/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Kanjidamage

Being told mnemonics is the stupidest shit ever. I know there's a lot of them are there are plenty of commonly known mnemonics that work, but the best way of remembering something is when it means something to you. "Oh that looks like those little houses I used to draw, except it has a point at the top!"

There are already two Rearn Grorious Nippongo threads on the front page already for fuck sake.

>>9979559
then sage it man

Worked for me really good actually.

/a/'s Daily Japanese deck was horrible and Kanjidamage was just pure sillyness.

>>9979554
Except, you know, it only gives mnemonics for the first X kanji, then it goes to giving only some keywords and you have to figure it out by yourself. I can know, I own the book.

I can barely read any kanji. I can't write any kanji (except for the very obvious simple ones).

I've been using Heisig's method for 4 days now and know the writing, stroke order, and meaning of 237 kanji. I'm in the review stage between lessons 11 and 12 if you're wondering.

>>9979758
Between lessons 10 and 11*

>>9979758
And next month you've forgotten them all.

It's not bad at all. Usually, it's the autistic children with downs that can't learn without retarded "jokes" for every kanji that will probably force the belief that RTK is shit and KD is superior. If you can manage to take it seriously, KD may work for you, but progress will be slower. RTK is intended to be done within 2 months, doing a lesson a day and daily review. It will help you familiarize yourself with the Kanji and learn their basic meaning. After that, you decide how to learn readings, be it grinding vocabulary, learning through context, or a combination of both, or whatever you want. RTK2 exists, though it's not the best for learning readings, it would never hurt just going through it. A really nice thing about Heisig's method, I noticed, is that I rarely screw up stroke order when writing down any Kanji. Even if it is one I haven't seen before.

>>9979786
Yea because after I learn these I will never bother to review them ever again.

It worked for me.

I fucking hated it for the first 500 or so kanji. I thought the stories were retarded too (I don't remember any of them anymore)

But I kept going and now I read eroge everyday

>>9979838
Do you know the actual reading? I don't see how Heisig alone can do that.

RTK isn't for learning kanji. It's just for, you know, remembering the kanji.

>>9979880
>Do you know the actual reading? I don't see how Heisig alone can do that.

Do you know how I can tell you didn't finish RTK?

>>9979546
>People keep saying that it sucks cause it doesn't include readings.

Whether RTK is good or bad, that's just not true.

>>9979786
I've been doing 25 to 50 a day for over a month with 100% writing recall. The method works if you do what he says in the book.

>>9979880
>Do you know the actual reading? I don't see how Heisig alone can do that.

That's why you study vocabulary separately.

I create my own lessons using JLPT material. While paying attention to the readings I draw the kanji over and over (paying attention to stroke order, etc.) making a connection to the vocabulary I learned before that uses all these kanji. So basically, learn a set of vocab first, then study the kanji for it later.

>>>/a/

>>9979915
>I draw the kanji over and over

This is one of the reasons people use RtK, so that they don't have to do drilling bullshit.

>>9979921
Because they're lazy? They think there's some magic trick to learning Japanese?

>>9979935
If you use Heisig you can learn the kanji without writing them hundreds of times, yes. Why are you even posting in this thread?

>>9979546

It's a tool to remember kanji for the visually impaired. You really need to be learning important readings with words as you go. Go with kanjidamage or wanikani.

>>9979935

Using more effective learning methods has nothing to do with 'magic'. I heard the same "YOU CAN'T TAKE SHORTCUTS!!!!1" argument about anki a couple of times.

Why not learning like in the middle age? If you get the shit wrong, some priest will whip you with a willow rod.

>>9979962
If you're also adverse to disciplining yourself then you will never learn Japanese.

Kanji isn't even useful OP. They don't even use it anymore.

みてみて！ぼくのにほんごがうまいだからかんじをつかいないよ～

>>9979980

I had to read the sentence twice to understand it.

That's why kanji is better.

>>9979978
Yeah, let's make everything harder than necessary for no reason. That will help us learn!

>>9979978

It was meant to be ironic, in case you didn't notice.

>>9979989
それとも、おまえら じょうずじゃないよ
～＿～

>>9979980
でも、おまえのにほんごはへただよ～

no one looks past the front page anymore

I feel I'm stupid to work with Heisig

This is a perfect visual representation of what went on in my head when I saw the first Kanji in Heisig 2 (which was supposed to show readings and jukugo)

>>9980013
wwwww

わかることのためにふたたびよんだぼくじゃないよ。　
おまえら。

バーカーーーーー

>>9980040
Did you even read the introduction, asshat?

Most people skip volume 2 anyways. Just grind vocab and you should pick up the readings.

>>9979667
>I can barely read any kanji. I can't write any kanji (except for the very obvious simple ones).

That's not the book's fault, it's yours.

>>9979962
You know, I think the whip method would be great. Some people lack the self-discipline to do things like learn 2000 kanji.

>>9979940
>>9979758
>>9979907
>Before setting out on the course plotted in the following pages, attention should be drawn to a few final points. In the first place, one must be warned about setting out too quickly.
>[...]
>Second, the repeated advice given to study the characters with pad and pencil should be taken seriously. While simply remembering the characters does not, one will discover, demand that they be written, there is really no better way to improve the aesthetic appearance of one's writing and acquire a "natural feel" for the flow of the kanji than by writing them. The method will spare onethe toil of writing the same character over and ovre in order to leran it, but it will not supply the fluency at writing that comes only with constant practice.
-Remembering the Kanji 1, Introduction (page 6 in 5th edition)

I've noticed that the ones I did write multiple times until it really stuck with me, did stick better in my mind than the ones I didn't (mainly because it forces you to spend a significant amount of time on them). After some time, I got lazy and wrote each kanji only once or twice, and while at the time I remembered them, I now know none of them anymore.

