After discussing with some of you, it appears the French version is more comprehensive than the English one, which does not appear to provide stories for all radicals beyond the 500th kanji. I do not own the English version, so I do not know to what extent this is true. If you know French, I would recommend that version. If not, and you do feel stories help you to memorise the radicals, try to come up with your own little stories. All the best to all of you ^0^!
@@johnleake5657 RTK volume one (6th edition) covers 2200 kanji, and volume two covers the same kanji but teaches pronunciation. The third volume covers even more kanji.
I've heard it said that adults have an advantage in learning languages over children and it's that we can read. Learning Jouyou kanji first to get to reading literature faster makes complete sense with that in mind.
The RTK experience has been great for me. Although I cannot remember all of the 2042 kanji, the book really helped me with it's ultimate goal, which is familiarize me with kanji. The book is much more than finding a way to memorize all the kanji you need. It provides you with the skills to get used to kanji, such as Japanese people do.
If you have learned a second language to a pretty good level and want to learn a third language, then I recommend learning that third language FROM your second language. So If your first language is English and your second language is Chinese and let's say you want to learn Japanese. Then get a language learning program or resources that are IN Chinese and teach Japanese through Chinese. This will solidify your second language
Yes, that's good advice. However, in this case, I am content with the French version of the book. There are many cultural references in the book that I perfectly understand and make obvious sense to me as a native French speaker. I mostly use English for pretty much everything in Japanese (or anything else for that matter), which is convenient as there are so many resources in that language to learn Japanese. However, if I were to use Arabic or Dutch to learn Japanese, I would struggle to find the adequate resources for the level I'm at. Not to mention the difficulty of accessing such resources in the aforementioned languages. But generally speaking, you're right. Thank you for your comment!
Why not use a combination of your first and second language? Some resources, such as the book she's talking about in her video, might make more sense for your learning process if you consume it in your first language. If the translators did a good job they will adapt the translations to what the reader is comfortably knowledgeable in already, such as cultural references and common expressions, in order to enable the readers brain to 'click' with the information a lot faster and a lot more efficiently. Although I'm fluent in English, there are still moments I find myself completely stumped when trying to translate Swedish cultural or regional expressions into English. I'll have to consider what would make SENSE for a native English speaker, otherwise it will only be confusing and probably just fly over their heads! And the same goes for such expressions in English to Swedish. Now with that said, sometimes you're simply forced to pick an resource in another language than your first, such is the case for Swedes wanting to learn Japanese. However, I just ordered this book in particular in Swedish. A translation came out this year! All my other resources are in English, and that's fine. But I can definitely see a huge advantage in learning something as complex as Kanji from your first language. It will offload the strain on your brain IMMENSLEY.
You are so right, I do this also as it helps retain what you’ve learned in the second language. The only challenging part is speaking unknowingly in the second or third when you’re trying to speak in English 🤣 🤣
@@typ0id Sure. I'm at 165. It should have been over 200 if the original plan of learning 10 kanji a day was going according to the plan, but I became...busy 😅. I wasn't able to add any new kanji to the anki deck for the past ten days. I didn’t skip any review days though and I also practiced writing them. So, I'm pretty familiar with the 150 or so kanji that I learned. By familiar I mean, I'm able to recognize/recall the keyword associated with the kanji instantly, but I don't know how to read it. This bothered me at first, but I think I shouldn’t be worried about it at this stage. I discovered I'm more likely to remember a word and its meaning if the word is made up with the kanji I'm familiar with. Also, I'm learning Japanese as a hobby and creating a suitable story for every kanji takes some time (Kanji Koohii has been a great help). So, instead of rushing, I think I should go at my own pace. I will be updating when I reach 500 kanji 🙂
I am 14 years old and I started learning Japanese at the beginning of 2021. I have learned the hiragana, katakana, and *basic* sentence structure. I have started learning kanji now and aim to pass the JLPT 5 by the end of November. This video helped a lot thank you!
I finished RTK several times (as in Anki deck, read the actual book only once) and I will tell you this: I only truly started to appreciate the book when I reached high level kanji studying, like 1200 kanji plus, or N1 level. I feel like below that level I can just power through kanji with repetition, if you have a short term goal then this book is not for you. If you want to learn all jouyou kanji ( around 2200 kanji or so) over the course of several years then you will find the time investment to finish RTK (few months usually) is nothing compared to how immensely helpful it will be in the long run. I would also like to recommend Kanji in Context to anyone who finishes RTK to replace placeholder English keywords with actual vocabulary in a systematic way.
The original book, in English, stops giving you made stories by the middle and instead encourages you to create your own personal stories, which will make more sense to you.
I found this to be exciting and i don't kno y? her no-nonsense, straight ahead presentation opened a door in my lil'pea'brain and i suddenly saw how everything we do to learn Japanese fits together. for the first time as a beginner i feel strangely motivated and confident :) Kudo's to Friday Night Plans!
Interesting video, I think I am convinced to give this a try. I came from a totally different "corner", so I will add a few thoughts here: I think when learning a language, motivation is key. That means it might be beneficial to "adapt" your journey a little bit to keep you excited. As for me, I am a "super extrovert" and I love talking with people. On the other hand, I never write anything by hand, apart from some equations and keywords when I give lectures at uni. So for me it made sense to "bang in" the kanas in a day and then just start analyzing grammar and collecting vocabulary. By now I have a pretty good vocabulary and I am able to make even quite complex sentences pretty quickly when speaking, so I can hold fun conversations about most topics pretty well and I do love it a lot. But I have not given the Kanji much love, which is increasingly frustrating me, because I am realizing that even a simple article is often very difficult to read because I just miss so many Kanji. So I am motivated to learn them. Lastly one more comment - if people want to go your way, they need to realize that they are really just learning a huge set of pictures with some /possible/ meaning(s) attached to them. Words (i.p. nouns) are mostly formed with two or more Kanji, which can sometimes take entirely different meanings than the Kanji that comprise them. On top of that, after doing Heisig, you also still have no idea how to pronounce the Kanji, since many have 2 even more different ways of pronouncing them. So essentially you "only" learned a lot of shapes with some primordial meanings to go with them. However, in no way am I saying this is a bad approach to start with Japanese, I find it actually really cool and a bold idea to do it differently. I am just saying, that depending on your goals, the approach may vary to keep up the motivation. In your case, you like drawing and the history that comes with the symbols, making this a really cool experience for sure. I will definitely start now, just coming from a different path. :) Learning the Kana also teaches you a lot about the structure of the language, verb stems make sense and a lot of other things. Since they are so easy to learn, it will take you a day or two max, I might still recommend anyone do that as the very first task. Sorry for the long blah.
Damn, you guys all love to write extensive comments 😂😂 Just kidding. I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to comment here and share your valuable insights. I totally agree with what you said. Because of the way Japanese evolved, many words are made up of radicals that are not related to the meaning of said words. But the opposite is also true. This point is almost a truism. With or without Heisig, you would need to learn kanji (if you want to be able to read Japanese obviously). And in this regard, I'd rather know the basic meaning of each radical and have a mnemonic method to remember them all rather than spend endless hours copying them. I am an introvert and enjoy studying alone. I read and write in Japanese every day. So starting with kanji really helped me a lot. But the points you made are perfeclty correct. However, they do not represent an obstacle to me ^0^ All the best in your endeavour! And thank you for watching! Come back and let me know how it went!
@@nofridaynightplans Thank you for responding to my long blabber. I totally understand how in your case this was a great method to begin your studies. Short update: I started with Heisig immediately, and I can already draw, with correct stroke order (and terrible artistic skills) the first about 50 Kanjis. I see now how you said "it is fun" ... it REALLY is addictive. Most of his (sometimes crazy) memnotics work really well and stick with me like glued on. I never had any ambition to be able to draw Kanji by hand (because I thought it was impossible, even through I have a very good memory generally), but thanks to your video I realized how fun it can be and that it is totally doable. I have added this to my "Japanese quest". I originally got hooked by the Japanese grammar. It's incredibly fascinating to me. But Japanese is the gift that keeps on giving it seems, haha!
Yet, another Great video from "No Friday Night Plans" ! Your explanation of the Japanese writing system and Heisig's method of Kanji acquisition was articulate, well thought out, and fair. Now, when it comes to The Remembering the Kanji trilogy I suffer from 'Survivorship bias' because Heisig's 'divide and conquer' approach to Kanji worked for me where all the other methods kanji acquisition I had tried before failed. Anyway, thank you for sharing your language acquisition journey, adventures, and thoughts!
Thank you for your lovely comment ^.^ I find it interesting that this method works for some and is regarded as the most horrible one by others (you even see it in the comment section of this very video). Heisig has helped me tremendously, especially when it comes to overcoming the strange fear that kanji was three years ago. I can't say I also suffer from this survivorship bias since Heisig was my first method and remains the only one till this day. But I'm happy I found it at the right time, and if this video can help others to find a way, it's even better :)
@@nofridaynightplans In my opinion your video series on RTK wonderfully address the top questions and issues people have or claim to have with RTK. Whenever I need or want to introduce people to RTK I point them to your videos because they are clear and to the point. Now, of course everyone has different learning preferences and goals and therefore RTK isn't going to be the best match for everyone,. There is more than one road to Rome, and what every method one is willing to consistantly commite to is probably the method that will be the most effect method. I speculate that some people's issues with RTK are caused because they didn't actually do RTK. Judging by the question people have about RTK it is clear that they negelected to read the introduction to RTK book one. Other people seemed to have just download a 'recognition remembering the Kanji'(RRTK) anki deck and assumed that they were doing RTK but did not know of Heisig's instructions to only review from Key word to Kanji. Having said that Anki is a great tool to use to review and test one's knowledge of RTK with, but I think it is also to helpful read through the book and to put in a little bit of effort, too. In short I think in a number of cases people didn't actually follow the method that Heisig lays out in this books. Again thank you for your videos on the subject! By the way Heisig was interviewed a few years ago int he Krewe of Japan podcast: krewe-of-japan.simplecast.com/episodes/approaches-to-kanji-the-heisig-method-ft-dr-james-heisig-JLyS5WPs
Thank you for taking the time to elaborate further. I think that what you're suspecting regarding people's issues may very well be true. I did ask several people why the method did not work, but they did not really explain the reason beyond saying they could not remember the stories. I started the book knowing what I was going for. But the introduction did provide further insights, which did make sense to me. It is very possible some people don't actually take the time to read and understand why Heisig took that route. Thank you so much for pointing to my videos when it comes to the RTK method. I really appreciate it. I will make sure to listen to this podcast too!
Peru! That's nice! I used the French version because it was more convenient to me. But the English version is excellent too. Who knows? You might be the one behind the adaptation of the method to a Spanish-speaking audience some day? All the best to you in your endeavour!
