for word usage, especially with so many near synonyms in the language.

I hope that helps!
Thanks for the post

[Jack W]

Well, I've spent some time on the "Reviewing the Kanji" website, after seeing it linked on Dustin's blog. I was gratified that, after some review, I can still write about 43 of the first 52 kanji when prompted by the keyword. Well, it's a start.

I am still somewhat cold on these "stories," though. I can buy into the keywords, and I can certainly see the usefulness of breaking down the kanji into "primitives" or radicals or whatever one should call them. But for now, I've decided to put the time I would have spent into writing the "stories," into learning the main readings of each kanji instead. If this makes it take a little longer, so be it.

I will worry about the compounds later. That will also be a good time for me to worry about irregular readings. So for now I think I may go with a set of paper notecards for the on and kun readings, and the electronic ones on "Reviewing the Kanji" for actually learning how to write the kanji. (I noticed that I can put the on and kun readings in for the "stories," but they show up that way in a different section, which isn't as helpful.)

In the meantime, I'll try to get some grammar in on this website, and also from my "Japanese for Busy People" textbook. I have been doing some studying of song lyrics too, which I know in what low esteem they're held around here. (Just to avoid undue repeated criticism, I am already working on "Hotel California" for Tony, and once I have that figured out for him, I plan to do some really groundbreaking work on "Louie Louie." But I digress.) Still, I've noticed a lot of really interesting grammatical constructions that I have to think are used in real speech. I'm beginning to get how few "noun-y" things are used in Japanese, and how you can go through an entire rather lengthy phrase, only to find the whole thing is a modifier for a noun which finally comes along. Also it is interesting how one seems to run into certain words and phrases in almost every anime theme song, which I'm sure is one of the reasons they're criticized as study tools. If I had a nickel for every use of jibun wo shinjiru ... well, you can guess the rest.

[ニッキー]

I am still somewhat cold on these "stories," though. I can buy into the keywords, and I can certainly see the usefulness of breaking down the kanji into "primitives" or radicals or whatever one should call them. But for now, I've decided to put the time I would have spent into writing the "stories," into learning the main readings of each kanji instead. If this makes it take a little longer, so be it.

I will worry about the compounds later. That will also be a good time for me to worry about irregular readings. So for now I think I may go with a set of paper notecards for the on and kun readings, and the electronic ones on "Reviewing the Kanji" for actually learning how to write the kanji. (I noticed that I can put the on and kun readings in for the "stories," but they show up that way in a different section, which isn't as helpful.)

Can I ask why you're so keen to learn all the readings on their own?

[yukamina]

I am still somewhat cold on these "stories," though. I can buy into the keywords, and I can certainly see the usefulness of breaking down the kanji into "primitives" or radicals or whatever one should call them. But for now, I've decided to put the time I would have spent into writing the "stories," into learning the main readings of each kanji instead. If this makes it take a little longer, so be it.

Maybe you'd be interested in the Movie Method? http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=1851 It's a similar concept to RTK, but you learn on-yomi at the same time.