>>9979921
Learning kanji will always require tons of effort. If you go in pretending to be able to learn without putting in lots of effort (even RtK will require you to regularly recheck everything to see how much you still know), you'll fail like me and so many other anons, and RtK isn't a magical exception to this.

>>9980142
It is. The same thing can be said of any method. If method X doesn't work for you, most likely method Y won't either, because the problem is rarely with the method, but usually with you.

>>9979546
it'll suck if you don't use it the way it's supposed to be. vol 1 is pretty good actually. that said, it's not the only way to learn kanji.

Learn to listen > Learn to speak > Learn to read/write

It's not hard once the symbols mean something.

>>9982869
>I've noticed that the ones I did write multiple times until it really stuck with me, did stick better in my mind than the ones I didn't (mainly because it forces you to spend a significant amount of time on them). After some time, I got lazy and wrote each kanji only once or twice, and while at the time I remembered them, I now know none of them anymore.

You are supposed to
1. spend 30 seconds to 1 minute on the visual mnemonic, but more is better
2. write the kanji at least one time once you have solidified the mnemonic
3. review the kanji regularly, by looking at the keyword and then writing the kanji

It sounds like you went through the book and never wrote them again, which would of course make you forget. He clearly says over and over to study them by looking at the keyword, not the other way around.

>>9983116
Even knowing the meaning behind them they're still just squiggly lines. Why does ねこ look like this 猫? I need something else to put sense into them.

The general idea of treating kanji separately from the rest of the language is misdirected. That isn't how the language works and word etymology doesn't have a 1:1 or mapping in any language. The effort spent on memorizing mnemonics or individual meanings is better applied to picking up kun readings; that way you can actually read something and also know what the character means at the same time instead of spending time on parapsychological mental voodoo from Heisig or otherwise wasting effort on anything besides learning vocabulary itself.

Kanji is a historical accident. People tend to lend speciaI weight to them because they're interesting and complex and feature prominently in writing, but it isn't a magical codex to internalizing large amounts of vocab for foreigners and its usage in Japanese doesn't work any differently than the large volumes of Latin and Greek in Indo-European languages.

Kanji compounds and terms with okurigana are just words, and they should be taken as a whole. You will need to learn their individual meaning if you're ever to understand them, and diverting your effort toward studying gimmicks so you can guess at the meaning of characters while pretending to read VNs is not going to help you.

>>9983362
It's just memorization, and we are pretty good at it if we can connect to meaning correctly.

>>9983511
>The effort spent on memorizing mnemonics or individual meanings is better applied to picking up kun readings; that way you can actually read something and also know what the character means at the same time

And it will still be just a bunch of squiggly lines in my head that I can't remember unless I write it hundreds of times.

>Kanji is a historical accident. People tend to lend speciaI weight to them because they're interesting and complex and feature prominently in writing,

People lend weight to them because they can be extremely difficult for foreign learners and are perhaps the largest obstacle (especially for a westerner) to learning written Japanese.

Honestly I have yet to see a compelling argument against methods like Heisig. People would not use it if they could learn kanji just as easily by the method you're advocating. I've tried it and it was a nightmare. If there was no Heisig I could have never progressed in Japanese. But hey, use what works for you.

i didn't spend any time learning the mnemonics.

instead, i took the top-rated stories from kanji.koohii whenever possible, and relied on the repetition of review to memorize them.

why bother memorizing something straight off the bat when the flash cards you'll be seeing every day already give you the story?

>>9983534
That's what I did by taking a minute to form a simple mnemonic.

You know I tried to do that at first, but what I was left with was, "This kanji is different from that kanji, because this one has this one thing a bit longer than the other, and it's shorter on this one, and this one has this line here..." There wasn't anything to keep the differences ordered in my mind, like Heisig's primitives.

I started digitizing my Heisig notes, and they're basically already complete; the only problem was I never finished adding pictures for the unprintable radicals Heisig defines. About half of them are unprintable characters, and whenever that happened I added example kanji with the radical in it.

If anyone wants a copy of this, I'll finish it right now.

>>9983593
forgot example pic

>>9983592
Meant for >>9983562

But nevermind. You said you used the stories. Those are the mnemonics.

I just brute forced the kanji, made 5 sets seperated by JLPT level, containing kanji, meaning, most common readings and around 5 popular jukuho per kanji.

Seemed to work okay, any method of learning kanji is shit though if you arent constantly reading japanese material.

Kanji, vocabulary and grammar should all be learnt at the same time. There fucking useless on there own.

>>9983593
>>9983595
I just wrote everything in some notebook and never took formal notes. Would probably have helped though, if I forget something.

>>9983596
yes the stories are the mnemonics. i didn't mean to make them sound like they were separate things.

when you have a community like kanji.koohii.com at your disposal, you really spend 0 effort and 0 time at all writing stories, because they list the top-rated stories right at the top, and the ones with the most upvotes are usually the ones with the most vivid imagery.

from time to time you'll get stupid garbage like "[POP CULTURE ICON] IS NOW THE NAME OF THIS RADICAL BECAUSE HEISIG IS DUMB AND I AM SMART" but you can still easily scroll past it and find something more intelligible to copy.

>>9983622
Yeah that could definitely work. The key to the whole Heisig system is the primitives. It really helps you break kanji down and remember the correct stroke order.

RTK has been working pretty well for me so far, I'll admit I'm only a bit over 50 kanji in though. I learned hiragana mostly through drilling, frustrated the fuck out of me. Then I discovered mnemonics and it went by in a breeze.

Who cares if it seems silly or childish to use stories to learn characters? If it works, it works. One thing I can't stress enough though, REVIEW YOUR SHIT. You are wasting your time if you don't review kanji after you learn them.

It's good, just don't take too many breaks. I'm in the middle of a break right now (it's been about a month) and I'm starting to have trouble recalling kanji from the top of my head (definition isn't a problem whatsoever) Might I add that during my "break" I've been practicing speech.