What the Heisig handbook provides is a mnemotechnic, i.e. a practical way to remember the general meaning of each Chinese character, NOT a real explanation of the character’s shape and etymology. This is not to be seen as a minus, on the contrary: each “story” is crafted so as to be retained by people who are supposed NOT to know any Japanese or Chinese. If you are a total beginner, it would be of little importance to know that 吾 (one of the many ways to express “I, me”) is formed by the numeral 五 “five” plus the radical 口 “mouth”, which in this case indicates that 五 has a purely phonetic value: in fact, in Chinese 吾 is pronounced _wú_ while 五 is _wǔ_ (same syllable with a different tone). Yes: 吾 has absolutely NO ideographic value whatsoever and trying to extract any mysterious philosophical meaning that can blend “five” and “mouth” into “I, me” is simply wrong from a linguistic point of view. HOWEVER, when you are making your early steps into the frustrating world of Chinese characters, especially if your target language is Japanese and not Chinese, what is the point in forcing you to memorize 吾 as “radical 口 plus phonogram 五”? From a purely pragmatic point of view, the following “analysis” provided by RTK works fine: “The one place in our bodies that all five senses are concentrated in is the head, which has no less than five apertures: 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and 1 mouth. Hence, five mouths = I, me.” -- Remember: it is just for you to create a mental connection between the various components of any new kanji. But be careful to consider RTK’s “stories” anything more than nice tricks: sometimes, especially for pictographs and ideographs, what is in the book does coincide with the character’s real origin, but for most kanji described therein, it doesn’t. Why am I insisting so much if I myself like this book and would personally recommend it? That is because your typical (native) Japanese teacher and/or friend will from time to time come up with very similar creative explanations for kanji that make absolutely no sense when considering their components and the alleged meaning those components should convey when put together. Once you acquire a decent level of knowledge of Japanese and learn more kanji, or review kanji that you originally learned through RTK, you MUST go for the real, scientific analysis: there is plenty of materials online to do so. I remember this Japanese friend of mine, Ms. Hiruta 蛭田: the “hiru” part of her surname, written 蛭, means “leech”, and is formed by the radical 虫 meaning ”insect”, plus 至 meaning “to arrive”. Since childhood, she has been haunted, and a bit scared, by this strange surname, which means “field of the leeches”, but especially she could not figure out what the hell the “arrive” part had to do with a leech! Various teachers had told her the most absurd stories about an insect that “arrives” when you do not expect it, and it sucks your blood; or, that 至 somehow resembles the teeth and the blood drops there are extracting from your body. Pile of BS of course: 蛭 and 至 are both pronounced _zhì_ in Chinese - again, 至 has a purely phonetic value, no meaning in se. You may ask: “Should I learn Chinese first and Japanese later, then, in order to truly appreciate and memorize kanji?” Well, in theory, that is the pattern you should follow to taste the full flavor of this linguistic dish. But if you want to stick to Japanese alone, go ahead, but you may still check a good etymological dictionary, or simply Wiktionary, and learn the true story behind each kanji without having to invent a fake one.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed comment. My answer will most certainly not do it the honour it deserves. I think a line needs to be drawn between learning a language and learning its linguistics. These are two very different things. I myself have studied the English and Arabic languages for years but have very poor knowledge of the underlying linguistics of both languages, even though I studied it a little bit. I do not intend - at least at present- to engage in the linguistics of the Japanese language or the Chinese one for that matter. However, I do understand that RTK is merely a practical method that does not do much to help you understand the underlying historic foundation. I have been learning for less than a year and cannot tell what objectives I will pursue further down the line. Nonetheless, I am perfectly aware that my knowledge of the Chinese characters is superficial at best. But for now, it will do. Thank you again for starting this conversation.
In my copy of RTK (in English), Heisig stops supplying stories at around 500 or so. There will be some stories sprinkled around after that, but for the majority, it is all coming up with you own stories. The creativity boost of coming up with good stories, or using sites such as Kanji.Koohi for when you can't quite come up with one, is helpful in more ways then just learning Kanji!
I see. That's quite surprising as the French version fails to provide stories for only about 10 or so characters. What happens in the English version after the 500th one then...?
@@nofridaynightplans Its just its primitive elements in words: For example: Forget (忘): perish....heart. This is the format for probably 80% of the rest of the book.
@@jbleez4771 I see. That's really odd. The French version is very comprehensive. There are even interesting cultural anecdotes. But good to know! Thanks.
I personally preferred learning kanji as I came across them. So I just studied the kanji that showed up in my novel as they appeared. And then added the kanji from my next novel, and the next. I recently hit 2500 kanji that I can write. But I have a weird background in Japanese. I took it in college for a year, so I already had a basic level of knowledge. Then I restarted learning Japanese at the start of COVID. In the end when I started studying kanji this way I was starting from around 500 known kanji. For me personally I feel like this had some added benefits, like I was able to associate the kanji with vocabulary words from my reading, and I'm much more aware of the phonetic components in the kanji.
Good call. I honestly don't understand why it should be done differently. Ok, maybe to see progress more quickly. But it's actually completely logical. First learn to read and write and then grammar and vocabulary. In primary school, you also learnt the alphabet first in order to be able to read and write. Then grammar and finally vocabulary. I'm still learning new words in my mother tongue. I've always noticed that on holiday. I didn't speak a word of English, French or Italian, but I could understand some of the written language because I could read the words. Association and context then helped me to understand roughly what was written. That's why European children learn English or French relatively easily. Because they can at least read it (even if they don't understand it at first). I came to this realisation without Heisig, but that doesn't fundamentally change the fact that it makes sense. How are you supposed to learn a language if you can't read it? And by "being able to read" I don't mean "understanding", but simply recognising what is written there and being able to look it up if necessary. It's more fun and more sustainable that way. As I said, it's logical in itself, but somehow you forget that as soon as you learn Japanese.
The 取る kanji has a more interesting story than the one you gave in the end. Its original meaning is cutting ear. According to what I read "in ancient China, soldiers cut the ears of the captives as their trophies, but such meaning has been replaced by 聝 or 馘, now 取 means getting or taking." Ancient China was brutal.
So, this is basically the memory palace method. We know that works, because that's how the mnemonists memorize the phone book, etc. The ancient greeks used it to memorize the outlines of the speeches that were preparing to give.
The method was developed based on the idea that memory retention is a matter of visual or auditive stimulus. Thanks for the reference. That's interesting.
Merci beaucoup pour cette vidéo et pour la référence du livre ! Ça fait maintenant plusieurs années que j'ai commencé à apprendre le japonais (depuis le lycée, où j'avais pris japonais en LV2 d'ailleurs), et l'apprentissage des kanjis a toujours été une grande galère pour moi... Je passe mon temps à les oublier, et c'est super frustrant et décourageant à force. On m'a toujours enseigné la méthode "traditionnelle" qui consiste globalement à écrire 10 fois un caractère pour l'apprendre, mais ça ne marche pas du tout sur le long terme... Mes profs disaient parfois qu'il faut apprendre et oublier 7 fois un caractère pour finalement le retenir, donc dans ma tête je me disais qu'il n'y a pas ~2000 kanjis à apprendre mais 14 000 en réalité haha Enfin toujours est-il que je vais me procurer le livre et découvrir par moi-même cette méthode qui semble miraculeuse !! J'ai juste l'objectif de passer le JLPT N3 l'année prochaine pour le moment, donc ça devrait aller on espère :)
Bonjour ! Merci pour ton commentaire. Je suis ravie que cela ait pu t'aider. J'espère sincèrement que cette méthode fonctionnera pour toi. Tiens-moi au courant de ton avancement ! Ça me ferait plaisir. Courage !
i start learning japanese in 2019. but then stopped because i lose motivation. this year i am starting again and yes i already understand hiragana and basic grammar but kanji is a very challenging part (TдT)
@@nofridaynightplans yes I will !!!! I want to learn Kanji real bad. I am a Japanese leaner like you but the only difference is you've mastered many kanji whereas I slack offf on thst so yeah
@@keerthanas4144 I really recommend the book mentionned in the video. I've been interested in Japanese culture for as long as I can remember. But I always put off learning the language because of kanji. Now... I am so in love with kanji that I used it to create a map of Japan. 😂 And there's not a single day I'm not writing something in kanji... I absolutely adore it! Thank God for Heisig's method!
@@nofridaynightplans yes and thanks to you I know how to start off with Kanji and I will be buying the book if possible after my exams . Hope I'd be able to learn Kanji like youu
What is the french title of "Remembering the Kanji"? I got interested in it when I had known it has more stories for almost all kanji than English version.
¡Muchas gracias por tu vídeo! Justamente estoy aprendiendo japonés con Genki (en inglés) pero resulta súper molesto lo poco que avanzo con la lectura debido a los Kanjis. Viendo tu video me motivé y compré Remembering the Kanji pero en español, espero poder avanzar más rápido que con wanikani. ¡Saludos desde Chile!
¡Gracias por tu comentario! Puedo entender el español escrito sin demasiados problemas, pero no puedo hablarlo. ¡Espero que puedas avanzar más rápido con Remembering the Kanji!
Did you learn it without Anki or another SRS? I'm at 400 mark, changed the order a couple times, tried Kanji GOD addon, tried RRTK deck (but with writing), and decided to go back to classic RTK.
Hi. At the time, I did not know about ANKI. I used the method I presend in "How I practice kanji" ^.^ I think ANKI is good to help you to revise the stories on a regular basis.
I'm at a serious crossroads with beginning Kanji. I got through both the Kanas with ease, and I can read them fairly well. However, with Kanji, I picked up RTK and was instantly at a loss, because of no pronunciation of the Kanji. So I looked online, and became overwhelmed "RTK is outdated. Use my method instead!" "I did this and learned fine, but it took me 20 months" "Dont bother reading the Kanji just learn vocab" etc. etc. My issue with RTK is as I said before, lack of pronunciation, but also the stories written, I tend to ignore. I thought they were useful in his Kana book, but I just ignored them after they came convoluted and somewhat bizarre. You think I should still go through the book, perhaps finding a place to see the way it is said (minus On/Kun and just general speech) as well as writing it and learning the Heisig way? I hope this message makes sense. Thank you.
Hi! Thank you for your message. It is difficult for me to recommend anything because we all have different goals and we also do not all learn the same way. RTK worked for me because I like mnemonic tricks and it is fairly easy for me to remember the stories. Also, I am not bothered with the lack of pronunciation because one kanji can be pronounced a lot of different ways. I think I would have been overwhelmed if I had had to go through memorising all the radicals as well as as their many pronunciations. I focused on kanji during the first 5 months and then decided to learn Japanese in context through stories (check the latest video if what I'm saying doesn't make sense). I cannot decide for you what method is based. I'm just sharing mine with you so that you can make an informed decision as my method might help some of you to a certain extent. I hope this makes sense.
@@nofridaynightplans Thanks for the reply, I understand you can't decide for me, I just needed a second opinion of sorts lol. I spoke to several others, and they said its good to learn them in context, and I think I agree. I will follow the RTK method as best I can, it may be considered "slow" and useless to those Japanese language marketers on this website, but it seems to work for everyone else.
Where could I purchase that awesome book? It happens that my mother tongue is also French and I’d be pleased to know kanji since it’s the last step for me to be able to read Japanese!
Hey, I have the book as well and there is "only" the meaning for each kanji and I dont know if I should learn pronounciation at the same time. Thank you
Hey, thank you for your comment. I first learnt the meanings of the radicals before moving on to actually learning the language. I learnt the readings (Chinese and Japanese) as I progressed. I cannot advice one way against the other. You have to choose what best works for you. Reading the comments in this section, you'll see people have different opinions: some did as I did, others picked another route. It's not a one-size-fits-all type of thing. I personally would have felt overwhelmed if I had had to learn the readings of the characters and the meanings at the same time. So this method really worked well for me :)
Hi... I'm Italian man is available this book in Italian lenguage too, where I can to buy that's book? Maybe you reply me whit a link? Thank you very much for your help
Hi, Luca. Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, I could not find an Italian version of the book. A Spanish version exists. But it seems like the method has not yet been adapted to the Italian public. You will have to go for the English version, I'm afraid.
