A question about making up Heisig Kanji method.

[Suisei]

At first, I thought people would get mad at me for making another post. I really hope I'm not spamming the forum or anything.

Well, I'm finally starting Kanji and I'm still getting used to remember the stories but when I make longer stories for Kanji, I forget what sides the Radicals go on. I do know that they are in the Kanji character though. Any tips on this ? This seems like a really basic question. I'm guess I'm just slow..v.v; I do like Heisig's method but maybe I should just make pictures out of them instead of stories? I tend to be better with visuals then stories.

[furrykef]

First off, are you using kanji.koohii.com to review? Reviewing the kanji will help you remember the order of things through repetition. It's still a lot easier than remembering a series of arbitrary strokes.

I think with enough practice the positioning and order of elements will feel natural and you will rarely mess it up. In particular, the most important primitive -- the one most related to the meaning -- usually goes on the left. By the way, it's important to distinguish "primitives" (Heisig's building blocks) from "radicals" (the so-called "root" of the kanji used to look up kanji in dictionaries, IMEs, etc.).

[Suisei]

First off, are you using kanji.koohii.com to review? Reviewing the kanji will help you remember the order of things through repetition. It's still a lot easier than remembering a series of arbitrary strokes.

I think with enough practice the positioning and order of elements will feel natural and you will rarely mess it up. In particular, the most important primitive -- the one most related to the meaning -- usually goes on the left. By the way, it's important to distinguish "primitives" (Heisig's building blocks) from "radicals" (the so-called "root" of the kanji used to look up kanji in dictionaries, IMEs, etc.).

Yes, I am using the kanji.koohiii.

Hm so...just just write it out more when you remember the parts I guess? Again, sorry for being slow. You guys have so much patience. ;w;

[furrykef]

What I do when studying is I write the kanji on my palm using the index finger of the other hand before answering each card. Then, if I got the answer wrong, I write it on my palm again the correct way. It works well and I have never needed pencil and paper while studying (which I find unacceptably slow to use). It also helps you memorize stroke order, so long as you look up the order if you're even slightly unsure about it. By now I can probably write the correct stroke order for 95% of all kanji (even those I have never seen before), so I haven't needed to look up stroke order in a long time aside from the odd kanji here and there.

[phreadom]

Personally I switched to using Anki for my drills. It's just less work for me, and the less work I need to do to study, the more likely I am to actually study.

http://blog.nnb.me/2011/12/simple-way-t ... lling.html

And the stroke order issue was another big roadblock for me since looking up the right kanji in the book was really time consuming. This way I can immediately check the stroke order at the same time I'm checking my answer.