I'm learning pronunciation desperately though and I use Heisig just as a learning supplement, meaning I don't really give a fuck about the mnemonics he supplies (though, admittedly, some are helpful) I just needed direction.

Good luck op. Also, please use the archive next time. This is /jp/ otaku culture, not /jp/ how do I learn Japanese (I'm allowed to make this thread because I've seen it done before) and apparently the Internet and google don't exist culture

>>9983691
>meaning I don't really give a fuck about the mnemonics he supplies

Perhaps that's why you're forgetting. Also you should be reviewing regularly.

>>9983691

Bumping a thread while berating its content and actively contributing to the discussion; good work there, board police. We'd be ruined without you.

>>9983693
>One thing I can't stress enough though, REVIEW YOUR SHIT. You are wasting your time if you don't review kanji after you learn them.

Heisig stresses in the book that you have to review, and he even tells you how to review. It seems like a lot of the people that failed at Heisig ignored him on that and then blame the book for it.

>>9983711
Yeah I was reiterating that. Hopefully anyone that spends any substantial amount of time with RTK will have the sense to read the intro.

>>9983726
He even repeats it in some of the early chapters!

Using RTK myself, at 1400 Kanji ATM, only another 1600 to go

>>9983792
What made you decide to go through vol. 3? Just curious.

If I'm willing to just bust my ass and memorize the old-fashioned way, what's the best method for grinding kanji?

For anyone going through RTK1 right now, make sure you get the supplement for 2010 jouyou kanji.

http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RK1/RK1%20Supplement.pdf

>>9983702
Fuck off, nerd.I was obviously in the middle of typing while the thread was on the first page.

>>9983814

The meaning and reading of kanji vary wildly in context. There is no correct way to memorize kanji.

>>9983822
All right then, I'd better just give up and kill myself.

>>9983814
>If I'm willing to just bust my ass and memorize the old-fashioned way

Why would you make things harder for yourself for no reason? You're not going to get internet cred, or something. We'll just think you're stupid.

>>9983832
If someone learns to read, no one cares how he did it. All that matters is the result.

>>9983832
I'm just saying I'd rather stay away from something like mnemonics where reliability largely depends on the individual user. This is obviously not "internet cred," you won't even recognize me or my posts by tomorrow. Who is "we" anyway?

it doesn't matter what method you choose, pick one and stick to it. I do 10 kanji a day every day without fail because I wanted to be done in under a year. Now I'm at 1720 and I'll be done within the year.

>>9983874
Congrats. Keep it up.

Do you even lift?

>>9983544
Maybe you are just stupid.

I'm sorry but it sounds like you are just dumb.

>>9983919

I stopped earlier this year and just read eroge now.

>>9983951

Please don't be rude on the Internet! Think of how others might feel about your post!

Why do people still believe this stupid "2000 kanji and I'm done" bullshit. Congrats, you can read a newspeper after mastering the jouyou kanji.

>>9983919
what program is this?

>>9979980
goddamn, at least use katakana in place of kanji, so I can tell what is a particle and what is a word. reading that gives me brain hemorrhoids.

>>9984004
Pretty sure it's kanji.koohii.

>>9984009

I really didn't have any kind of problem with it, myself.

What would you do if someone were speaking to you? Ask them to hold up flashcards?

>>9984020

Unlike in written Japanese, people tend to make little breaks after each sentence in spoken language.

>>9984003
What are you going to have trouble with? Most non-jouyou kanji will have furigana or explanations in LNs, VNs, regular novels, and Manga. And whatever isn't is usually easy to figure out. 噛→嚙 or 読→讀 shouldn't take you more than a second or two to figure out even if you've never seen them.

>>9984030

Not after every word, though.

>>9984043
>What are you going to have trouble with?

None at all. Unlike people who buy into the jouyou bullshit.

>Most non-jouyou kanji will have furigana or explanations in LNs, VNs

I saw a lot of non-jouyou kanji in VNs without any furigana.

I've finished digitizing my Heisig notes. It's public for viewing and available for editing on Google Docs. A mediafire link is provided to the original file.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqdrFCl6uqFydHcteHdTY043ODNsTTNTWERDM2JqckE
http://www.mediafire.com/?8xc02ea5lqnx9

The reason I decided to do this was because I wanted a quicker, digital reference version of my notes (which won't fall apart or fade over time). I could not find a list like this ANYWHERE on the internet, and the Anki decks attempting to do this very same thing required customized fonts to see the radicals (which I either couldn't find or was too stupid to figure out.)

Enjoy.

>>9984099
thank you.

>>9983801
newspapers seem to use those kanji, so it looks like a good idea to learn them

>>9983847
>I'm just saying I'd rather stay away from something like mnemonics where reliability largely depends on the individual user.

So does everything else about learning a language, moron.

>>9983951
Yeah, I'm dumb because I got the same results with less effort. Feels good to be stupid.

>>9984363
>with less effort

Except, no, you didn't, you just arbitrarily inserted a useless step in the process of learning the language and then by way of confirmation bias assumed any progress you made thereafter had hinged on it because you failed pathetically the first time around.

That's the best part about Heisig users, they assume everyone is incompetent as they are.

>>9984575
Could you give a more concrete explanation of how you are saying that people should study?

For example, let's say I wanted to learn the word 学生. Would I just write that over and over while repeating "がくせい...student"? Should I bother learning the individual kanji 学 and 生 and their individual meanings? I'm guessing you'd advocate using the core 2000 and 6000 decks?

>>9984627
>Should I bother learning the individual kanji 学 and 生 and their individual meanings?

That sounds kind of stupid now that I read over it, but hopefully you get my meaning. I know you'd be learning to write them if you learn 学生.

Were you guys always such dicks before? I didn't notice.

I swear to god, if I ever meet anyone who uses Heisig in real life, I'm just going to punch the fuck out of them until they throw up, then I'll make them eat it while video taping it.