Thanks a lot for this. I will try the same approach. You said it took five month. How many hours of weekly practice on average? Thanks! PS Your calm presentation is refreshing. :)
Thank you for your comment 😊 Much appreciated. I did not count in hours. I explain it in greater detail in the “How I plan for LL” video, but I never use the time variable to ensure progress - I rather use the “task variable”. My task was “learning 2 double pages a day”. It's a much more tangible target and that's very important for me. At first, it was only one double page of the French version of the book. But at some point, it started getting easier (you understand the logic of the method and the radicals, so you gain pace). I’m a slow reader, so for me reading 30 minutes a day would not lead to progress at a pace I find suitable for my intended target. I rather tell myself “I’m going to read 4 pages of Umiga Kikoeru” (the Japanese novel I’m reading at present) every day. This helps me significantly more than the time variable. I did the same for RTK. It took me 5 months, but others told me they did it in a shorter amount of time. Yet, for some, it’ll take longer. And that’s fine. We’re all different. If this method works for you (I do hope it will 😉), you need to find your own pace and stick to your target, no matter what (well don’t put too much pressure on yourself though - learning should be a fun and rewarding lifelong journey). I wish you the best in your endeavour - and thank you again for your lovely comment.
eh idk about learning kanji before learning JP and the claim that it’s “faster and more comfortable” to read original texts. You can learn the readings and meanings of kanji as part of words and you can simultaneously begin reading. You’ll also immerse and grasp grammar sooner. Learning them as part of words is def faster at reading than learning the individual kanji components. And you can just look up the radicals when you’re learning kanji as part of words and make those stories for yourself like you mentioned (which is similar to what I did). For example someone who memorized doubutsu as a word vs you who’s learned the kanji can probably come to the same conclusion that it means animal - except you’d spend time ascertaining the meaning and reading from the kanji. Your advantage is that if both readers come across a word you don’t know you’d probably figure out the meaning and reading. This is pretty much a non issue since you should be using a dictionary when reading text anyway. Even then, As for the last example, if the reader can recognize the kanji from other words they learned they may also figure out the meaning which makes learning kanji first moot. I mean I never formally learned kanji and I’m doing fine at reading. I only really trip up when I see names but you can also just use a name dictionary as well
Hi! Thank you for your comment. Well, as I stated in the video, for me, it was not only about reading. I also wanted to know how to write kanji (actually, I had never envisaged the possibility of not knowing how to write them until I met someone who told me they only knew how to read them -how silly of me lol). I also explained that I delayed learning Japanese because of kanji. So this was a big chunk of the learning I wanted to have a proper command of, naturally. This method has helped me beyond what I could have expected. Now it is very rare for me to come across a kanji I have never seen before. It does happen of course. Like in this word: 耄碌しい. But for the most part, I instantly recognize them and can understand the meaning without much trouble. Let’s take this word as example: 喫茶店. I instantly understood its meaning upon reading it for the first time. The first kanji means consumption, the second means tea while the last one means a place for business. So I thought that it must mean “café” or something. I am not trying to sell false expectations. I have heard people say the Heisig method did not work for them. We’re all different and I understand that what works for some doesn’t work for others. I have tried the “GENKI” method several times. I failed at moving beyond chapter 1 every time while others only go by this method. I have found a method that works for me. And learning all JK first is a big part of it. I would never have thought I’d be able to read manga only 10 months after starting out 😊 The bottom line is: find what works for you based on the goals you’re pursing. Don’t blindly trust what I’m saying since I’m only speaking for myself.
@@nofridaynightplans wb chikan or sanka? I def wouldn’t be able to confidently ascertain the meaning from the heisig keywords. im just splitting at straws here anyway. my other issue is that non joyo kanji is an arbitrary guideline for consuming content since you’ll see stuff like momu pop up a lot which is non JK which heisig doesn’t teach. as for the kissaten example that’s probably how it would go for most words you don’t recognize but that’s the same for me I see cha and I see mise and I see manzoku and i come up with tea shop. not exactly cafe but they’ll probably use coffee katakana and I’ll be like “ah cafe then” or they’ll just introduce the name of the shop as “Cafe xyz” i think if ur wanting to learn how to write then independent kanji studying is king but as for someone like me who just wants to consume native content asap then RTK takes too long. i do appreciate the distinction you made between “learning kanji” and “learning JP” since RTK doesn’t teach you Japanese. we’ll just one minor issue you don’t “learn” kanji from RTK. RTK just teaches pattern recognition in associating a picture and a meaning. i don’t think u’ve truly “learned” a kanji until you know what words use it and the most common readings which RTK does not teach. not trying to be pedantic but I think “learn” gives the wrong impression. the quickest way to learn Japanese is to actually start consuming Japanese content asap and you can jumpstart that by learning words and reading as you go which is faster than the time it would take you to RTK and then read. thx for the response as well 🙏
@@Diaryofaninja Well as I said, I have found something that works for me. I started studying Japanese 10 months ago. I'm happy with how it's going for now. In a few years time, I might consider what I've said in this video is pure rubbish. We'll see. All the best to you.
@@nofridaynightplans im not criticizing ur method if the intention was also to write. or give unsolicited advice. im js that the claim that I described in my OC I believe to be false. the best way to read comfortably and faster is to read earlier and read more. something which you seem to reiterate and agree with in ur new vid. i think w/how RTK is structured most people tend to read after after completion which can take 2-5 months. which brings me to the other thing I mentioned if u learn vocabulary first u can acquire grammar alongside and begin reading almost immediately
@@Diaryofaninja It's cool. You're free to criticise my method. 😆 It's obvious we all make mistakes when studying a language. I'm not immune to that. But It's okay. That's part of the learning experience too ^0^ So far, everything is going way better than I would ever have expected. Thank you for watching and feel free to jump in here and share your thoughts any time.
even i have bought the book, but i dont understand where to start because, this book only teaches meanings, but how can one learn the pronunciations?? plz help!, like if i set a goal of 10 kanji a day, should i learn 10 kanji with pronounciations or just the meaning??
Wow. Relax bro! Everything's gonna be alright ^0^. The book does not tackle pronunciation. The purpose is only to provide the meaning of each radical and teach you how to write them. That's a big chunk of the learning I wanted to get away with before starting learning the language per se. The author explains in the book that there's no point teaching pronunciaton as each kanji has different pronunciations depending on the word it appears in. The best is to learn in context, as others explained in the comment section. I talk about it in this video th-cam.com/video/oab1kx9T8kc/w-d-xo.html Don't worry. It's gonna be fine!
@@nofridaynightplans ohk just saw the video you linked me with, really helped me, now i am clear, i must learn the meanings first,and for reading i must use furigana!btw thankyou for your help!!
@@cosmoshorts1835 You're very welcome. However, please note this is a method I used and that worked for me. If you go through the comments, you'll see some said they used other methods. Bottom line is: please choose a method that aligns with your goals :) All the best in your endeavour!
@@cosmoshorts1835 you can always do both at the same time. Learn the hiragana and katakana (it's super convenient to know these), while also putting time into learning to write and read kanji. I'd advise to avoid the use of romaji as much as possible. Learn the hiragana and katakana properly! I've personally only randomly picked up Kanji's so far, mostly via writing Japanese words with hiragana/katakana into google translate to get pronunciations for specific words I'm interested in learning. They display the kanji there too, and it's simple enough then to just google the stroke order for that kanji. This also teaches your ears and brain to pay attention to pitch differences in how you say a word, as that can change the meaning of it (the Japanese word for cute is such an example, how you pronounce it will change it's meaning. It can also mean scary). It'll also teach you what sounds might be typically silent. (You'll get quicker and quicker with getting pronunciations correct the first time around, the more you pay attention to pronunciations. Our brains are fantastic at pattern recollection). Installing a Japanese keyboard on your smartphone is GOLDEN. I can recommend the channels Olly Richards and Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve for language learning strategies, tips, techniques and information about how to approach learning languages, and then the channel Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com for Japanese specifically.
@@Telindra i learnt the hiragana and katakana,and even did a few chapters of genki 1, and for now i am learning 10 kanji everyday from remembering the kanji, and about the pronounciations, idk what am i going to do, but thanks for some info, it looks like you put a lot of time in your answer, thankyou so much for taking out the time!
Hi. Are you talking specifically about Japanese? If so, I made a video about how I study Japanese. It's quite detailed. If you're talking about planning, I also made a video about it. But I don't really "plan" using a specific schedule - doesn't quite work for me. As for habits, I intend to make a more general video about that in the future. But the two I mentionned above are already quite comprehensive.
If I may suggest this page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_29. You can read the following paragrah: The radical character 又's ancient form is a pictogram of a right hand from which the modern Chinese character 右 (right) was derived. Though 又 (again) as a modern Chinese character no longer represents the meaning of "right", the implication of "hand" is preserved in some Chinese characters fall under radical 29. Thank you for your comment though.
Since it is Wikipedia, I thought another source might be worth searching: beyond-calligraphy.com/2011/06/26/kanji-1888/ You will find the same explanation.
Hello! Thank you for your comment. I started with one double page a day till maybe the 500th character. Then I got so used to the method, I started to do 2 double pages a day. Bear in mind this book is not about momorising characters, it's about learning through stories with mnemonic tricks ;)
I don't get how people can say they know the Kanji when the book does not give you the readings.. so if you came across a word using 2 Kanji you know, maybe u get the meaning of a word but you don't know how to say the word. I don't get it
Bonjour. Merci pour ton commentaire ^.^. Je ne comprends pas ce que tu veux dire. Le livre reprend les jouyou kanji tels qu'on les retrouve dans n'importe quel livre. Personnellement, je n'ai aucun problème à étudier le japonais à présent que je les connais tous. J'ai même commencé à lire des livres... ^.^
@@CenterHighSystems En effet, le livre n’enseigne que les radicaux - objet de mon étude à l’époque. Quant aux définitions, l’auteur explique qu’elles sont vagues à dessein car les Japonais n’apprennent pas de « définitions » mais des concepts. Raison pour laquelle « 脱 » apparaîtra dans les verbes comme « déshabiller » ou « s’évader », lesquels, en français (ou en anglais d’ailleurs), sont sémantiquement différents. En japonais, à l’inverse, on y entendra davantage une idée, à savoir, ici, celle de « sortir d’où l’on se trouvait précédemment ».
