learn 2000 kanji

Some closing comments..

“Remembering the Kanji” works, plain and simple. It’s also incredibly easy… at least in theory. It turns out that the hard work, instead of rote memorization, is self-motivation, discipline, and just keeping at it.

All in all I started April 2005 and I had at least 3 full months breaks, so it took me approximately 6 months. Early on I had an average of 20 kanji a day, but past the halfway mark I slowed to about 10 kanji a day, and 1h30 sessions. I know some people have completed RTK1 in 4 months or less and others have spent nearly a year. So I think 6 months is a reasonable expectation one might have about completing RTK1.

I never really considered giving up past the halfway point, but often as I sat to study I wondered “WHY am I doing this?”. I think I wasn’t fair to my motivation in my precedent post. I’m not so stubborn as to finish such a goal for the sake of finishing it alone.

The fact is, I LOVE the kanji.

There is a quote that I found very inspiring from www.zhongwen.com :

”... Chinese characters, one of humanity’s greatest and most enduring cultural achievements.”

On top of the chinese writing system, I love how the Japanese writing system mixes the phonetic script, hiragana, with the kanji (I wish there was more kanji though..).

To get back to the method itself, another thing that kept my motivation going was a certain fascination for memory techniques, in particular mnemonics. I realised I had been using mnemonics before, as most people have, but never thinking about it as a technique in and of itself. In RTK1, mnemonics become a systematic technique for learning to remember how to write the kanji. The retention rate early on in so high that it can give you a great boost of confidence. This sparked my interest in mnemonics and also in “memory palaces”, and I am now looking into remembering all the chinese readings of the kanji using other efficient memory techniques instead of rote memorization.

A little over 1900 kanji now, out of 2042 in James Heisig’s “Remember The Kanji” Volume 1. I’m still determined to finish the book. Sometimes I wonder what my motivation is, or why I should continue; after all, I am not going to Japan anytime soon, and I don’t know anyone speaking Japanese, other than maybe my calligraphy teacher. I don’t even have a fancy of manga or Japanese culture in general, although I have discovered the wonderful movies from Yasujiro Ozu, and Akira Kurosawa this last year.

Part of my motivation to keep going in fact, is for the sake of finishing this bloody goal. For a long time in my early twenties I thought I needed motivation to do anything.. but motivation only gets you started. Discipline is what makes you continue… I often lack both, but both are skills that can be worked on. Motivation is the easiest, discipline is harder, it takes some strength of mind. One thing that helps with discipline is to look at the benefits. For me studying the kanji about an hour a day, is equivalent to an hour of meditation if not better. When I manage to study regularly, about an hour a day, my mind feels brighter and sharper, I feel less stress and overall just more ‘awake’..

As I was looking for some web development project I created this website to help myself review the kanji. I created it during a two months break, when I was at about 1500 kanji. At this point reviews became really important, and I wanted to make sure I was reviewing ALL the kanji that I had learned. Please note : this website will help you organize reviews, but it is strictly for the Heisig method, since it uses James Heisig’s keywords.

http://kanji.koohii.com

I’m about the 1800 kanji mark with James Heisig’s method “Remembering the Kanji”. I’ve had a two months break during holidays, and another 1 month break recently… not good.

On the plus side, you can use some websites or paper flashcards to just review kanji when you don’t feel like studying, so nothing is lost. And kanji learned through visual imagination and mnemonics as in Heisig’s method stick for a LOOOOOONG time.

Finished Lesson 34 of “Remembering the Kanji” today, and passed just over the 1300 mark. I’ve had ups and down, but I don’t want to look at that book in my library for the rest of my life and think “Another thing I’ve started, and have not finished”. Hell, even if I never continue Japanese later, I will finish this book.

I’ve upped the speed to 20-30 a day, and about 150 a week. I’d rather work as best I can for 4-6 months than hold this goal for a year or more. Some say that even a year to learn to write the jouyou kanji is short, but I don’t think I would be able to hold a goal like this for so long; even for just half an hour a day.

I’m in Lesson 27. In Heisig’s own words: “This lesson will take us beyond the halfway mark. From there on, it will all be downhill”. I thought that was rather funny. Now that’s positive thinking! :)

Making stories is really easy, and really hard at the same time. It’a left-brain thing. I can see why some people would be put off. I’ve sometimes spent over half an hour staring at one kanji, and trying to come up with a story linking the elements.

Sometimes, if you can just “let go”, it comes really easily. The best I’ve done was 20 kanjis in an hour. I did 40 that day.

More interesting was creating stories chatting with someone over the net, at a rate of about 10 kanjis an hour, after we spent about two hours chatting up, I reviewed the kanjis once before going to sleep, and they all stuck. This was almost totally effortless!

I’m at 800 out of 2042 kanjis covered in “Remembering the Kanji Vol I” (James W Heisig). It works. My pile of flashcards is 17cm high but I rarely use them, because there are some good kanji review websites based on Heisig’s method (www.davidhallgren.se/nihon/ and kanji-master.com).

I’ve kind of streamlined my study now so I dont bother doing the flashcards while I study the kanjis. To create the stories or mnemonics you need to relax, and not try to make too much sense out of it, then it comes really easy. As long as you SEE it in your mind, it will stick.

What’s important imho is to understand the concept behind the kanji, which is not always clear from the single key word that Heisig has chosen. Using a dictionary search on the kanji and seeing the different uses of the kanji in compounds give you a better overall idea of the ‘flavor’ of that kanji, and that’s more important the the actual english key word associated with it.

Argh, creating your own stories for the “Remembering the Kanji” method is time consuming. I was cramming 40-50 Kanji a day until Chapter 3. I’m happy if I do 20 now.

I’ve searched everywhere for other people’s stories but apparently there is no such resource available. :( Heisig says stories have to be personal to be better remembered but in my opinion his stories worked well enough for me 95% of the time, and besides due to his knowledge of linguistics and Japanese culture his stories were not only ‘silly’, but also interesting.

Plus, his stories conveyed the sense of the word, whereas from Chapter 3 on, you have to check the kanjis on your own to make sure you get the right ‘connotation’ of the english keyword.

I think it’s easier looking at lesson numbers : I have completed 13 out of 56 lessons, there , the goal seems that much closer now :)

Cool website , with a Kanji-from-keyword test using Heisig’s keywords.

I’ve started Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji (see download link at bottom for the first 125 pages of the book) 3 days ago, and I’ve learnt 128 Kanjis so far.

Some of the stories are fun and easy to picture and the characters are immediately remembered. But some stories are more abstract and need more work. I’ve spent about 4 hours on 50 kanjis yesterday. I try to draw them just once now to save time. If I screw up too bad I waste one flashcard, so it force me to pay some attention. The pack of 100 cards cost me about 1 euro anyway, at the local art supply shop (“stationer’s shop”?).

Now where it gets funny is I’ve estimated if I stick to it, this pile will be about 40 cm high when I’m done. :))) I don’t know hpw I’m going to shuffle 2000 cards heheh

After learning a series of Kanji I type them along with the keyword in JWPce and keep the list in a text file for use with the “Color Kanji” feature. This takes some time because most Kanjis I have to search using the radicals since I don’t know how to type them in directly. Then I can copy and paste text from Japanese websites into the editor and see the characters I know appear in a different color. So I spend about 20 minutes translating some compounds around these characters just to get used to reading them.

One reviewer of Heisig’s book at Amazon.com recommends to learn the Kanji before everything else. I still wonder what’s the best approach for someone who want to be able to read and write as well as speaking.

Interesting website here: kanjiclinic