>>9984627
>>9984634
please respond

>>9984924

I didn't use any special decks, I studied out of a textbook and then I made my own anki deck out of apparently useful words I pulled from video games and websites and VNs, etc.

Haven't touched it for the better part of a year, though. Everyday exposure is enough.

>>9984938
What textbook did you use, if you don't mind me asking?

>>9984919
nowthatswhaticalledgy.jpg

>>9984980
Applies to this whole thread.

>>9984967

"An Introduction to Modern Japanese" by Richard John Bowring, Haruko Uryu Laurie

It's horrible, don't go near it. It's basically just an especially monotonous grammar book. It has an associated workbook but the exercises are all mindless repetition. I blame it for a lot of false starts and demoralization early on. You're better off with anything else.

>>9984995
I looked into that not too long back. It has a sequel but I wasn't able to find it anywhere, new or used. It's like they published it and then it disappeared.

>>9985021
The sequel was "Cambridge Intermediate Japanese" (2002) by the way

>>9985021

Given it was published from a university press so I think it might be natural that it had a short run. You aren't really missing out on anything, though. It's just an infodump on grammar; no real pedagogy. Most of the Japanese learning websites thrown around probably have the same info in clearer terms and more up-to-date.

>>9985032

Huh, I had no idea.

>>9984990
lies

is there any sort of rule for determining correct readings or is it "all exceptions, all the time, deal with it nerd"?

for example:

結束(けっそく)
結論(けつろん)
圧縮(あっしゅく)
圧力(あつりょく)
脱退(だったい)
脱衣所(だついじょ)

i'm not sure what you call it but for sake of just asking i'll simply call it making the つ silent. it seems to be random when it happens.

though this example mainly has つ in it, there are other instances of the silencing occurring like in 楽観(らっかん). please tell the correct term as well for this, if there is any

there are also kanji that are pronounced differently based on the word it is used in

lets say, for example, a kanji has an onyomi of た, its listed, when looked up, as た only and there's no kunyomi for it, but in several words it is read as だ or た and it seems random and happens often. is there no rule for this?

i'm very stupid please be gentle with me.

>>9987394
When a kanji using the つ at the end of it is in a compound, it converts to a small tsu if the next kanji starts with a kana that can be repeated. Like in what you wrote, there's no "rr" in Japanese. And The small tsu doesn't apply to vowel sounds, only consonants, so it doesn't work on the "i" either. It follows that rule pretty universally. Just keep in mind some kanji have more than one reading, so they may have the large tsu -> small tsu thing in one compound, but they have an entirely different reading in others with no tsu whatsoever. Like uh... lemme find an example. 切要 (setsuyoku) and 切換え (kirikae).

>>9987497
>small tsu if the next kanji starts with a kana that can be repeated.
thanks for this. at times i wanted to punch my head in since it seemed like i just had to guess all the time whether to make it small or not. i havent gone through a grammar guide which is apparent

>Just keep in mind some kanji have more than one reading
yep i'm more than aware of this. in your example one word is using manly onyomi readings while the other is purely kunyomi readings. ive come across some words that mix in on and kun readings in the compound though i cant think of any right now though

how about the other part of my post?

>>9987497
Oh wow. Thanks. This makes things a lot easier.

/jp/ is otaku culture not Japan general, weeaboos please stop bitching

>>9993270
0/10 why even bother bumping

>people actually waste time with RTK

If it doesn't have readings scrap it. Learning the meanings is practically useless and a lot of them don't translate well into English.

Kanji Damage has reading and explains it's usage, that's why it's superior. Mnemonics are a waste.

>>9993402
>Mnemonics are a waste.

Like the ones Kanji Damage uses?

>>9993402

Your mums a waste.

What is the best no-frills book for learning Japanese? For some other languages there are difficult books designed for intensive courses that will teach you almost everything you need to know (sans some vocabulary, but you can't expect to learn all the vocab you need from one book) and can be completed in a relatively short time. Is there anything like that for Japanese?

>>9993434
genki
minna no nihongo

>>9993416

Like all of them. Yes.

>>9993445
so you just used kanji damage without any mnemonics?

>>9993448

Yes. What is this, and what's it's reading? That's it.
onyomi only for the most part, as I'll study the kun readings in a separate vocabulary deck.

Remembering some stupid bullshit is harder than remembering the kanji. Kanji is divided nicely into groups, with radicals that often have the same reading, and it's not particularity hard to pick out the differences between similar looking kanji. 険,　剣, and 験.　測,　則, and 側. Gee so hard!

>>9984995
Looking into that book it seems pretty good. I want something intensive to use. I like ye olde pedagogical method.

I swear I am retarded as HELL.

I can't seem to remember anything and it is bothering the me so much. I was reading through supplemental stuff and I came across something I just read the other day and I honestly can't remember it and it is one of the words I can more often than not answer correctly.

Or I mess up the pronunciation slightly like saying 力強い as ちから(つ)よい instead of ちから(づ)よい. My maturity percent for across all my decks is barely 80% and some decks below that and its embarrassing as HELL. Even when I get to 10k vocab words at the end of this month I'm not going to remember anything because retardation.

>>9993822
How many hours do you sleep per day?

>>9993822
80% of 10k words is still a lot

>>9994880
I'm not sure it varies. Why do you ask?

>>9993822
It's okay to forget words. You probably forget words in your native language too, right? The fact that you know you forgot it means you remember it sort-of. Just keep at it. 80% isn't bad.

Maybe it means I'm stupid, but if there was no Heisig I could never have gotten anywhere with Japanese. I tried learning kanji through vocab but it was too much for me and I couldn't remember them, and writing them over and over and over utterly killed my drive to study. Heisig worked for me and let me get past that stumbling block. If you don't need it, that's great, but it's very useful for people who have trouble, well, remembering the kanji.