Interesting video but, if you allow me to respectfully point out, I can see many problems with your approach as someone who has learned over 6000 Kanji and passed the Kanji Kentei level Pre 1 already and is aiming to pass the level 1 in December this year. Notwithstanding your achievement and effort, a shortcut is always a shortcut, often making it longer in the long run. You mentioned at the time of recording this video that you still have difficulty reading hiragana and katakana which you deprioritised for no logical reason. That means you must struggle to consult a dictionary as to the pronunciation of a new Kanji character as well as with the reading of upwards of 50% of written matter, given that both scripts appear that frequently and without them sentences are truly incomplete in meaning (e.g., hiragana-based okurigana and conjugation terminations which appear in nearly every sentence and katakana loan words which are also very frequent). Then you used a method of learning that completely ignores kunyomi (native Japanese) and onyomi (middle Chinese) pronunciations of which there are often 2-5 each per Kanji character. This is roughly the equivalent of learning how to write all nouns, adjectives, and adverbs for a new language, but not learning or knowing how to properly write or read any verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and the like! For those viewers here wondering as to the robustness of your approach, yes, each Kanji can be read in anything between 1 to 10 different ways, if not more in rare cases. An example would be "生" which has a total of 12 different readings in onyomi, including "sei," "shou," "sheng," "jo," and "nama," among others. It also has 10 different readings in kunyomi, including "ikiru," "ikasu," "umare," and "ki," among others. Sometimes one symbol will mean more than one thing too, as in the case of the last example, if you take the "nama" reading then it means "raw", and if you use the "umare" reading, then it means birth. Go and create "n" number of "round" stories to fit a "square" Kanji hole! I truly wonder how you read Kanji when you don't know which reading the combination of Kanji characters correspond to in order to form words, or yojijukugo, or long chains of Kanji-only characters forming proper names of people, long-established institutions or concepts. One example of a typical yojijukugo is "四面楚歌" (shimen sokka), which means "surrounded by enemies on all sides." Try to learn it using your preferred methodology and you will see that short of engaging in some real mental gymnastics you will not find any convenient shortcut or story to reading, writing, or understanding it. With the Heisig method you'd be reading this as "four", "side" (of a building, etc.), "switch" (as in switch from one side to the other), and "song", respectively! Coming to proper names that trip people up, let's take the case of Masaru (勝) which is a common Japanese given name for boys, one which is often misread as "Katsu" (勝) or "Masashi" (正). Also if you struggle with hiragana in particular, then you would struggle with furigana (tiny superscripted reading cues in hiragana often accompanying complex printed kanji) as well, which means you will struggle to read sentences at normal speed without completely misreading Kanji combinations (words, idioms, proper names, etc.) which you are unfamiliar with. If you are not convinced yet, then try reading "Keio University" (慶應義塾大学) (Keio Gijuku Daigaku) without furigana and you might end up reading it as "Kougyou Daigaku" (工業大学), which means "industrial university". The deeper you get into the language the more of these faux pas you will make since you only know how to read 2000 odd Kanji and in real life you will see around 5000 or so depending on what you read and watch. Most Japanese and experienced students won't know how to write these surplus Kanji but they would know how to read the frequently appearing ones (e.g., 憂鬱 "yuutsu" meaning depression, 薔薇 "bara" meaning rose, and 嘘 "uso" meaning lie, etc.). Now, just imagine the nightmare of taking dictation and trying to write the correct kanji based just on sounds with this method! So, in essence, you've learned to draw about 2,000 similar-looking characters - given that there are only a few truly-recurring radicals - without any truly applicable utility. I believe that the Heisig method is not bad if used as part of a holistic learning of the language which simultaneously develops reading, listening, speaking, and writing abilities. What you've done, albeit interesting, is going to be more harmful to you in the long run, in my opinion, when you will have to retroactively populate your knowledge of known characters with as yet unknown kunyomi and onyomi readings in your mind in a 10:1 retrofit! I think that will confuse you no end especially given that many Kanji respond to the same exact sound too among themselves but mean totally different things. In fact, wait till you encounter homonyms and antonyms! The complexity is made more obvious when you realise that of the 50,000 odd known Kanji, about 6,000 form the academic vocabulary, and between 2,000 and 3,000 form the high school to university graduate vocabulary. But, there are over 500,000 words in the Japanese language (as are there in English, and French, and so on because the number has to do with known concepts, loaned or inherent), and while you don't have to know all of them, at least a fraction of them will be necessary to truly use the Japanese language, and you will find that they are not always made of single Kanji characters. And when they appear, including the rarer ones, they will not always have associated furigana to help you read them (e.g., take a Japanese newspaper or website or a novel and see for yourself). Also, wait till you come across man'yogana and ateji words which are the phonetic Kanji that have nothing to do with any concepts you can imagine or stories you can tell and see if that doesn't confuse you. A case in point would be most words of Buddhist origin and even numerous common words like tempura "天麩羅" which your method would induce you to read as “heaven wheat light fabric”! Ok! Fine! In the case of tempura, if push came to shove with this method, a case could be made for lightly battered tasty morsels as the weird literal translation I gave just now but the kanji won’t look like the food itself as three of them make up the name of one item. Another common example would be 烏賊 (ika) - This is the Japanese word for "squid," but the kanji characters used, 烏 and 賊, have no real meaning and were chosen purely for their phonetic value, unless you take their transliterated meaning of “crow resentment” to picture a squid in your mind! How about 菩薩 (bosatsu)? This is a term used in Mahayana Buddhism to refer to a bodhisattva, a being who has attained enlightenment but chooses to remain in the world to help others achieve transcendence. The kanji characters used, 菩 and 薩, have no real meaning and were chosen purely for their phonetic value unless you think “lime tree sweet potato” are particularly spiritual! And if you are thinking that these are isolated examples, then I am sorry to disappoint you that they are not! Anyway, what can I say. Interesting experiment all the same. Trully bizarre but curious nonetheless. This is one of the emerging dilemmas of the internet. It allows unresearched experiments like this to risk derailing the learning efforts of thousands of others (going by how many have viewed and liked your video) where they might be better served with a disclaimer that clearly states the learning objectives of those who profess magic methodologies. If you want to test your drawing ability then go ahead, but if you want to learn a language and truly communicate, then please don't take appealing shortcuts. I don’t want to dissuade anyone by highlighting the complexity of Japanese that trending influencers inadvertently undermine in favour of monetisable traffic. All languages are difficult. I am an Italian speaker and I learned English and Japanese, but I applied the time and effort that both languages deserved. In fact, both languages were easy in the end provided a sensible approach was used in the place of hacks and trickery. Thanks for sharing. Perhaps you should learn German next by first memorising all the words in the dictionary!
Wow for once someone has written a truly informative and researched post. Thank you! I've been meaning to learn chinese and japanese for a while now and when I saw this video I was really excited... but yopuve made me think twice need to research more! tx bro
Sure, language learning (or anything for that matter) is not a one-size-fits-all. Finding what works for you is the only thing that matters, really. I'd be interested to understand what you don't like about it though (out of curiosity - if you care to share at all).
You make it sound like this video of yours would simply be made to show off a purported achievement. I, however, made this video to help people who, like me, are looking for a practical way to learn kanji and show them that such a way exists. This method does not work for everybody but it sure does for quite a few people. I have no doubt that people couldn't care less about my achievements. And I'm happy to consider it'll remain so. Your comment is the epitome of the narcissistic obsessions of our age. How regrettable.
I think it is a big mistake to be so obsessed with kanji. Kanjis are nothing more than letters of the alphabet. Even if you could memorize all the kanjis in existence you still wouldn't be able to speak Japanese. For example, simply because you have memorized all 26 letters of the alphabet doesn't mean you can speak English. That is because you need words, not letters, to speak the language. First and foremost you need to memorize words. In Japanese, words are a combination of one or more kanjis, hiragana and katakana. But each individual kanji usually means nothing. You cannot use individual kanjis to make a sentence. For example 契約 is one single word made of 2 kanjis, it is pronounced as "keiyaku" and means "contract". But trying to memorize each individual kanji makes absolutely no sense. It is almost impossible to infer the meaning of the word by looking at the kanji alone. I myself have never tried to memorize kanji. To this day I still don't know how to write kanji. But I have no problems reading newspapers, books or magazines. I believe it is a waste of time trying to memorize kanji. The best way of learning a language, any language, is by reading a lot. I started studying Japanese by reading magazines that had furigana, so consulting the dictionary was easy. I never tried to memorize anything, my goal was always to try to understand the text. And I don't try to memorize anything, my goal is always to try to understand the text that I am reading. So I have never used Anki or any kind of flashcards. I see many people on TH-cam trying to memorize kanji. But memorizing kanji is IMPOSSIBLE. What does that even mean? What do you mean exactly by memorizing kanji? Even Japanese people don't memorize kanji. Memorizing kanji is impossible and unnecessary. Kanji is not a replacement for vocabulary. Kanji and vocabulary are two different things. Kanji alone will not allow you to speak the language. Kanji needs to be studied as part of vocabulary. Vocabulary is simply the memorization of words. For each word you need to memorize the meaning, pronunciation and spelling. The effort for memorizing a word is exactly the same for ANY WORD IN ANY LANGUAGE. That means that Japanese is as difficult as any other language. There is nothing special about Japanese. And the spelling is simple. Most kanjis are just a combination of simpler kanjis. If you know how to write the simple kanjis, complex kanjis become easy. But some people seem to think they need to memorize kanji first and vocabulary later. That is a huge mistake that will cost years of their lives. You don't need to know the meaning of each individual kanji, or the on-yomi or kun-yomi. You can learn the etymology of kanji if you are curious, but that will not help you learn the language.
Damn, I was really surprised when you said that French is your native language, I mean you can't hear anything about your accent indicating you are French.
I'm a native speaker of French but English has been part of my everyday life since I started learning it at 14. Tbh, I think there's room for improvement 😂
You need to work a looot on pronunciation. 90% Japanese will not even be able to recognise that you are speaking in Japanese. So what's the use of knowing all joyou kanji?
If there's no use, why are you watching a video about all JK? 😅😅C'mon bro. Let's remain positive! We all have different objectives in our learning- which is fine. I'm happy with JK. You happy with pronunciation only. That's good. No need to hinder progress with funky thoughts.
After discussing with some of you, it appears the French version is more comprehensive than the English one, which does not appear to provide stories for all radicals beyond the 500th kanji. I do not own the English version, so I do not know to what extent this is true.
If you know French, I would recommend that version. If not, and you do feel stories help you to memorise the radicals, try to come up with your own little stories. All the best to all of you ^0^!
Hello, I wanted to know if it also teaches you all the readings or if it only teaches the meanings.
@@ramonsuter7435 Hello. Please check the other video about RTK on the channel. It answers all these questions.
As I understand it, the English one - at least later editions - is divided into three books, so presumably volume one covers the first 500 words.
@@johnleake5657 RTK volume one (6th edition) covers 2200 kanji, and volume two covers the same kanji but teaches pronunciation. The third volume covers even more kanji.
I've heard it said that adults have an advantage in learning languages over children and it's that we can read. Learning Jouyou kanji first to get to reading literature faster makes complete sense with that in mind.
That's the logic I have in mind. If you mix methods for adults and kids, it's even better.
The RTK experience has been great for me. Although I cannot remember all of the 2042 kanji, the book really helped me with it's ultimate goal, which is familiarize me with kanji. The book is much more than finding a way to memorize all the kanji you need. It provides you with the skills to get used to kanji, such as Japanese people do.
If you have learned a second language to a pretty good level and want to learn a third language, then I recommend learning that third language FROM your second language. So If your first language is English and your second language is Chinese and let's say you want to learn Japanese. Then get a language learning program or resources that are IN Chinese and teach Japanese through Chinese. This will solidify your second language
Yes, that's good advice. However, in this case, I am content with the French version of the book. There are many cultural references in the book that I perfectly understand and make obvious sense to me as a native French speaker. I mostly use English for pretty much everything in Japanese (or anything else for that matter), which is convenient as there are so many resources in that language to learn Japanese. However, if I were to use Arabic or Dutch to learn Japanese, I would struggle to find the adequate resources for the level I'm at. Not to mention the difficulty of accessing such resources in the aforementioned languages.
But generally speaking, you're right. Thank you for your comment!
Why not use a combination of your first and second language? Some resources, such as the book she's talking about in her video, might make more sense for your learning process if you consume it in your first language. If the translators did a good job they will adapt the translations to what the reader is comfortably knowledgeable in already, such as cultural references and common expressions, in order to enable the readers brain to 'click' with the information a lot faster and a lot more efficiently.
Although I'm fluent in English, there are still moments I find myself completely stumped when trying to translate Swedish cultural or regional expressions into English. I'll have to consider what would make SENSE for a native English speaker, otherwise it will only be confusing and probably just fly over their heads! And the same goes for such expressions in English to Swedish.
Now with that said, sometimes you're simply forced to pick an resource in another language than your first, such is the case for Swedes wanting to learn Japanese. However, I just ordered this book in particular in Swedish. A translation came out this year! All my other resources are in English, and that's fine. But I can definitely see a huge advantage in learning something as complex as Kanji from your first language. It will offload the strain on your brain IMMENSLEY.
