Before I say anything, I want to link to a post I previously made on my personal blog on Kanji-learning methods.
I should say is that this was written before I discovered the All Input, All The Time method, and that my comments at that time only make sense in the context of a traditional classroom learning experience (which as we all know Does Not Work). But even so, the flaws I identified in the Heisig method still need to be addressed. To save you a click, here’s my original list of the Heisig method’s flaws, quoted verbatim:
The meaning of kanji is overly simplified. Heisig insists on finding a single English key word to represent the intrinsic meaning of each kanji. While this works for some, it utterly fails for others (for example, 水 can mean not just WATER, but also WEDNESDAY or HYDROGEN);
The form is disassociated from the pronunciation. Heisig lists this as an advantage, but for me it did nothing more than force me to think in English and hinder my ability to later learn the pronunciations; and
No vocabulary or compounds are used. Studying the meaning of a character without regard to its actual use is of little practical value. Especially since the meaning has been simplified down to a single word (see #1) the ambiguity of English has been combined with the native ambiguity of Japanese, making the need for real examples all the more necessary (e.g., does 開 mean OPEN as in to open a door, to open a business, or as in open source software?).
The last two points are automagically solved by the AIATT method–a further testament to its brilliance. My own discovery is that once you’ve fully learned the meaning of a kanji, to the point where once you see it you think immediately of the concept it represents, not the associated English word, there is no problem with confusing the Japanese and English readings (even if that concept you associate it with originally came from its English keyword). And since all focus during the first phase of learning is on the kanji, without simultaneous learning of the spoken language, there’s never a conflict. Brilliant. As to the third point, proper context is of course the what you get when you learn complete sentences, which is the core concept of All (Japanese), All The Time. Trivially solved.
But what about Heisig’s poorly chosen keywords?
Well, that’s still a problem. You see, Heisig developed his method at a point in his life when he knew NO Japanese whatsoever. His sources for keywords were aging Japanese-English dictionaries and the Japanese people around him (a highly unreliable source). Too many times his choice of keyword is a secondary or tertiary connotation, and at times he frustratingly chose a technically incorrect, but related meaning.
The best solution is to avoid Heisig. There is one clearly superior alternative. The book I use is Kanji ABC by Andreas Foerster and Naoko Tamura. Unlike Heisig (at the point in his life when he wrote RtK) these two authors have between them a thorough understanding of the Japanese language and language instruction. The result is a far more accurate book that follows essentially the same (albeit independently created) method. However “Kanji ABC” has its flaws as well–although a description of those flaws and my solutions to them is deserving of a separate post in and of itself.
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April 12, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Back on the road with kanji… « All Mandarin, All The Time
[…] started looking for ways to spend my time that avoided inputting new kanji. At about frame 500 of Kanji ABC, I started inputting sentences using Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication (a […]
July 6, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Björn Labach
Hi,
thank you for the good reviews of current Kanji learning books. I also compared a few and ruled out Heisig instantly as I see no point in learning the (often wrong) meanings only. De Roo is also not my cup of tea. Now, Kanji ABC looks very clearly structured, but I am a bit baffled on how to use it. You get close to 500 graphmemes to remember, which is a lot of stuff to remember. Then for the Kanji part, is one supposed to make up his own story of the given parts?
Lastly, in another post you talk about learning from Kanji ABC via Anki. But, I haven’t found any Anki deck for Kanji ABC. Do you have any hints where to get one?
There has been some rumours of the authors of Kanji ABC starting a website or software for learning, but I haven’t found that either.
How are you progressing btw – can you still recommend Kanji ABC, and how do you use it?
Thanks a lot! Björn
July 6, 2009 at 9:51 pm
jinsei
Björn,
The site you are probably referring to is http://kanjiabc.net/. Unfortunately it is not that useful at this time. There is no Anki deck that I know of.
484 graphemes, to be precise, although some of them are composed of (or variants of) other graphemes, much like the kanji themselves. It took me about a month to learn them all. I then jumped full speed into the kanji. At my peak I was doing about 50 kanji a day, although i quickly ran into problems. Although Kanji ABC is more accurate in its choice of keywords, they can be clumsy and awkward at times, difficult to make a story with. More frustrating, there are some kanji with duplicate keywords. With the Heisig method, this is absolutely unacceptable.
In summary, Kanji ABC is still the best resource available for the kanji, but it is not without its flaws. Remembering the Hanzi (which was not out when I made this post) has corrected the flaws of the original Remembering the Kanji (thanks Timothy Richardson!), and is what I recommend to anyone with an interest in Chinese or the traditional characters. But not if your interest is strictly Japanese.
How am I progressing? (checks Anki…) I have 1280 kanji cards. I took a break when I got frustrated with Kanji ABC, and when I returned to kanji study I decided to pave my own way. I no longer use Kanji ABC, except for the ordering at times, which is superior to Heisig’s. I use the NTC New Japanese-English Character Dictionary, ZhongWen.com, and ncitu to come up with my own combined Mandarin/Japanese “keywords,” get an image from flickr or stoked’s “one kanji, one picture” thread on RevTK, and decompose the character using my own grapheme names (which have evolved considerably since I started). As you can imagine this is a very time consuming process, but I hope to finish in the near future. And when I do, I’ll have a ready-made deck that others can use.
For now the only concrete advice I can give you is to check out the RevTK forums at kanji.koohii.com. You’ll find a lot of people there willing to help you out, even if you’re not a Heisig user yourself.
Good luck.
July 7, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Björn Labach
Thanks a lot! I was hoping for something like “Kanji ABC kicks total butt”, while I already found out it can be frustrating to make a story from the given words. My problem of learning Kanji (I am at 250 now) is mainly to remember the ON reading(s) for single Kanji characters (not compounds). That to me seems too hard to do, especially as they are repeated so often.
When I try to read Japanese texts though, that is exactly was is needed – quickly composing the words from the ON readings. I was thinking of making up a story for the Kanji where the ON readings are somehow integrated in the words (maybe through person names), which in theory would help me best, but is even harder to remember…
Anyway, thank you for your help!
July 7, 2009 at 11:43 pm
jinsei
If that’s what you’re looking for, then I can offer some solid advice: use the memory palace technique to associate readings with your stories. For each reading, choose a physical location (or imaginary world), and use that setting to create stories for kanji that share that reading. There is someone that has applied this technique to Heisig. Personally I did not try this method as I was already too far along to switch methods. Plus I didn’t see the need to learn readings while doing Heisig. Hope this helps.