>>9993822
80% is fairly acceptable. Expecting to remember 10k words consistently is ridiculous unless you're frequently using them and seeing them, and reading a couple things in Japanese a week isn't enough to maintain that kind of level.

>>9995446
>>9998015
have good points as well.

How to remember anything in two steps

Step 1: look at it
Step 2: just fucking remember it

If you forget, punch yourself in the face and repeat step 1.

I guarantee this works.

>>9998115
nope

>>9998153
Ah, right. It doesn't work if you don't have arms, or a brain.

I'll make a version for amputees later.

I just went through RtK using just rote memorisation (no mnemonics) and finished it easily in 50 days or so. I don't understand why the community feels the need to use tricks to learn.

>>9998347
poor visual memory + rote sucks

you do your reps yet nerd?

>>9998441

>>9998441
maybe tomorrow

>>9993416
Mnemonics do help. Just not for EVERY SINGLE KANJI.
I just put the entire JPLT-vocab into Anki, and set order to random. When I failed a kanji more than 10 times I looked it up on kanjidamage. Works nicely.

>>9980053
こいつ言っていることさっぱりわからん。日本語勉強しろよボケ

I'm having trouble getting the Japanese corePLUS deck to work properly. I downloaded both sentence and vocabulary sound files, made a .media folder in Anki's document directory, and extracted all of the .mp3 files inside of it. Regardless, the deck still isn't using the files. I'm a little confused as to what I'm doing wrong.

Also yeah, I haven't done my reps today yet.

>>10001676
You need to edit each card and link it to the correct sound file.

This might sound stupid, but is it necessary to learn the memonic for every kanji? RTK and a few references I've glanced over has you learning all the kanji root parts along with the alteranate readings and silly stories that make no sense. Is this the only tried and true method or is there more sensible alternatives?

>>10004558
If you don't need mnemonics then don't use them. If you need them, use them. The best method is what works for you.

>>10004558
With Heisig's mnemonics, I don't sit there and go through the mnemonic every time I need the kanji. Eventually they just kind of drop away and you're left with the knowledge of the kanji. The mnemonic is just a tool to get you where you want to be. I mean, the pint of Heisig isn't to memorize the mnemonics, it's to memorize the writings and meanings. The mnemonics just help you. And if I later run across a kanji and it doesn't come to me right away, I can break it down into Heisig's primitives and the mnemonic will normally come back to me and I'll remember it.

>>10004710
For example, let's say I don't remember 墓. I can think, "Okay, that's made up of the primitives 'graveyard' and 'soil'... the pile of soil in the graveyard is a 'grave' 墓" and I'll remember it.

Not op but I trust /jp/'s opinion.

I've "mastered" most of the hiragana but what should I do now? I've tried learning a few words written in hiragana but I always forget. Anki looks pretty shitty too.... I've tried writing them down over for the past week but always forget.

>>10004786
If you are having trouble with the hirgana use Heisig's "Remembering the Kana." It will teach you katakana as well. You'll have to review them of course, so don't forget.

If you don't need help with the kanji, try starting up with Tae Kim's grammar guide and then transition into the Core 2000 decks on Anki for vocab, sentences, and listening practice. If you need help with the kanji try "Remembering the Kanji." Again, you'll have to review. I only mention this because some people seem to think it's not necessary.

>>10004796
hiragana*

Alright I finished my bolth my kana and I feel confident in them. Should I jump into grammer with Tae Kim& Genki and start on the core 2000 decks or should I just jump into straight kanji grinding with JLPT decks. How do I know when I should switch over or should I do both at the same time.

I'm losing my connection to Keyholetv Japanese radio suspiciously often.

They don't want piggu listening in.

Funny, I made a post with the exact same problem yesterday.

In Anki 2, all of the media for each User is stored in one folder. Open the User 1 folder, you should see a folder called collections.media, put all of your sound files in there.

>>10005518
so what? sage

RTK is not about learning Japanese. It's about learning how to write the characters and remember how to write them.

Learning the vocabulary and readings is a completely different thing.

>>10006309
>It's about learning how to write the characters and remember how to write them.

That's part of learning Japanese. Heisig is just as much about learning Japanese as a vocab list or a grammar guide. No one thinks it's going to teach you the whole language.

>>10006303


Meant to quote >>10001676 when I said that.

>>10006311
People who decry RTK do think that the goal of the book is something more than it actually is, is what I was trying to say.

It's very good at what it does, and if that turns out to be an effective method for you to learn, then it's good.

I'm getting close to 2000 reps a day and its taking a toll on me.

Have you done your reps yet /jp/?

>>10007089
I'm assuming in multiple decks? You shouldn't be getting anything like that with just Heisig. Anyway, you can reschedule the cards in Anki.

>>10008323
not yet

>>9979800
The most retarded post ITT

>>10004796
The characters aren't the problem but when they form words.

Like ie = house or iu = to say

>>10008558
I can't sleep knowing I don't know what to do

>>10010087
What do you want to know? Just memorize the words through SRS. Get a vocabulary deck and grind.

>>10008558

>to say
>to

Cut that shit out, this isn't Spanish or French or some other shitty-ass language that no one I respect likes. いう simply means 'say'. Infinitive forms don't really exist in Japanese like they do in Romantic languages, as the methods for obtaining, for example, 'want to do', 'go to do', and 'easy to do' are completely different from each other in Japanese. Quit thinking like your high school Spanish class. This is Japanese, a language with no gendered words, no plural forms, and, thank fucking God, only two verbs that are outright ranked as 'irregular'. (There are other verbs that behave somewhat oddly under certain conditions, but unless you get into keigo or something else useless there's like less than ten of them in the entire language.)

Learn to love it.

>>10010211
If you're displaying it in an English context I don't see what difference it makes anyway, it's just fitting in with English dictionary norms.

>>10010143
Thanks. Never heard of SRS before.

>>10010242
It's the method Anki uses. Spaced repetition.

>>10010251
I see. Is there a deck you would recommend?