True! You're right! Using the 2nd language to learn the 3rd language in order to keep it (2nd language) active while acquiring the 3rd one! 😉😁😎
You are so right, I do this also as it helps retain what you’ve learned in the second language. The only challenging part is speaking unknowingly in the second or third when you’re trying to speak in English 🤣 🤣
I speak Brazilian Portuguese as my first language and I'm currently studyng Japanese through English texts and videos (my second language)
Well, I started my journey today and I'm planning on learning 10 new kanji a day. It should take around 7 months. Let's see how it goes 😅.
Have fun! Keep at it and you'll see it's well worth it!
Update? Hows it going so far?
@@typ0id Sure. I'm at 165. It should have been over 200 if the original plan of learning 10 kanji a day was going according to the plan, but I became...busy 😅.
I wasn't able to add any new kanji to the anki deck for the past ten days. I didn’t skip any review days though and I also practiced writing them. So, I'm pretty familiar with the 150 or so kanji that I learned. By familiar I mean, I'm able to recognize/recall the keyword associated with the kanji instantly, but I don't know how to read it.
This bothered me at first, but I think I shouldn’t be worried about it at this stage. I discovered I'm more likely to remember a word and its meaning if the word is made up with the kanji I'm familiar with.
Also, I'm learning Japanese as a hobby and creating a suitable story for every kanji takes some time (Kanji Koohii has been a great help). So, instead of rushing, I think I should go at my own pace. I will be updating when I reach 500 kanji 🙂
Hows it going now
I am 14 years old and I started learning Japanese at the beginning of 2021. I have learned the hiragana, katakana, and *basic* sentence structure. I have started learning kanji now and aim to pass the JLPT 5 by the end of November. This video helped a lot thank you!
All the best to you in your endeavour!
@@nofridaynightplans Thank you 💙💙💙
how do you learn kanji my man, like did you learn kanji with thier pronunciation or just meanings, because even i intend to pass JLPT
and btw even i am around your age i am 15
@@cosmoshorts1835 I take notes on how all of the pronunciations are used and what they mean. Like your videos btw I subscribed
Your English is crazy good you sound like a native!
Thank you for your lovely comment ^.^ I think I have a good ear when it comes to English at least. 🙂
I finished RTK several times (as in Anki deck, read the actual book only once) and I will tell you this:
I only truly started to appreciate the book when I reached high level kanji studying, like 1200 kanji plus, or N1 level. I feel like below that level I can just power through kanji with repetition, if you have a short term goal then this book is not for you.
If you want to learn all jouyou kanji ( around 2200 kanji or so) over the course of several years then you will find the time investment to finish RTK (few months usually) is nothing compared to how immensely helpful it will be in the long run.
I would also like to recommend Kanji in Context to anyone who finishes RTK to replace placeholder English keywords with actual vocabulary in a systematic way.
The original book, in English, stops giving you made stories by the middle and instead encourages you to create your own personal stories, which will make more sense to you.
I found this to be exciting and i don't kno y? her no-nonsense, straight ahead presentation opened a door in my lil'pea'brain and i suddenly saw how everything we do to learn Japanese fits together. for the first time as a beginner i feel strangely motivated and confident :) Kudo's to Friday Night Plans!
I'm delighted to read that :) All the best in your endeavour ;)
Interesting video, I think I am convinced to give this a try. I came from a totally different "corner", so I will add a few thoughts here: I think when learning a language, motivation is key. That means it might be beneficial to "adapt" your journey a little bit to keep you excited. As for me, I am a "super extrovert" and I love talking with people. On the other hand, I never write anything by hand, apart from some equations and keywords when I give lectures at uni. So for me it made sense to "bang in" the kanas in a day and then just start analyzing grammar and collecting vocabulary. By now I have a pretty good vocabulary and I am able to make even quite complex sentences pretty quickly when speaking, so I can hold fun conversations about most topics pretty well and I do love it a lot. But I have not given the Kanji much love, which is increasingly frustrating me, because I am realizing that even a simple article is often very difficult to read because I just miss so many Kanji. So I am motivated to learn them. Lastly one more comment - if people want to go your way, they need to realize that they are really just learning a huge set of pictures with some /possible/ meaning(s) attached to them. Words (i.p. nouns) are mostly formed with two or more Kanji, which can sometimes take entirely different meanings than the Kanji that comprise them. On top of that, after doing Heisig, you also still have no idea how to pronounce the Kanji, since many have 2 even more different ways of pronouncing them. So essentially you "only" learned a lot of shapes with some primordial meanings to go with them. However, in no way am I saying this is a bad approach to start with Japanese, I find it actually really cool and a bold idea to do it differently. I am just saying, that depending on your goals, the approach may vary to keep up the motivation. In your case, you like drawing and the history that comes with the symbols, making this a really cool experience for sure. I will definitely start now, just coming from a different path. :) Learning the Kana also teaches you a lot about the structure of the language, verb stems make sense and a lot of other things. Since they are so easy to learn, it will take you a day or two max, I might still recommend anyone do that as the very first task. Sorry for the long blah.
Damn, you guys all love to write extensive comments 😂😂
Just kidding. I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to comment here and share your valuable insights. I totally agree with what you said. Because of the way Japanese evolved, many words are made up of radicals that are not related to the meaning of said words. But the opposite is also true.
This point is almost a truism. With or without Heisig, you would need to learn kanji (if you want to be able to read Japanese obviously). And in this regard, I'd rather know the basic meaning of each radical and have a mnemonic method to remember them all rather than spend endless hours copying them.
I am an introvert and enjoy studying alone. I read and write in Japanese every day. So starting with kanji really helped me a lot. But the points you made are perfeclty correct. However, they do not represent an obstacle to me ^0^
All the best in your endeavour! And thank you for watching! Come back and let me know how it went!
@@nofridaynightplans Thank you for responding to my long blabber. I totally understand how in your case this was a great method to begin your studies. Short update: I started with Heisig immediately, and I can already draw, with correct stroke order (and terrible artistic skills) the first about 50 Kanjis. I see now how you said "it is fun" ... it REALLY is addictive. Most of his (sometimes crazy) memnotics work really well and stick with me like glued on. I never had any ambition to be able to draw Kanji by hand (because I thought it was impossible, even through I have a very good memory generally), but thanks to your video I realized how fun it can be and that it is totally doable. I have added this to my "Japanese quest". I originally got hooked by the Japanese grammar. It's incredibly fascinating to me. But Japanese is the gift that keeps on giving it seems, haha!
Yet, another Great video from "No Friday Night Plans" !
Your explanation of the Japanese writing system and Heisig's method of Kanji acquisition was articulate, well thought out, and fair. Now, when it comes to The Remembering the Kanji trilogy I suffer from 'Survivorship bias' because Heisig's 'divide and conquer' approach to Kanji worked for me where all the other methods kanji acquisition I had tried before failed.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your language acquisition journey, adventures, and thoughts!
Thank you for your lovely comment ^.^
I find it interesting that this method works for some and is regarded as the most horrible one by others (you even see it in the comment section of this very video).
Heisig has helped me tremendously, especially when it comes to overcoming the strange fear that kanji was three years ago.
I can't say I also suffer from this survivorship bias since Heisig was my first method and remains the only one till this day. But I'm happy I found it at the right time, and if this video can help others to find a way, it's even better :)
@@nofridaynightplans In my opinion your video series on RTK wonderfully address the top questions and issues people have or claim to have with RTK. Whenever I need or want to introduce people to RTK I point them to your videos because they are clear and to the point.
Now, of course everyone has different learning preferences and goals and therefore RTK isn't going to be the best match for everyone,.
There is more than one road to Rome, and what every method one is willing to consistantly commite to is probably the method that will be the most effect method.
I speculate that some people's issues with RTK are caused because they didn't actually do RTK. Judging by the question people have about RTK it is clear that they negelected to read the introduction to RTK book one. Other people seemed to have just download a 'recognition remembering the Kanji'(RRTK) anki deck and assumed that they were doing RTK but did not know of Heisig's instructions to only review from Key word to Kanji. Having said that Anki is a great tool to use to review and test one's knowledge of RTK with, but I think it is also to helpful read through the book and to put in a little bit of effort, too. In short I think in a number of cases people didn't actually follow the method that Heisig lays out in this books.
Again thank you for your videos on the subject!
By the way Heisig was interviewed a few years ago int he Krewe of Japan podcast:
krewe-of-japan.simplecast.com/episodes/approaches-to-kanji-the-heisig-method-ft-dr-james-heisig-JLyS5WPs
Thank you for taking the time to elaborate further.
I think that what you're suspecting regarding people's issues may very well be true. I did ask several people why the method did not work, but they did not really explain the reason beyond saying they could not remember the stories.
I started the book knowing what I was going for. But the introduction did provide further insights, which did make sense to me. It is very possible some people don't actually take the time to read and understand why Heisig took that route.
Thank you so much for pointing to my videos when it comes to the RTK method. I really appreciate it.
I will make sure to listen to this podcast too!
I just write Kanji everyday and memorize them naturally.
thank you for this video!!! very informative and straight to the point!! hope you go far in this youtube career :)
Thank you very much for your lovely comment! I am delighted to know this was useful to you🙂
I enjoyed listening to you. Thank you very much.
By the time you posted this video, I could’ve known kanji
But then again I just started 2 months ago.. I should get serious now!
All the best. You can make it for sure ^0^
@@nofridaynightplans thank you :D
I'm Peruvian, first I need to learn your language in English version to understand the french book to learn Japanesse. So cool.
Peru! That's nice! I used the French version because it was more convenient to me. But the English version is excellent too. Who knows? You might be the one behind the adaptation of the method to a Spanish-speaking audience some day? All the best to you in your endeavour!
There is a version of Heisig’s book in Spanish: Kanji para recordar
@@ralphneelands3990 Excellent! I didn't know. Good for Spanish speakers!
Thank you!!!! Such a treat!
