Regarding the readings and the phonetic components, I'm planning to use Cure Dolly's (Rest in Peace) Sound Sisters Anki deck. Considering all the information related to this on the internet for free and that I've never found readings to be that big of a problem, RTK2 seems like an overkill, but I'll try to read the introduction of the book before I dismiss it completely. I'm in the last stretch of RTK1 (only 176 to go!) and if someone reading this is planning to start RTK, here are some tips based on my experience: 1. Stories are not definitions. Try to engage your imagination and visualize the scene in your mind, rather than just memorizing the story. At first I was just memorizing the stories, and when I started engaging my imagination, my retention rate skyrocketed. 2. Kanji Koohii, jpdb and Jisho can help tremendously in the process of creating stories. You can use Kanji Koohii to find inspiration for your story or just to copy someone else's, and for those archaic or hard to remember keywords Heisig sometimes uses, jpdb often has more reasonable ones. With Kanji Koohii's search function you can see if that keyword is already taken or could cause problems with another one later in the book, and with Jisho you can get a feeling for what the actual meaning of the kanji is based on the words it appears on. Heisig recommends not doing this, and it probably made sense when he wrote the book, but we have the internet now. 3. Try to make silly, absurd, dark (like in dark humor), dirty, and personal stories. Not having stories for 3/4 of the book is kind of a drag, but it gives you the opportunity to create personal stories with things you are familiar with. Absurd, dark, and personal stories are the most memorable to me, to the point that when I fail to remember a kanji is often because I focus on the wrong parts of the story, rather than forgetting the story itself. Try slightly changing the keywords and primitives for this, if you need to.

@nofridaynightplans

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for providing such a detailed feedback about the English version. I'm sure your tips will be helpful to many, so I pinned your comment ;)

Hi everybody. I made this video to respond to the most frequently asked questions about RTK and how I learnt the Japanese characters. I think I have said pretty much everything I had to say about Heisig and his method. This will thus most probably be my last video about this subject! All the best in your endeavours.

Good overview. I am considering to use this method with simplified Chinese characters.

RTK method is best and right now application is also available to do practice while learning the readings of each kanji. However the only problem is that it does not prepare to pass JLPT exams.

@brianmitchell9941

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing! I guess there really is no one size fits all. I used both RTK book 1 and RTK 2 (no applications only pen and paper) and I felt those two book helped me on the JLPT N2. After completing the RTK books picking up and retaining new vocab was easy because I already knew the kanji that made up the vocabulary. When I sat for the test there were questions that gave me a reading and for different kanji or vocab items to choose from to match with it. Because I knew the meaning of the Hiragana item I could easily match it with the kanji (or word with kanji) that I knew had a similar meaning. RTK even gave me the ability to guess at words I had never encountered.

@HaruJapaneseLanguageCenter

8 ай бұрын

@@brianmitchell9941 UNDOUBTEDLY RTK method is the fastest method to learn Kanji.💫💯

I think making your own stories is an important point of RTK according to Heisig. The stories at the beginning of the book are just here as examples to prep the reader for the actually important part of the book, which is creating original stories that are personal and thus more susceptible to stick. For this reason, I am surprised the French version supplies stories for all characters. Although I am French I have only studied the English version of RTK, but I am very curious about the keywords chosen for the French version, I'll have to check it out someday

@nofridaynightplans

Жыл бұрын

Il est possible que le fait de créer ses propres histoires permette une meilleure rétention de l’information. Cependant, pour moi, c’est l’impact que l’histoire aura laissé qui importe. Certaines histoires proposées par Yves Maniette, lequel a adapté la méthode Heisig pour les francophones, n’ont pas beaucoup de sens - du moins, pour moi. J’en ai donc créé d’autres pour retenir plus facilement. Il y a aussi pas mal d’anecdotes culturelles qui rendent cette version très intéressante 😊

@koopanique

Жыл бұрын

@@nofridaynightplans Merci pour ces infos ! J'ai pu "feuilleter" les quelques extraits digitaux du livre qui existent sur internet, et cela n'a fait qu'augmenter ma curiosité... D'après ce que je comprends il n'existe pas de version intégrale digitale du livre, seulement physique, ce qui est dommage. Mais je compte quand même me le procurer un de ces jours en magasin. C'est vrai que ça a l'air d'une version "augmentée" de l'original par Heisig ce qui me rend très curieux.

How did you learn the pronunciation of the kanji once you finished RTK? By reading texts with their corresponding audio on to follow along? I am employing this method for mandarin and I am starting to think about how to do it. Thank you for the video, very engaging content.

@nofridaynightplans

10 ай бұрын

Hi! Thank you for your comment. RTK does not teach pronunciation. However, the version for Mandarin does teach it at the very end of the book. The reason is that (most of the time), Mandarin characters have only one pronunciation. It's not the case for Japanese. Each kanji can have 3, 4, even 5 different pronunciations. I learnt pronunciation as I went on, reading books and listening to podcasts with transcripts. In my case, I started by learning all the radicals/ characters without learning the pronunciation as I consider that knowing the meaning first is more important. Once I had the basic kanji under the belt, I started learning the language, including pronunciations of the radicals of course. The tricky part for Mandarin, however, is tones, as similar characters can have the exact same pronunciation in pinyin but have different tones. In my view, learning the meaning of the character, the stroke order, the pronunciation and the tone in one go is too overwhelming. I would rather concentrate on one aspect, master it and then move on to delve into the language with resources meant for native speakers. I cannot recommend one specific method, only share my experience. It has worked wonders for me. I hope you find a method that works for you too! :D All the best in your endeavour!

@RedMoe51

10 ай бұрын

@@nofridaynightplans Thank you for sharing!

@andreasstahl8207

21 күн бұрын

​​​@@nofridaynightplansI always get confused about radicals, aren't the radicals the 200+ something that you add as a building block onto the kanji? You say you learn the pronounciation of the radicals, but the radicals doesn't have any pronounciation no? They are just added since they are used in many compounds of kanjis that you learn bit by bit. I have been a bit confused by this when started learning the radicals since they are not kanjis by themselves. Since I don't own the books yet and just using an Anki deck for RTK, I'm a bit scared I might miss some radicals to learn and forget what kanji is combined together to form a new kanji 😅 Edit; I look more into it and the radicals do have pronounciation, and some of the radicals are actually kanji by themselves as well 🙊

@nofridaynightplans

21 күн бұрын

@@andreasstahl8207 I was going to answer you in a more detailed fashion, but I saw your edit. So I think you’re all good now. I’m past the intermediate level now and well into my 4th book in Japanese. If you understand what the RTK method is meant for, it will help you tremendously in your journey. All the best!

@nofridaynightplans

21 күн бұрын

@@andreasstahl8207i actually made a video on how to easily improve your reading of kanji. I’m pretty sure it could help you get less confused!

So the french version of the book only accompanies you for only 10 kanji? In that case, I may go with the English version.

@nofridaynightplans

Жыл бұрын

Non, c'est l'inverse ^.^. La version française propose une histoire pour l'ensemble des caractères sauf dix (plus ou moins).

@TheMissDebyluv

Жыл бұрын

@@nofridaynightplans ah d'accord. Merci pour l'info!

If you want to understand how kanji were formed, then the Heisig method is no use to you. The Heisig method is about creating mnemonics that can be completely divorced from the actual origins of the characters. That said I personally do find looking into the origins of the characters with Wiktionary and the Outlier dictionary to be very helpful at times, it's just unrelated to the Heisig method.