>>10010258
Japanese Core 2000 and then Japanese Core 6000. They contain example sentences and audio recordings so they add reading and listening practice. The ones you can get from the Anki site are arranged in steps. Core 2000 is 10 decks, and Core 6000 is 12 decks, I think.

These will be easier if you have already learned the kanji of course. I'd also recommend learning some grammar beforehand so you can get more benefit from the example sentences.

>>10010267
fyi: I only know hiragana and am aimlessly drifting.

>>10010280
Then do this >>10004796

>>10010220

It's still inaccurate.

Also I'm just venting my frustration with how Japanese people never seemed to figure out that simple infinitive forms would be a useful part of their language. I mean you can use the whole sentence as a description of こと and work that into something else to try to get the same meaning, but that's awkward as hell and horribly improper.

>>10010365
Stop trying to speak Japanese like it's English.

>>10010385

Well no shit, I mean I eventually got used to it, but in the beginning, there were several times when the thought I wanted to convey just seemed like it REQUIRED the infinitive form of a verb, and I didn't know how to say it.

i fucking hate kunyomi readings

i have been cycling through the last 30 reps i have for the past hour and i cant remember any of them. if i didn't remove the leeching feature every single vocab word that uses kunyomi would be a damn leech

>>10012070
Sit back for a bit and think on each word, mentally associating it with the meaning for 30 seconds to a minute or so, and see if it helps. Straight drilling can sometimes fail.

>>10010291
RTK is a fucking mess.

>>10012575
Why?

>>10012667
Because it's used like a goddamn choose-your-own-adventure novel.

Give up, mate. Try russian or some shit.

Spoken Russian: hard as shit

Spoken Jap: piece of cake since birth

Written russian: kind of a dick but cool

Written jap: MOTHERFUCKER. MOTHERFUCKER MY ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

>>10012687
I don't know what you mean. If you don't want to make up your own mnemonics later, just use the ones on kanji.koohii.com

>>10012698
>Go to page 52
>Now go to page 20
>Now go to page 33
>Now go to page 11

Why?

>>10012790
Oh, I thought you were talking about his kanji book. Yeah, the kana book is kind of weird. The kana are arranged in their "alphabetical" order, if you want to call it that. But the book teaches you them in an order that is apparently more conducive to learning them. It assumes of course that you have a physical copy which would make it easier. Just put up with it, you shouldn't be using it for more than a few days.

>>10012697
>Written russian: kind of a dick but cool
I know the cyrillic alphabet and I don't remember ever studying it. Does it have retarded spelling rules or something?

>>10012806
Also rest assured that Remembering the Kanji is not arranged like that. You go straight through it like a normal book.

>>10012697
>>10012798

Russian is actually really easy I don't know where the idea that it's hard comes from.

>>10012819
So RTK > RTKJ > Tae Kim > eroge ?

>>10012825
Too many weird sounds.

>>10012850
After Tae Kim you will need to start grinding vocab and then you can start reading not long after. You're going to be looking up lots of words, though, as your vocabulary builds.

>>10012850
Alternate route is namasensei for the kana, kanji damage and then tae Kim but whatever works.

>>10014080
What about his grammar lessons?

>>10015826
Don't bother. Use Tae Kim or a textbook.

>>10012952
The writer for RTK seems to like making things more complex than they actually are. Half the time I have no fucking idea what he's talking about.

Apparently you need a whole fucking wall of text for such a simple character.

>>10017263
If you don't need mnemonics or help then don't use it. It's not written for you.

>>10017263
Also "RTK" is usually used to refer to Heisig's book on kanji, not his book on kana. The book on kana should take you a day or two, unlike the book on kanji which takes a few months, and is far more important, so discussing the kana book as "RTK" doesn't make sense.

>>10017280
Also I don't really see the point in worrying so much over Remembering the Kana. Learning hte kana takes up such a small amount of time compared to the rest of the language, there's really no point stressing over books and methods. Remembering the Kana is helpful if you have trouble forgetting them and need mnemonics. That's it.

>>10017273
I was looking at this book for mnemonics....But most of them are pretty terrible.

>>10018079
If you had just done what he said in the book you would already know the kana by now.

>>10018096
You really shouldn't blame everything on that.

>>10018121
Blame everything on what? The book says it will teach you the kana in what, 6 hours? It's not lying.

>>10018079

I always remembered nama-sensei's greateast mnemonic, "け looks kinda like LT, sorta like how the McDonalds BLT is O-け!!"

25 kanji left today! 50 new ones each day is tiring.

>>10018513
>50 a day
What % is your retention. Theres no point in doing 50 if you miss them often.

>>10019160
Probably 99%. Occasionally I will write one slightly incorrectly but I always notice it.

>>10018443
Jesus Christ... Is it that bad?

>>10019244
That's actually a pretty good mnemonic. You're not supposed to memorize the block of text, but the visual image of it.

>>10019244
Yes. Fucking every character is compared to a "sharp dagger"

>>10019276
Yeah, making use of similar elements in mnemonics is terrible. We need to make up completely new shit for every one. That will make it easier.

>>10018471
I remember ホ　because a ho would take two dicks.

Kill me.

>>10019313
It actually does.

>>10019376
You're retarded.

>>10019423
Make that two retards then, because I agree with him. Although, I think mnemonics are generally irrelevant and useless to begin with...

>>10019457
Let's say you wanted to go through Remembering the Kanji. Why would you make up something completely new for all 2,000+ characters, when there are common elements which repeat over and over. What you're saying makes no sense at all.

>>10019423
Sorry my thing doesn't work for you.

>>10019481
Your "thing" is retarded.

>>10019463
Well, I imagine the core issue would be that multiple associations with the same element would cause mental clutter. To use an analogy, instead of distinct one-way roads now you have diverging paths that begin the same way -- all of a sudden, you might find yourself going, "Which one was the dagger again? I can't remember, because the author used the same goddamn mnemonic over and over again."