What the Heisig handbook provides is a mnemotechnic, i.e. a practical way to remember the general meaning of each Chinese character, NOT a real explanation of the character’s shape and etymology. This is not to be seen as a minus, on the contrary: each “story” is crafted so as to be retained by people who are supposed NOT to know any Japanese or Chinese. If you are a total beginner, it would be of little importance to know that 吾 (one of the many ways to express “I, me”) is formed by the numeral 五 “five” plus the radical 口 “mouth”, which in this case indicates that 五 has a purely phonetic value: in fact, in Chinese 吾 is pronounced _wú_ while 五 is _wǔ_ (same syllable with a different tone). Yes: 吾 has absolutely NO ideographic value whatsoever and trying to extract any mysterious philosophical meaning that can blend “five” and “mouth” into “I, me” is simply wrong from a linguistic point of view. HOWEVER, when you are making your early steps into the frustrating world of Chinese characters, especially if your target language is Japanese and not Chinese, what is the point in forcing you to memorize 吾 as “radical 口 plus phonogram 五”? From a purely pragmatic point of view, the following “analysis” provided by RTK works fine: “The one place in our bodies that all five senses are concentrated in is the head, which has no less than five apertures: 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and 1 mouth. Hence, five mouths = I, me.” -- Remember: it is just for you to create a mental connection between the various components of any new kanji. But be careful to consider RTK’s “stories” anything more than nice tricks: sometimes, especially for pictographs and ideographs, what is in the book does coincide with the character’s real origin, but for most kanji described therein, it doesn’t. Why am I insisting so much if I myself like this book and would personally recommend it? That is because your typical (native) Japanese teacher and/or friend will from time to time come up with very similar creative explanations for kanji that make absolutely no sense when considering their components and the alleged meaning those components should convey when put together. Once you acquire a decent level of knowledge of Japanese and learn more kanji, or review kanji that you originally learned through RTK, you MUST go for the real, scientific analysis: there is plenty of materials online to do so. I remember this Japanese friend of mine, Ms. Hiruta 蛭田: the “hiru” part of her surname, written 蛭, means “leech”, and is formed by the radical 虫 meaning ”insect”, plus 至 meaning “to arrive”. Since childhood, she has been haunted, and a bit scared, by this strange surname, which means “field of the leeches”, but especially she could not figure out what the hell the “arrive” part had to do with a leech! Various teachers had told her the most absurd stories about an insect that “arrives” when you do not expect it, and it sucks your blood; or, that 至 somehow resembles the teeth and the blood drops there are extracting from your body. Pile of BS of course: 蛭 and 至 are both pronounced _zhì_ in Chinese - again, 至 has a purely phonetic value, no meaning in se. You may ask: “Should I learn Chinese first and Japanese later, then, in order to truly appreciate and memorize kanji?” Well, in theory, that is the pattern you should follow to taste the full flavor of this linguistic dish. But if you want to stick to Japanese alone, go ahead, but you may still check a good etymological dictionary, or simply Wiktionary, and learn the true story behind each kanji without having to invent a fake one.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed comment. My answer will most certainly not do it the honour it deserves. I think a line needs to be drawn between learning a language and learning its linguistics. These are two very different things. I myself have studied the English and Arabic languages for years but have very poor knowledge of the underlying linguistics of both languages, even though I studied it a little bit. I do not intend - at least at present- to engage in the linguistics of the Japanese language or the Chinese one for that matter. However, I do understand that RTK is merely a practical method that does not do much to help you understand the underlying historic foundation. I have been learning for less than a year and cannot tell what objectives I will pursue further down the line. Nonetheless, I am perfectly aware that my knowledge of the Chinese characters is superficial at best. But for now, it will do. Thank you again for starting this conversation.
In my copy of RTK (in English), Heisig stops supplying stories at around 500 or so. There will be some stories sprinkled around after that, but for the majority, it is all coming up with you own stories. The creativity boost of coming up with good stories, or using sites such as Kanji.Koohi for when you can't quite come up with one, is helpful in more ways then just learning Kanji!
I see. That's quite surprising as the French version fails to provide stories for only about 10 or so characters. What happens in the English version after the 500th one then...?
@@nofridaynightplans Its just its primitive elements in words: For example: Forget (忘): perish....heart. This is the format for probably 80% of the rest of the book.
If theres an oddity or a pictograph, though, Heisig always gives more info on those characters at least.
@@jbleez4771 I see. That's really odd. The French version is very comprehensive. There are even interesting cultural anecdotes. But good to know! Thanks.
you've given me another angle of attack! thank you! :D
Happy to read that! All the best in your endeavour.
I personally preferred learning kanji as I came across them. So I just studied the kanji that showed up in my novel as they appeared. And then added the kanji from my next novel, and the next. I recently hit 2500 kanji that I can write. But I have a weird background in Japanese. I took it in college for a year, so I already had a basic level of knowledge. Then I restarted learning Japanese at the start of COVID. In the end when I started studying kanji this way I was starting from around 500 known kanji.
For me personally I feel like this had some added benefits, like I was able to associate the kanji with vocabulary words from my reading, and I'm much more aware of the phonetic components in the kanji.
Good call. I honestly don't understand why it should be done differently. Ok, maybe to see progress more quickly. But it's actually completely logical. First learn to read and write and then grammar and vocabulary. In primary school, you also learnt the alphabet first in order to be able to read and write. Then grammar and finally vocabulary. I'm still learning new words in my mother tongue. I've always noticed that on holiday. I didn't speak a word of English, French or Italian, but I could understand some of the written language because I could read the words. Association and context then helped me to understand roughly what was written. That's why European children learn English or French relatively easily. Because they can at least read it (even if they don't understand it at first). I came to this realisation without Heisig, but that doesn't fundamentally change the fact that it makes sense. How are you supposed to learn a language if you can't read it? And by "being able to read" I don't mean "understanding", but simply recognising what is written there and being able to look it up if necessary. It's more fun and more sustainable that way. As I said, it's logical in itself, but somehow you forget that as soon as you learn Japanese.
The 取る kanji has a more interesting story than the one you gave in the end. Its original meaning is cutting ear. According to what I read "in ancient China, soldiers cut the ears of the captives as their trophies, but such meaning has been replaced by 聝 or 馘, now 取 means getting or taking."
Ancient China was brutal.
So, this is basically the memory palace method. We know that works, because that's how the mnemonists memorize the phone book, etc. The ancient greeks used it to memorize the outlines of the speeches that were preparing to give.
The method was developed based on the idea that memory retention is a matter of visual or auditive stimulus. Thanks for the reference. That's interesting.
Oh man paragon was the best! Predecessor took its place and is pretty true to it
Nice. I liked the editing. Did u draw the illustrations?
Thanks :) Yes, I did :)
@@nofridaynightplans daamn it's awesome ngl
@@keerthanas4144 Thank you! ^0^
Merci beaucoup pour cette vidéo et pour la référence du livre !
Ça fait maintenant plusieurs années que j'ai commencé à apprendre le japonais (depuis le lycée, où j'avais pris japonais en LV2 d'ailleurs), et l'apprentissage des kanjis a toujours été une grande galère pour moi... Je passe mon temps à les oublier, et c'est super frustrant et décourageant à force. On m'a toujours enseigné la méthode "traditionnelle" qui consiste globalement à écrire 10 fois un caractère pour l'apprendre, mais ça ne marche pas du tout sur le long terme... Mes profs disaient parfois qu'il faut apprendre et oublier 7 fois un caractère pour finalement le retenir, donc dans ma tête je me disais qu'il n'y a pas ~2000 kanjis à apprendre mais 14 000 en réalité haha
Enfin toujours est-il que je vais me procurer le livre et découvrir par moi-même cette méthode qui semble miraculeuse !! J'ai juste l'objectif de passer le JLPT N3 l'année prochaine pour le moment, donc ça devrait aller on espère :)
Bonjour ! Merci pour ton commentaire. Je suis ravie que cela ait pu t'aider. J'espère sincèrement que cette méthode fonctionnera pour toi. Tiens-moi au courant de ton avancement ! Ça me ferait plaisir. Courage !
i start learning japanese in 2019. but then stopped because i lose motivation. this year i am starting again and yes i already understand hiragana and basic grammar but kanji is a very challenging part (TдT)
All the best in your endeavour. One step at the time without putting pressure on yourself. Enjoy the ride.
Soooo true, texts with only hiragana are so confusing
I know right!
To be honest I wish learned all 常用漢字 first while immersing. It’s like eating your vegetables before your dessert.
This channel is underrated :(
Thanks. The video I am most proud of is definitely the "Kanji Map" project so far. I hope you check it out!
@@nofridaynightplans yes I will !!!! I want to learn Kanji real bad. I am a Japanese leaner like you but the only difference is you've mastered many kanji whereas I slack offf on thst so yeah
@@keerthanas4144 I really recommend the book mentionned in the video. I've been interested in Japanese culture for as long as I can remember. But I always put off learning the language because of kanji. Now... I am so in love with kanji that I used it to create a map of Japan.
😂 And there's not a single day I'm not writing something in kanji... I absolutely adore it!
Thank God for Heisig's method!
@@nofridaynightplans yes and thanks to you I know how to start off with Kanji and I will be buying the book if possible after my exams . Hope I'd be able to learn Kanji like youu
@@keerthanas4144 If you put in the effort, you'll get there too :) All the best to you!
What is the french title of "Remembering the Kanji"? I got interested in it when I had known it has more stories for almost all kanji than English version.
Les kanjis dans la tête
Where do you get translation „right hand“ from?
Is‘nt it steps ore somethings
Hi! It's right here: beyond-calligraphy.com/2011/06/26/kanji-1888/
¡Muchas gracias por tu vídeo!
Justamente estoy aprendiendo japonés con Genki (en inglés) pero resulta súper molesto lo poco que avanzo con la lectura debido a los Kanjis.
Viendo tu video me motivé y compré Remembering the Kanji pero en español, espero poder avanzar más rápido que con wanikani.
¡Saludos desde Chile!
¡Gracias por tu comentario! Puedo entender el español escrito sin demasiados problemas, pero no puedo hablarlo. ¡Espero que puedas avanzar más rápido con Remembering the Kanji!
Did you learn it without Anki or another SRS? I'm at 400 mark, changed the order a couple times, tried Kanji GOD addon, tried RRTK deck (but with writing), and decided to go back to classic RTK.
Hi. At the time, I did not know about ANKI. I used the method I presend in "How I practice kanji" ^.^
I think ANKI is good to help you to revise the stories on a regular basis.
I'm at a serious crossroads with beginning Kanji. I got through both the Kanas with ease, and I can read them fairly well.
However, with Kanji, I picked up RTK and was instantly at a loss, because of no pronunciation of the Kanji.
So I looked online, and became overwhelmed "RTK is outdated. Use my method instead!" "I did this and learned fine, but it took me 20 months" "Dont bother reading the Kanji just learn vocab" etc. etc. My issue with RTK is as I said before, lack of pronunciation, but also the stories written, I tend to ignore. I thought they were useful in his Kana book, but I just ignored them after they came convoluted and somewhat bizarre. You think I should still go through the book, perhaps finding a place to see the way it is said (minus On/Kun and just general speech) as well as writing it and learning the Heisig way? I hope this message makes sense. Thank you.
Hi! Thank you for your message. It is difficult for me to recommend anything because we all have different goals and we also do not all learn the same way. RTK worked for me because I like mnemonic tricks and it is fairly easy for me to remember the stories. Also, I am not bothered with the lack of pronunciation because one kanji can be pronounced a lot of different ways. I think I would have been overwhelmed if I had had to go through memorising all the radicals as well as as their many pronunciations. I focused on kanji during the first 5 months and then decided to learn Japanese in context through stories (check the latest video if what I'm saying doesn't make sense). I cannot decide for you what method is based. I'm just sharing mine with you so that you can make an informed decision as my method might help some of you to a certain extent. I hope this makes sense.
@@nofridaynightplans Thanks for the reply, I understand you can't decide for me, I just needed a second opinion of sorts lol. I spoke to several others, and they said its good to learn them in context, and I think I agree. I will follow the RTK method as best I can, it may be considered "slow" and useless to those Japanese language marketers on this website, but it seems to work for everyone else.
@@battenburg6089 All the best in your endeavour! Be patient and consistent and it'll come to you naturally!
do you read the pages and then practice writing on the same day base on what you read?
Yes, back in the days that’s what I would do. :)
I have a video about that very question, ‘How I practice kanji on my own.’ You may find it useful.
Where could I purchase that awesome book? It happens that my mother tongue is also French and I’d be pleased to know kanji since it’s the last step for me to be able to read Japanese!
J'ai mis tous les liens en description ☺
Très bien Madame - Votre effort Très apprécié - Amour d'Inde (Vraie floraison)
Hey, I have the book as well and there is "only" the meaning for each kanji and I dont know if I should learn pronounciation at the same time. Thank you
Hey, thank you for your comment.
I first learnt the meanings of the radicals before moving on to actually learning the language.
I learnt the readings (Chinese and Japanese) as I progressed.
I cannot advice one way against the other. You have to choose what best works for you. Reading the comments in this section, you'll see people have different opinions: some did as I did, others picked another route. It's not a one-size-fits-all type of thing.
