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When should I learn the kanji? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 1 of 12 28 December 2010 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some accomplished students of Japanese set off on their epic journeys by learning how to write out the kanji first using James Heisig's "How to Remember the Kanji" alongside an SRS like Anki or website such as "Reviewing the Kanji". Proponents of this approach suggest that an early grasp of the main 2,136 characters not only offers a compelling alternative to hundreds of hours of traditionally copying by rote later on, but also facilitates best-guessing new words whilst reading or matching words across parallel texts from an early stage.
On the other hand, there are other successful learners who believe that memorising the kanji in part like this, at the beginner/intermediate stage, can potentially lead to more harm than good. One of the main concerns seems to be that the kanji are acquired artificially, using linking stories from another language and culture, rather than in context and through exposure to native materials. Sceptics of Heisig's approach also suggest that the kanji are not associated with the sounds of the language until afterwards, which may interfere with speaking fluency later on. For example, when one thinks of a "child" whilst speaking, the kanji picture emerges before the Japanese word, or whilst reading, the English keyword and story components (that have been reviewed repetitively over months or several years) pop up in the mind well before the Japanese sounds. For learners of Japanese here on the forum, which route did you take? And would you have done anything differently in retrospect? Edited by Teango on 28 December 2010 at 10:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FDppkaul Groupie Norfolk Island Joined 5242 days ago 36 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 12 28 December 2010 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I recently started to seriously study Japanese with a Nintendo DS game called "My Japanese Coach": it introduces yet in the beginning some kanjis. And i must say, in one day i learned at least 5 kanjis and still remember very well the stroke order and it's reading.
To tell the truth, i already studied Japanese years before (about 2 years ago, more or less). And, definitely, associating kanjis with stories goes well for me. I try to create a story for each kanji: it really helps in the learning. Hours of traditional copying are for sure boring for everyone. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 4 of 12 28 December 2010 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I much prefer Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged for Learning and Reference by P. G. O'Neill. I took a brief look at Heisig and didn't like it; you spend far too much time reading and thinking in English rather than doing Japanese. With O'Neill plus a little imagination and initiative on your part you get everything Heisig offers plus readings and example words and phrases.
Regarding when to begin with kanji, I suggest as early as possible. Study them in parallel with your main textbook, so that when you have learned the kana along with some basic grammar and vocabulary and are ready to incorporate kanji you'll already be thoroughly familiar, if not actively functional, with them. Vocabulary acquisition will be much easier this way. I say divide your time equally between kanji and your introductory Japanese textbook. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Qbe Tetraglot Senior Member United States joewright.org/var Joined 7136 days ago 289 posts - 335 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Japanese, German, Mandarin, Aramaic | Message 5 of 12 28 December 2010 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my (completely subjective and probably worthless) opinion, the value and usefulness (or otherwise) of the Heisig method depends entirely on the individual learner. Of itself the method is neither a magic shortcut to Japanese fluency, nor a satanic deathtrap which will ruin the learner's life forever. Short answer: try it for yourself (you can get a free sample of the book online) and see if it works for you.
Long answer: I tried the method and failed. The method itself isn't to blame for my failure. My own brain is to blame: I have ADD/ADHD and could not complete the entire course. I'll bore you with my own experience first. When I started learning Japanese in 2004, I used Heisig's "Remembering the Kana" and learned both hiragana and katakana in one weekend. Immediately I recognized that learning the kanji would be a hugely different task. I read the first part of "Remembering the Kanji 1" and those first 250 (or so) stuck like glue, so I ordered the book and got to work. Last year (2009), after 10 attempts at completing the book, I gave up. At my last attempt I reached #1402. I had made 1400 flashcards, covered countless pieces and scraps of paper with kanji, spent hours and hours reviewing (both paper cards and Anki), and tried several approaches to twisting the method to work for me. I've scarcely studied Japanese since. I didn't fail because the method is flawed (maybe it is, maybe it isn't). I failed because I couldn't stay interested enough to complete the method quickly. Nevertheless, I know people who have successfully completed the method (I'm looking forward to leosmith's input on your questions). The purpose of the Heisig method is to get the shapes and basic meanings of the kanji into your head quickly. Once you have them in your head, you start recognizing them everywhere and you start learning the readings (pronunciation) as a natural part of your study. You don't need to complete the book before this starts happening. However, in my opinion it's very important to get through the course quickly. Did I say quickly? Let me say it again with emphasis: quickly. The