>>10019527
The different combinations of elements make them "distinct." Your analogy doesn't work.

>>10019501
Have fun making things more complicated than they actually are.

Fortunately I don't associate き with some needlessly long bullshit about a sword, rock, and some keys.

>>10019551
It does work, because their "[beginning] the same way" could be compared to the presence of similar elements. At any rate, why are mnemonics even necessary for kana? I somewhat understand its use for things such as radicals in kanji, but not for simple kana.

>>10019553
Right, if I learn 日 and 月, I shouldn't put them together to make up 明, I should make up some totally new bullshit even though the elements are already there for me. You're fucking dumb and YOU are the one making things harder. You may not see it now since you are still learning kana (why aren't you done yet?) but you will later.

>>10019570
I am done though.

>>10019569
It's not needed for kana, which is why people don't usually recommend Remembering the Kana.

>>10019569
>At any rate, why are mnemonics even necessary for kana?

Someone posted earlier that they had trouble remembering the kana so I suggested Heisig's book to them, and they have started to act very autistic over it. I said earlier I don't know why they're even posting about it >>10017297

>>10019553
Neither do I now. Mnemonics are useful crutches to help you at the early stages of learning. And they did help at the time, but they're only meant to be used only so long as you can't remember the character by itself (and after that they're forgotten, as they should be). I think the book even says as much.

>>10019577
Going autistic is apparently pointing out how needlessly long it is.

>>10019580
>Mnemonics are useful crutches to help you at the early stages of learning. And they did help at the time

That's the way I used it. I went through Heisig's kana book in a few hours and a week or two later I didn't remember any of the mnemonics, but still knew the kana. They eventually drop away.

>>10019580
One usually doesn't have to read an entire paragraph to find something to associate the character with.

Instead of reading a wall of text you could look at the character and find that it looks like a key.

I just downloaded the JLPT kanji sets on Anki, it works better for me and its free.

>>10012136
i tired and still nothing because i'm fucking retarded. i want to bash my head against a wall but i know thats not going to help me remember a string of kana for these damn kun readings. all these vocab words that use kun readings are such a damn pain.

it looks like writing them down a million times and chanting the damn definition is my only chance now.

i wished all vocab words used only on readings

>>10020650
Just give up. You are clearly too stupid and will never learn Japanese.

>Learning the language of a dying people

>>10018443

I'm pretty sure reading that just made me stupider.

anyone know of any good resources to study regional Japanese dialects?

bumping this thread

>>10020878
I guess a fun material to watch and check dialects out would be Hougen Kanojo. I've been wanting to search for downloads of it but I've been too lazy.

https://twitter.com/hougen_kanojo

>>10020878
>>10020905
By the way. They made a crossover with Panasonic and their razor ads if you want to see what it sounds like.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE477D1EBB1CE3036&feature=plcp

bump

i am trying to learn da kanji, whenever i try and learn something, and get it wrong, i find it really easy to remember afterwards. it really helped with my kana.

im currently using Obenkyo and kanji recognizer on my phone

The Katakana section is proving to be even more idiotic. Instead of making this easier for me it's proven to make it even more difficult. Back to Namasensi.

that book seems like utter bullshit

>>10022612
that's right. get yourself a nice website or program that will drill you or test you every day and GO! Learn the kanji through rote learning-despite what some lazy faggots say it's the most effective way to learn anything


I lol'd at some college student rant who was butthurt that after 6 years of learning Japanese at university he knew only 160 kanji. Seriously? how's that even possible?

>>10023486

If you don't know about RTK in 2012...

Back to >>>/a/ newfriend.

>>10019553
well, however you want..but experience thought me that learning through associations is very effective.
but the thing with associations is, every person has different. so that book is total bs.

>>10023516
No, I haven't heard about that before. No, I'm not from /a/. Yes, I am a /jp/ regular. Yes, I am learning Japanese. No, not from that book. No, I'm not going to bother reading it.

>>10023538

You're not a "/jp/ regular" when you're born in 1992 and started visiting in 2011.

The end goal of even RTK is visual recognition of kanji, it just makes it tons easier, and you also have the stories to differentiate between similar looking kanji

>>10023670
>when you're born in 1992

I'm 20 years old and I've been in /jp/ since 2008.

not him by the way.

>>10023670
you expect every regular to have been with /jp/ since the board was created?

>>10023731
btw im a girl

>>10023754
Not him, but I expect every regular to have at least been past several of these "Learn Japanese" threads that eventually get RTK mentioned somewhere at the very least.

It's not like these threads are utterly rare, too.

>>10023670
You are a /jp/ regular when you post here often. Be it 2012, 2010, 2008, it doesn't matter.

>>10023768
I used to skip them since I didn't really try learning Japanese before

just like I skip idol threads now

>>10023770
This is what '12 babies actually believe

>>10023768

Exactly. Ignore the retard from /a/ who doesn't what RTK is.

The other people supporting him are either him samefagging, or other newfriends who are offended because they also start visiting in 2011.

>>10023902

/a/ has daily japanese threads and they mention RTK there all the time, though.

>>10024078
Then maybe he is some sort of redditor or from /v/ that doesn't even know about it.

>>10023902
>Am I fitting in yet, guys?

>>10023718
Right. If I wasn't using mnemonics and I was learning 招 and 拐, I'd just have to think, well in one of them 刀 is on top and in the other it's on bottom, gee I hope I don't get them confused!

So, uh, I'm just curious about what I should be doing. I've been using Kanjidamage's anki deck (horribly outdated I know) for about four months now. I'm about 500 kanji in, but the thing is, I don't "know" kanji like some of the people in this thread do. For instance, I look at, say, 東, and immediately think "Oh, that's East." I don't think "higashi" or "tou".