I personally would have felt overwhelmed if I had had to learn the readings of the characters and the meanings at the same time. So this method really worked well for me :)
This reminds me of wanikani
Wanikani is very good
Hi... I'm Italian man is available this book in Italian lenguage too, where I can to buy that's book? Maybe you reply me whit a link? Thank you very much for your help
Hi, Luca. Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, I could not find an Italian version of the book. A Spanish version exists. But it seems like the method has not yet been adapted to the Italian public. You will have to go for the English version, I'm afraid.
Omg we started learning Japanese on the same day! Irrelevant, but I thought it was pretty cool 😅 Thanks for the video!
Haha! Nice! I hope it's going well for you. Wish you the best in your language journey!
Thanks a lot for this. I will try the same approach. You said it took five month. How many hours of weekly practice on average? Thanks! PS Your calm presentation is refreshing. :)
Thank you for your comment 😊 Much appreciated.
I did not count in hours. I explain it in greater detail in the “How I plan for LL” video, but I never use the time variable to ensure progress - I rather use the “task variable”. My task was “learning 2 double pages a day”. It's a much more tangible target and that's very important for me.
At first, it was only one double page of the French version of the book. But at some point, it started getting easier (you understand the logic of the method and the radicals, so you gain pace).
I’m a slow reader, so for me reading 30 minutes a day would not lead to progress at a pace I find suitable for my intended target. I rather tell myself “I’m going to read 4 pages of Umiga Kikoeru” (the Japanese novel I’m reading at present) every day. This helps me significantly more than the time variable.
I did the same for RTK.
It took me 5 months, but others told me they did it in a shorter amount of time. Yet, for some, it’ll take longer. And that’s fine. We’re all different. If this method works for you (I do hope it will 😉), you need to find your own pace and stick to your target, no matter what (well don’t put too much pressure on yourself though - learning should be a fun and rewarding lifelong journey).
I wish you the best in your endeavour - and thank you again for your lovely comment.
@@nofridaynightplans Thanks for your elaboration. Can you give a weekly time estimate? 5 hours? 10 hours? 20 hours? Or...? Thanks.
@@stefanhansen5882 I don't know exactly. But definitely not more than 1 hour and a half / day.
Thanks @@nofridaynightplans - so 150-200 hours, or about 10-15 kanji pr. hour. Cool.
eh idk about learning kanji before learning JP and the claim that it’s “faster and more comfortable” to read original texts. You can learn the readings and meanings of kanji as part of words and you can simultaneously begin reading. You’ll also immerse and grasp grammar sooner. Learning them as part of words is def faster at reading than learning the individual kanji components. And you can just look up the radicals when you’re learning kanji as part of words and make those stories for yourself like you mentioned (which is similar to what I did).
For example someone who memorized doubutsu as a word vs you who’s learned the kanji can probably come to the same conclusion that it means animal - except you’d spend time ascertaining the meaning and reading from the kanji. Your advantage is that if both readers come across a word you don’t know you’d probably figure out the meaning and reading.
This is pretty much a non issue since you should be using a dictionary when reading text anyway. Even then, As for the last example, if the reader can recognize the kanji from other words they learned they may also figure out the meaning which makes learning kanji first moot.
I mean I never formally learned kanji and I’m doing fine at reading. I only really trip up when I see names but you can also just use a name dictionary as well
Hi! Thank you for your comment. Well, as I stated in the video, for me, it was not only about reading. I also wanted to know how to write kanji (actually, I had never envisaged the possibility of not knowing how to write them until I met someone who told me they only knew how to read them -how silly of me lol).
I also explained that I delayed learning Japanese because of kanji. So this was a big chunk of the learning I wanted to have a proper command of, naturally. This method has helped me beyond what I could have expected. Now it is very rare for me to come across a kanji I have never seen before. It does happen of course. Like in this word: 耄碌しい.
But for the most part, I instantly recognize them and can understand the meaning without much trouble. Let’s take this word as example: 喫茶店. I instantly understood its meaning upon reading it for the first time. The first kanji means consumption, the second means tea while the last one means a place for business. So I thought that it must mean “café” or something.
I am not trying to sell false expectations. I have heard people say the Heisig method did not work for them. We’re all different and I understand that what works for some doesn’t work for others. I have tried the “GENKI” method several times. I failed at moving beyond chapter 1 every time while others only go by this method. I have found a method that works for me. And learning all JK first is a big part of it. I would never have thought I’d be able to read manga only 10 months after starting out 😊
The bottom line is: find what works for you based on the goals you’re pursing. Don’t blindly trust what I’m saying since I’m only speaking for myself.
@@nofridaynightplans
wb chikan or sanka? I def wouldn’t be able to confidently ascertain the meaning from the heisig keywords. im just splitting at straws here anyway. my other issue is that non joyo kanji is an arbitrary guideline for consuming content since you’ll see stuff like momu pop up a lot which is non JK which heisig doesn’t teach. as for the kissaten example that’s probably how it would go for most words you don’t recognize but that’s the same for me I see cha and I see mise and I see manzoku and i come up with tea shop. not exactly cafe but they’ll probably use coffee katakana and I’ll be like “ah cafe then” or they’ll just introduce the name of the shop as “Cafe xyz”
i think if ur wanting to learn how to write then independent kanji studying is king but as for someone like me who just wants to consume native content asap then RTK takes too long. i do appreciate the distinction you made between “learning kanji” and “learning JP” since RTK doesn’t teach you Japanese. we’ll just one minor issue you don’t “learn” kanji from RTK. RTK just teaches pattern recognition in associating a picture and a meaning. i don’t think u’ve truly “learned” a kanji until you know what words use it and the most common readings which RTK does not teach. not trying to be pedantic but I think “learn” gives the wrong impression. the quickest way to learn Japanese is to actually start consuming Japanese content asap and you can jumpstart that by learning words and reading as you go which is faster than the time it would take you to RTK and then read. thx for the response as well 🙏
@@Diaryofaninja Well as I said, I have found something that works for me. I started studying Japanese 10 months ago. I'm happy with how it's going for now. In a few years time, I might consider what I've said in this video is pure rubbish. We'll see. All the best to you.
@@nofridaynightplans im not criticizing ur method if the intention was also to write. or give unsolicited advice. im js that the claim that I described in my OC I believe to be false. the best way to read comfortably and faster is to read earlier and read more. something which you seem to reiterate and agree with in ur new vid. i think w/how RTK is structured most people tend to read after after completion which can take 2-5 months. which brings me to the other thing I mentioned if u learn vocabulary first u can acquire grammar alongside and begin reading almost immediately
@@Diaryofaninja It's cool. You're free to criticise my method. 😆 It's obvious we all make mistakes when studying a language. I'm not immune to that. But It's okay. That's part of the learning experience too ^0^ So far, everything is going way better than I would ever have expected. Thank you for watching and feel free to jump in here and share your thoughts any time.
even i have bought the book, but i dont understand where to start because, this book only teaches meanings, but how can one learn the pronunciations?? plz help!, like if i set a goal of 10 kanji a day, should i learn 10 kanji with pronounciations or just the meaning??
Wow. Relax bro! Everything's gonna be alright ^0^. The book does not tackle pronunciation. The purpose is only to provide the meaning of each radical and teach you how to write them. That's a big chunk of the learning I wanted to get away with before starting learning the language per se. The author explains in the book that there's no point teaching pronunciaton as each kanji has different pronunciations depending on the word it appears in. The best is to learn in context, as others explained in the comment section. I talk about it in this video th-cam.com/video/oab1kx9T8kc/w-d-xo.html
Don't worry. It's gonna be fine!
@@nofridaynightplans ohk just saw the video you linked me with, really helped me, now i am clear, i must learn the meanings first,and for reading i must use furigana!btw thankyou for your help!!
@@cosmoshorts1835 You're very welcome. However, please note this is a method I used and that worked for me. If you go through the comments, you'll see some said they used other methods. Bottom line is: please choose a method that aligns with your goals :) All the best in your endeavour!
@@cosmoshorts1835 you can always do both at the same time. Learn the hiragana and katakana (it's super convenient to know these), while also putting time into learning to write and read kanji. I'd advise to avoid the use of romaji as much as possible. Learn the hiragana and katakana properly!
I've personally only randomly picked up Kanji's so far, mostly via writing Japanese words with hiragana/katakana into google translate to get pronunciations for specific words I'm interested in learning. They display the kanji there too, and it's simple enough then to just google the stroke order for that kanji.
This also teaches your ears and brain to pay attention to pitch differences in how you say a word, as that can change the meaning of it (the Japanese word for cute is such an example, how you pronounce it will change it's meaning. It can also mean scary).
It'll also teach you what sounds might be typically silent. (You'll get quicker and quicker with getting pronunciations correct the first time around, the more you pay attention to pronunciations. Our brains are fantastic at pattern recollection). Installing a Japanese keyboard on your smartphone is GOLDEN.
I can recommend the channels Olly Richards and Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve for language learning strategies, tips, techniques and information about how to approach learning languages, and then the channel Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com for Japanese specifically.
@@Telindra i learnt the hiragana and katakana,and even did a few chapters of genki 1, and for now i am learning 10 kanji everyday from remembering the kanji, and about the pronounciations, idk what am i going to do, but thanks for some info, it looks like you put a lot of time in your answer, thankyou so much for taking out the time!
Can you explain your study habits?
Hi. Are you talking specifically about Japanese?
If so, I made a video about how I study Japanese. It's quite detailed. If you're talking about planning, I also made a video about it. But I don't really "plan" using a specific schedule - doesn't quite work for me.
As for habits, I intend to make a more general video about that in the future. But the two I mentionned above are already quite comprehensive.
unfortunately the last example is simply wrong. the right side of 取, namely “又” does not represent or mean 'right hand' in any context
I'm using the example from the book...which is based on mnemonic tricks.
If I may suggest this page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_29. You can read the following paragrah: The radical character 又's ancient form is a pictogram of a right hand from which the modern Chinese character 右 (right) was derived. Though 又 (again) as a modern Chinese character no longer represents the meaning of "right", the implication of "hand" is preserved in some Chinese characters fall under radical 29.
Thank you for your comment though.
Since it is Wikipedia, I thought another source might be worth searching: beyond-calligraphy.com/2011/06/26/kanji-1888/
You will find the same explanation.
@@nofridaynightplans thanks! I was too confident, and I learned :)
Please how many characters do u memorize a day ?? I'm learning Japanese too 🙏 thanks a lot for the video it was such a great help 🖤🖤☺️
Hello! Thank you for your comment. I started with one double page a day till maybe the 500th character. Then I got so used to the method, I started to do 2 double pages a day. Bear in mind this book is not about momorising characters, it's about learning through stories with mnemonic tricks ;)
@@nofridaynightplans okay! Got u! Thank u!
But did u learn each character's readings and stroke orders or only the meaning??
@@mnomno4446 Stroke order and meaning. There's no reading/ pronunciation in the book.
Great video! i was wondering what heisig is and this video made it clear!!Merci
Thank you for watching ☺
Konichiwa
But they only give you keywords not how to read so how do you read Japanese
I somewhat replied so this in my latest video. th-cam.com/video/km1YKsjoMZk/w-d-xo.html
I don't get how people can say they know the Kanji when the book does not give you the readings.. so if you came across a word using 2 Kanji you know, maybe u get the meaning of a word but you don't know how to say the word. I don't get it
I see Mr Poop's still around lol
Always...
Oui mais le problème c est que le kanji dans la tête ne donne que le radical du kanji et il donne pas la définition que l on apprend dans le Jlpt.
