I did.
People doing this are also doing these things:
Entries
I’m currently at frame 1520 in Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji 1, My goal is to finish this book by the end of February ‘08 (this month) by doing 20-40 a day.
I’ve been working on the Heisig method for 5 months now and I’m more than sure having struggled with other methods before it that it’s the best way to learn kanji, although I’m aware I won’t completely know the kanji until I learn their Onyomi and Kunyomi I’m sure that separating the learning of the writing & meaning from the reading is the best way.
My goal after RTK1 is to work through their readings.
I’m trying to learn Kanji. I’m confused. Well I start today in class to learn, but still I want to get a head start.
OK, I’m on my way into the JLPT 2 kanji, now doing 10 at a time. Once I feel good about how well I know the new 10 and am solid on the ones I learned earlier, I grab the next 10 and continue. I’m now at 310 and learning a new set of 10 every four days or so. This is a marathon, not a sprint, so I want to make sure I really “got” the old ones before tackling the next set of 10.
Anyone who has a Palm PDA should check out KingKanji – it’s really a great tool for learning stroke order and making sure you really know each kanji. With a Japanese word processor like JWPce, you can create your own sets of kanji to learn. I’ve found it to be an essential tool for remembering the kanji – if you can see a list of meanings and then can draw the kanji with the proper stroke order, you “got” it!
I did a little research on it, and found out that it wants the reader to memorize the 2000 Kanji before any of the “on” or “kun” readings are taught. Sounds a little backwards to me, so I’ll save my $250 for something more suited to my learning style.
Personally, I greatly prefer learning the kanji along with the meaning and readings at the same time, so I can instantly use it and recognize it in sentences.
To me, “learning” 2000 kanji means learning on and kun readings and stroke order, so that’s my goal. I have a copy of Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1 and got through Lesson 21 (577 kanji), but got frustrated with the fact that I’d only learned stroke order and one meaning for each of those 577. Without learning readings, I felt my knowledge had limited use.
Now, I’ve taken a step back and am learning the JLPT kanji using White Rabbit Press’s flashcards (which I like because they use only kana and no romaji). I’ve now learned JLPT levels 4 & 3 (284 kanji), including all major on and kun readings and am working on learning some compounds to reinforce my knowledge. I still consult Heisig on tough kanji, but I feel happier about what I’m learning.
I’ve bought WRP’s JLPT 2 cards (up to 1023) and will soon start in on those.
I’ve been working on this goal off and on for about 4 years, and recently took a Kanji knowledge test. From its results, I apparently know somewhere between 500-600 Kanji.
With that, I would normally be able to pass the JLPT Level 3 test (which requires a knowledge of 300 Kanji), so I tried a previous year’s JLPT3 test and failed.
I blame my study method. It consists of reading a book or web-page, seeing a kanji character I don’t recognize, looking it up in a dictionary and practicing it.
I’m thinking I really need to look for that “Remembering the Kanji” book.




