Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6382 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 1 of 9 18 April 2008 at 9:08pm | IP Logged |
I've previously done part of Remembering the Kanji (perhaps 500 or so Kanji). I have now embarked on an attempt to do it entirely. I started 35 minutes ago, but made the decision yesterday.
... And yes, I have a reason for this, and it's not wanderlust. And no, I'm not intending to post about it presently.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6028 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 3 of 9 19 April 2008 at 5:36am | IP Logged |
I did half the course and stopped because I was overwhelmed doing that plus my other books, finding it to be irrelevant for me to learn kanji for keywords "appellation or upbraid" at a beginner level. However, in order for it to really be effective one should get through the whole Heisig course, so I understand your second attempt. In case you decide to post your results, I'd look forward to reading it.
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OCCASVS Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6586 days ago 134 posts - 140 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish
| Message 4 of 9 19 April 2008 at 7:33am | IP Logged |
Volte wrote:
I've previously done part of Remembering the Kanji (perhaps 500 or so Kanji). I have now embarked on an attempt to do it entirely. I started 35 minutes ago, but made the decision yesterday.
... And yes, I have a reason for this, and it's not wanderlust. And no, I'm not intending to post about it presently.
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Good luck!
Remembering the Kanji is a motivation killer!
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Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6711 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek
| Message 5 of 9 19 April 2008 at 8:13am | IP Logged |
While Heisig's method was not for me, I think learning the kanji is a great thing to do no matter how you go about it. Chinese characters are the foundation of East Asian languages, and part of the collective consciousness of a billion-and-a-half people.
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charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6187 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 6 of 9 19 April 2008 at 9:16am | IP Logged |
OCCASVS wrote:
Remembering the Kanji is a motivation killer! |
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Have you actually managed to learn to recognize kanji properly with another method in as short a time as one can with Heisig?
Heisig teaches you the alphabet, the rest is up to you. He teaches one thing: one meaning per kanji. You see the kanji, you learn the correct shape and one basic meaning for that shape. The only thing you've got to learn now is when that shape is used and what it is called in such and such a context. No more difficult than just learning a new word in any other language.
Why do people complain: Heisig doesn't even give us the pronunciation. That's the great thing about him, he doesn't burden us with too much indigestible information all at once.
If you don't like Heisig, don't use him. But let other people see for themselves whether he suits their needs or not. I think his method works a treat, and so do loads of other people. You don't, fine, offer something better then. What have you used to become a fluent user of kanji?
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OCCASVS Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6586 days ago 134 posts - 140 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish
| Message 7 of 9 19 April 2008 at 12:09pm | IP Logged |
charlmartell wrote:
OCCASVS wrote:
Remembering the Kanji is a motivation killer! |
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Have you actually managed to learn to recognize kanji properly with another method in as short a time as one can with Heisig?
Heisig teaches you the alphabet, the rest is up to you. He teaches one thing: one meaning per kanji. You see the kanji, you learn the correct shape and one basic meaning for that shape. The only thing you've got to learn now is when that shape is used and what it is called in such and such a context. No more difficult than just learning a new word in any other language.
Why do people complain: Heisig doesn't even give us the pronunciation. That's the great thing about him, he doesn't burden us with too much indigestible information all at once.
If you don't like Heisig, don't use him. But let other people see for themselves whether he suits their needs or not. I think his method works a treat, and so do loads of other people. You don't, fine, offer something better then. What have you used to become a fluent user of kanji? |
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Short answer:
I'm using this book to learn Kanji (I've learnt more than 1500) and I think Heisig's method is the best so far for Kanji :)
That comment was based totally on a subjective statement: my biggest complain is that revising Kanji is very tiresome.
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Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6091 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes
| Message 8 of 9 19 April 2008 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
If you ever want to learn Chinese though, you might want to generalize Heisig's method and apply it to zhongwen.com like Khaztumoto at alljapaneseallthetime.com some of the simplifications are quite different from the originals, although certainly more conservative than the PRC's simplified characters.
I didn't know that 応 came from 應 for months!
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