Bonjour. Merci pour ton commentaire ^.^. Je ne comprends pas ce que tu veux dire. Le livre reprend les jouyou kanji tels qu'on les retrouve dans n'importe quel livre. Personnellement, je n'ai aucun problème à étudier le japonais à présent que je les connais tous. J'ai même commencé à lire des livres... ^.^
@@nofridaynightplans Elle parle a propos que le livre enseigne seulement les radicals et que les definitions songs vagues
@@CenterHighSystems En effet, le livre n’enseigne que les radicaux - objet de mon étude à l’époque. Quant aux définitions, l’auteur explique qu’elles sont vagues à dessein car les Japonais n’apprennent pas de « définitions » mais des concepts. Raison pour laquelle « 脱 » apparaîtra dans les verbes comme « déshabiller » ou « s’évader », lesquels, en français (ou en anglais d’ailleurs), sont sémantiquement différents. En japonais, à l’inverse, on y entendra davantage une idée, à savoir, ici, celle de « sortir d’où l’on se trouvait précédemment ».
Interesting video but, if you allow me to respectfully point out, I can see many problems with your approach as someone who has learned over 6000 Kanji and passed the Kanji Kentei level Pre 1 already and is aiming to pass the level 1 in December this year. Notwithstanding your achievement and effort, a shortcut is always a shortcut, often making it longer in the long run. You mentioned at the time of recording this video that you still have difficulty reading hiragana and katakana which you deprioritised for no logical reason. That means you must struggle to consult a dictionary as to the pronunciation of a new Kanji character as well as with the reading of upwards of 50% of written matter, given that both scripts appear that frequently and without them sentences are truly incomplete in meaning (e.g., hiragana-based okurigana and conjugation terminations which appear in nearly every sentence and katakana loan words which are also very frequent). Then you used a method of learning that completely ignores kunyomi (native Japanese) and onyomi (middle Chinese) pronunciations of which there are often 2-5 each per Kanji character. This is roughly the equivalent of learning how to write all nouns, adjectives, and adverbs for a new language, but not learning or knowing how to properly write or read any verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and the like! For those viewers here wondering as to the robustness of your approach, yes, each Kanji can be read in anything between 1 to 10 different ways, if not more in rare cases. An example would be "生" which has a total of 12 different readings in onyomi, including "sei," "shou," "sheng," "jo," and "nama," among others. It also has 10 different readings in kunyomi, including "ikiru," "ikasu," "umare," and "ki," among others. Sometimes one symbol will mean more than one thing too, as in the case of the last example, if you take the "nama" reading then it means "raw", and if you use the "umare" reading, then it means birth. Go and create "n" number of "round" stories to fit a "square" Kanji hole!
I truly wonder how you read Kanji when you don't know which reading the combination of Kanji characters correspond to in order to form words, or yojijukugo, or long chains of Kanji-only characters forming proper names of people, long-established institutions or concepts. One example of a typical yojijukugo is "四面楚歌" (shimen sokka), which means "surrounded by enemies on all sides." Try to learn it using your preferred methodology and you will see that short of engaging in some real mental gymnastics you will not find any convenient shortcut or story to reading, writing, or understanding it. With the Heisig method you'd be reading this as "four", "side" (of a building, etc.), "switch" (as in switch from one side to the other), and "song", respectively! Coming to proper names that trip people up, let's take the case of Masaru (勝) which is a common Japanese given name for boys, one which is often misread as "Katsu" (勝) or "Masashi" (正). Also if you struggle with hiragana in particular, then you would struggle with furigana (tiny superscripted reading cues in hiragana often accompanying complex printed kanji) as well, which means you will struggle to read sentences at normal speed without completely misreading Kanji combinations (words, idioms, proper names, etc.) which you are unfamiliar with. If you are not convinced yet, then try reading "Keio University" (慶應義塾大学) (Keio Gijuku Daigaku) without furigana and you might end up reading it as "Kougyou Daigaku" (工業大学), which means "industrial university". The deeper you get into the language the more of these faux pas you will make since you only know how to read 2000 odd Kanji and in real life you will see around 5000 or so depending on what you read and watch. Most Japanese and experienced students won't know how to write these surplus Kanji but they would know how to read the frequently appearing ones (e.g., 憂鬱 "yuutsu" meaning depression, 薔薇 "bara" meaning rose, and 嘘 "uso" meaning lie, etc.). Now, just imagine the nightmare of taking dictation and trying to write the correct kanji based just on sounds with this method!
So, in essence, you've learned to draw about 2,000 similar-looking characters - given that there are only a few truly-recurring radicals - without any truly applicable utility. I believe that the Heisig method is not bad if used as part of a holistic learning of the language which simultaneously develops reading, listening, speaking, and writing abilities. What you've done, albeit interesting, is going to be more harmful to you in the long run, in my opinion, when you will have to retroactively populate your knowledge of known characters with as yet unknown kunyomi and onyomi readings in your mind in a 10:1 retrofit! I think that will confuse you no end especially given that many Kanji respond to the same exact sound too among themselves but mean totally different things. In fact, wait till you encounter homonyms and antonyms! The complexity is made more obvious when you realise that of the 50,000 odd known Kanji, about 6,000 form the academic vocabulary, and between 2,000 and 3,000 form the high school to university graduate vocabulary. But, there are over 500,000 words in the Japanese language (as are there in English, and French, and so on because the number has to do with known concepts, loaned or inherent), and while you don't have to know all of them, at least a fraction of them will be necessary to truly use the Japanese language, and you will find that they are not always made of single Kanji characters. And when they appear, including the rarer ones, they will not always have associated furigana to help you read them (e.g., take a Japanese newspaper or website or a novel and see for yourself). Also, wait till you come across man'yogana and ateji words which are the phonetic Kanji that have nothing to do with any concepts you can imagine or stories you can tell and see if that doesn't confuse you. A case in point would be most words of Buddhist origin and even numerous common words like tempura "天麩羅" which your method would induce you to read as “heaven wheat light fabric”! Ok! Fine! In the case of tempura, if push came to shove with this method, a case could be made for lightly battered tasty morsels as the weird literal translation I gave just now but the kanji won’t look like the food itself as three of them make up the name of one item. Another common example would be 烏賊 (ika) - This is the Japanese word for "squid," but the kanji characters used, 烏 and 賊, have no real meaning and were chosen purely for their phonetic value, unless you take their transliterated meaning of “crow resentment” to picture a squid in your mind! How about 菩薩 (bosatsu)? This is a term used in Mahayana Buddhism to refer to a bodhisattva, a being who has attained enlightenment but chooses to remain in the world to help others achieve transcendence. The kanji characters used, 菩 and 薩, have no real meaning and were chosen purely for their phonetic value unless you think “lime tree sweet potato” are particularly spiritual! And if you are thinking that these are isolated examples, then I am sorry to disappoint you that they are not!
Anyway, what can I say. Interesting experiment all the same. Trully bizarre but curious nonetheless. This is one of the emerging dilemmas of the internet. It allows unresearched experiments like this to risk derailing the learning efforts of thousands of others (going by how many have viewed and liked your video) where they might be better served with a disclaimer that clearly states the learning objectives of those who profess magic methodologies. If you want to test your drawing ability then go ahead, but if you want to learn a language and truly communicate, then please don't take appealing shortcuts. I don’t want to dissuade anyone by highlighting the complexity of Japanese that trending influencers inadvertently undermine in favour of monetisable traffic. All languages are difficult. I am an Italian speaker and I learned English and Japanese, but I applied the time and effort that both languages deserved. In fact, both languages were easy in the end provided a sensible approach was used in the place of hacks and trickery. Thanks for sharing. Perhaps you should learn German next by first memorising all the words in the dictionary!
Wow for once someone has written a truly informative and researched post. Thank you! I've been meaning to learn chinese and japanese for a while now and when I saw this video I was really excited... but yopuve made me think twice
need to research more! tx bro
i never think RTK can be useful..i cannot use it
Sure, language learning (or anything for that matter) is not a one-size-fits-all. Finding what works for you is the only thing that matters, really.
I'd be interested to understand what you don't like about it though (out of curiosity - if you care to share at all).
monthS**
I can also just tell people in video that I learned kanji in just few months. I don’t have to show any proof.
You make it sound like this video of yours would simply be made to show off a purported achievement. I, however, made this video to help people who, like me, are looking for a practical way to learn kanji and show them that such a way exists.
This method does not work for everybody but it sure does for quite a few people.
I have no doubt that people couldn't care less about my achievements. And I'm happy to consider it'll remain so.
Your comment is the epitome of the narcissistic obsessions of our age. How regrettable.
I think it is a big mistake to be so obsessed with kanji.
Kanjis are nothing more than letters of the alphabet.
Even if you could memorize all the kanjis in existence you still wouldn't be able to speak Japanese.
For example, simply because you have memorized all 26 letters of the alphabet doesn't mean you can speak English.
That is because you need words, not letters, to speak the language.
First and foremost you need to memorize words.
In Japanese, words are a combination of one or more kanjis, hiragana and katakana.
But each individual kanji usually means nothing.
You cannot use individual kanjis to make a sentence.
For example 契約 is one single word made of 2 kanjis, it is pronounced as "keiyaku" and means "contract". But trying to memorize each individual kanji makes absolutely no sense. It is almost impossible to infer the meaning of the word by looking at the kanji alone.
I myself have never tried to memorize kanji.
To this day I still don't know how to write kanji.
But I have no problems reading newspapers, books or magazines.
I believe it is a waste of time trying to memorize kanji.
The best way of learning a language, any language, is by reading a lot.
I started studying Japanese by reading magazines that had furigana, so consulting the dictionary was easy. I never tried to memorize anything, my goal was always to try to understand the text.
And I don't try to memorize anything, my goal is always to try to understand the text that I am reading. So I have never used Anki or any kind of flashcards.
I see many people on TH-cam trying to memorize kanji.
But memorizing kanji is IMPOSSIBLE.
What does that even mean? What do you mean exactly by memorizing kanji?
Even Japanese people don't memorize kanji.
Memorizing kanji is impossible and unnecessary.
Kanji is not a replacement for vocabulary. Kanji and vocabulary are two different things. Kanji alone will not allow you to speak the language.
Kanji needs to be studied as part of vocabulary. Vocabulary is simply the memorization of words.
For each word you need to memorize the meaning, pronunciation and spelling. The effort for memorizing a word is exactly the same for ANY WORD IN ANY LANGUAGE.
That means that Japanese is as difficult as any other language. There is nothing special about Japanese.
And the spelling is simple. Most kanjis are just a combination of simpler kanjis. If you know how to write the simple kanjis, complex kanjis become easy.
But some people seem to think they need to memorize kanji first and vocabulary later. That is a huge mistake that will cost years of their lives.
You don't need to know the meaning of each individual kanji, or the on-yomi or kun-yomi.
You can learn the etymology of kanji if you are curious, but that will not help you learn the language.
Well, these are some quite peremptory statements...
ohh t'es francaise
Damn, I was really surprised when you said that French is your native language, I mean you can't hear anything about your accent indicating you are French.
I'm a native speaker of French but English has been part of my everyday life since I started learning it at 14. Tbh, I think there's room for improvement 😂
You need to work a looot on pronunciation. 90% Japanese will not even be able to recognise that you are speaking in Japanese. So what's the use of knowing all joyou kanji?
If there's no use, why are you watching a video about all JK? 😅😅C'mon bro. Let's remain positive! We all have different objectives in our learning- which is fine. I'm happy with JK. You happy with pronunciation only. That's good. No need to hinder progress with funky thoughts.