purpose of the Heisig method is not to stunt your learning with a surrogate for real kanji meanings/readings. The purpose of the method is to get the shapes into your head quickly so that the (often contrived) keywords drop away and are replaced with real Japanese as soon as possible. The method makes this possible by building up kanji from primitives in a logical(?) order: you learn one kanji component ("primitive") and then learn to write the kanji which contain that primitive. This progression means that you don't learn some of the common kanji right away, but later in the book. That's another reason why you need to complete it quickly: so that you don't become discouraged at your inability to recognize everyday kanji while spending years completing the book. My recommendation: try the method if you'd like, but evaluate it (and yourself) realistically at fixed intervals. If you find yourself restarting over and over, or bogged down after 6 months (or 5 years), maybe the method isn't working for you. There is no magic bullet or miracle method. Learning any language takes a lot of time, period, and learners from non-kanji/hanzi languages have the extra challenge of learning kanji. If you can hack the Heisig method (and complete it quickly), you can get a good headstart. You'll still need to spend a lot of effort to replace Heisig stories with real meanings and readings, but in my experience, less time than you'd spend if you tried to learn kanji by rote in frequency order. If the Heisig method doesn't work for you, look around to see if you can find a method that does. There are plenty of approaches to learning the kanji, and there's no reason to marry any single one. Edited by Qbe on 28 December 2010 at 11:10pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gitaa Brother Newbie United States Joined 5102 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 12 29 December 2010 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Other than Pimsleur which I found totally unsatisfying, Heisig
was the first thing that I did. I used Anki for review, did not get any stories off the web, and very specifically wrote down the kanji whenever reviewing it (say 20 or 30 times total). I did it full time for a month, and afterward I was able to go through Tae Kim's grammar and the Breaking Into Japanese Literature reader without any difficulties.
When I think of the word for "child", "kodomo" pops into my head first and then I have to think whether the written word starts with 子 or 好. The spoken word will definitely trump the written version. An important element in the method is that everything goes in one direction from the English keyword to the actual kanji. You do not think of the story components when looking at the kanji. You will also pretty quickly stop associating the kanji with the English word and instead with the Japanese word and its readings. I suppose this leaves open the question of what you are actually learning by this method. I think what you are doing is taking the 2000 general use kanji and turning them into discrete entities in your head. I did make a few short attempts to learn kanji by just picking them as they come along, but they all started melting into each other, and it was just terribly confusing. After Heisig, the kanji problem was solved, and it was just a question of attaching these words and pronunciations to these kanji. Edited by Gitaa Brother on 29 December 2010 at 12:12am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jsun Groupie Joined 5086 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes | Message 7 of 12 29 December 2010 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a Cantonese speaker so I can't help on learning Chinese character/kanji.
However, I can tell you that most people don't know the story of a Chinese character. You people know more than us. Native speakers of languages that use Chinese character don't need stories in order to learn Chinese character. Instead, we look at radicals to guess the nature and look at phonetic part of word. Take this as example, 
notice 安, 音, 反, 半, 參....These are phonetic part of a word. They help guessing the readings of characters. 
Notice 闌, 監, 曼.... They are also helpful when you want to learn a Chinese language. Japanese even pose problems to Chinese languages' speakers because it has too many readings. But fortunately, there're some kind of rules that help conversion. Here's a dictionary of Japanese and Chinese readings. Pay attention to Taiwanese (it's a dialect of Min) and Hakka. http://homepage2.nifty.com/Gat_Tin/fangyin.htm For example, 忍 of 忍者, its Chinese reading is nin. Why? You can find you answer from Hakka. The Hakka reading for 忍 is ngiun. ngi = nyi. Edited by jsun on 29 December 2010 at 1:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5409 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 12 29 December 2010 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I found it useful for the first few hundred kanji, but after that a borderline waste of time and stopped.
At some point you end up "learning" kanji that you won't see in a real word or context for months if not years. At that point, you'll already know the jist of the radicals and feel comfortable with the basic parts of kanji and you can just learn the kanji as you see them naturally occurring in the words you actually need to learn. If you want to make up stories for each kanji, there's no reason you can't do it later when you do start seeing them in words rather than dumping truly enormous amounts of time learning "Picture English" and facing the chance of burning out, which is a VERY real risk using that method. I'd say definitely go through the n5, n4 and maybe a few n3 level kanji, but after that it's pretty safe to just learn them as they naturally occur in your studies. Edited by Sandman on 29 December 2010 at 8:28am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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