The thing is, earlier today I was looking at this one manga page, and I'm like "Wait a second, I recognize all but a handful of kanji on this page, and know what they mean, but I don't know what any of the hiragana between them means".

Is there something I should be doing differently in order to learn what those hiragana mean? I get that some of them are okurigana, but I don't understand how I can understand what the rest of the non-okurigana hiragana mean. I'll buy books if I have to (I have PDFs of all three of Heisig's books but have ignored them completely because I do not like the way they're formatted), but I'd rather not fuck things up anymore than I already have.

>>10024714
>>10024486

To illustrate my point and hopefully make more sense, let me show what I do in my head when I see kanji that I recognize.

"Oh, that one on the left is beckon, the one on the right is kidnap. I always get those two mixed up but I remember now that beckon uses summon, which is blade over mouth rather than mouth over blade."

I'm starting to think I'm a hopeless case.

>>10024714
Tae Kim's grammar guide will help you.

>>10024714
>>10024720
Learning the kanji isn't the same as learning vocab. After learning the kanji you will need to grind vocab and learn grammar in order to actually read anything. Kanji are used to write vocabulary words, either alone or in combination, so you need to learn the words that they are used to write. Personally I'd recommend the core 2000 and core 6000 decks for vocabulary. Tae Kim or a textbook is good for grammar.

>>10024734
Basically, think of learning the kanji as a huge hurdle you have to jump over before you can actually get to learning the meat of the language.

>>10024741
Conversely, though, you can learn the kanji simultaneously with vocabulary, but this will increase your workload and be more difficult.

why didnt you do them?

>>10025799
Ill do it Monday, maybe

>>10025799
But I did!

>>10025799
whata fuck man xD

>>10028908
I hat you

Heisig says in the intro "This is to help you recognize kanji, not learn their meanings".

It's really simple, RTK is for people who can't help but see kanji as a bunch of scribbles.

It's supposed to help you out if you're kanji-dyslexic.

If you don't have a problem with recognizing very complex characters then you probably don't need RTK.

>>10028952
Heisig teaches meanings. You mean that he doesn't teach readings (at least in vol. 1). Everything else is correct, though.

>>10029091
Most, if not all of the kanji have more than one meaning, though. Not to mention a kanji may form a part of vocabulary that is totally irrelevant of its meaning. This is why you should only use the meanings given in the book as cues to let you go from the keyword to how it's written and then devote additional time to study vocabulary later on.

>>10028952
That's why I used it. Kanji just looked like a bunch of scribbly lines to me. I needed something to connect the meaning to the way it is written. Heisig worked great. To people with a great visual memory it would indeed be a waste, though.

>267 posts and 23 image replies omitted.

This thread is totally pointless. Is RTK really that bad? It doesn't matter. Even if Google and a million other threads on a million other sites about this exact question didn't exist, it wouldn't matter. Go try RTK. Do you like it? No? Go try something else. Just do fucking Japanese. Stop asking stupid questions. Stop asking if this method is better than that method. It won't be the same for you as everyone else. Who CARES? Just go study Japanese. So many inane questions. So many inane posts. Since OP started this thread, everyone ITT could have made tons of progress in Japanese with ANY method. But no. Fuck actually studying Japanese, we should all gather together online and debate every last inch of every last method until we become really knowledgeable experts on how to learn Japanese except we can't actually speak Japanese ourselves. Goddamnit why are weeaboos so annoying.

>>10029853
I learned 350 kanji since OP made this thread.

>>10029853

The question is not whether you like it or not, though.
The question is whether it is actually putting all that fucking time in it which you could use to learn the characters seriously, with their readings and ordered by usefulness, which will allow you to start reading practice earlier.
And whether so many fucking mnemonics would fuck up your brain and come back to bite you in the ass later.

>>10029867

it is worth it*

>>10029867
And the question has already been answered. If you have trouble remembering and distinguishing the kanji, if they all just look like scribbles to you and you need help with them, them RTK is great and will solve your problem. If you don't need the extra help with the kanji use something else. It's been said over and over.

>>10029867
>And whether so many fucking mnemonics would fuck up your brain and come back to bite you in the ass later.

And it's been stated repeatedly that the mnemonics will eventually drop away. You won't remember them indefinitely (you're not supposed to) but the you will remember the kanji.

a lot of dolts seem to have an unreasonable hatred for this book/method. if you don't like it fine but to go so far as to call it worthless

>>10029878
>>10029893

Well then the thread was not pointless as this guy is saying >>10029853

Since these conclusions were reached, we can say for sure it was a success.

>>10029867

yeah cause like it would've been totally fucking impossible for OP to just google 'remembering the kanji review'

oh wait no, he wanted his friends at /jp/ to reassure him right? JEEZ IF ONLY we had an archive where you could go and see the endless RTK threads we've had over and over again for YEARS. That would be some library of Alexandria shit for real

IF ONLY SUCH AN ARCHIVE EXISTED

IF ONLY.

>>10029905

If only such an archive existed were we could read which 2hu /jp/ is interested in having intercourse with.

>>10029903
>Well then the thread was not pointless as this guy is saying
"All these letter hurt my head" is never an answer.

>>10029867
>you could use to learn the characters seriously, with their readings and ordered by usefulness, which will allow you to start reading practice earlier.

I would have liked to learn that way, but the kanji were too difficult for me. Without Heisig I couldn't have gotten anywhere. I don't think it significantly slowed me down, though, and I think it was certainly learning the characters seriously. I left with the ability to write and recognize all of the jouyou kanji. I just had to learn the readings through vocabulary.

>>10029903
This post is a prime example of what happens when autism overruns a board.

Doing kanjidamage and about these jukugo.

Should I just learn 1 kanji at a time or try to study this stuff too? Seems like it might be too much at once.

>>10031754
Just do the kanji and on-yomi, which should be in the mnemonic. You can learn jukugo and kun-yomi later when doing vocab.

>>10031763
Alright that does sound more manageable. Thank you.