Comments on Libation Kowloon: Downing a cold one for an unspecified deity in a popular Chinese SAR: Remembering Kanji Stroke Order

I put a better description of why I don't trust He...

2007-05-29T12:08:00.000+09:00

I put a better description of why I don't trust Heisig here.

A lot of people do swear by it, but in all honesty I think they've been had - what it teaches doesn't seem to have any value in and of itself, and is just procrastination before you get to the real uphill slog where you effectively have to start again from the beginning. Sure, they think they've learned 1945 kanji in 6 weeks, but unless they can read them (different from "recognise") and use them (different from "reproduce from memory") then the information is without value because learning to read and use the kanji is the real stumbling block that everybody has trouble with. Learning the components and stroke order etc. is just par for the course.

I also don't like his memes. They're mostly not historically accurate, which means your entire kanji knowledge will be based on mis-information. If you ever attempt the kanji-kentei, certain sections at the higher levels will be much much harder if you let Heisig be your guide.

Point is, there's no magic shortcut to learning, only ways to improve the efficiency of real study, and I think mnemonics are only really effective as a last resort.

Is the Heisig method really so evil? I've been tro...

2007-05-29T11:56:00.000+09:00

Is the Heisig method really so evil? I've been trolling on some forums and there are people enough that swear by it. I just want a method that works for me.

By my third year of Japanese we were learning 20 new kanji every week and 5 new compounds for each, and I forgot them faster than I learned them. I'm supposed to know around 840 or so kanji at this point, but I think I'd be lucky to recognize 500 consistently.

I'm not sure if I'd be better off to go with the Heisig method (which I'm trying out now and will hit the 200 mark tomorrow) or to do it the way I way doing it before (writing them out, memorization work) but at a slower pace. Ideas? Thoughts?

Make the gnomes work harder!

2007-05-24T23:49:00.000+09:00

Make the gnomes work harder!

I think I'd be distracted by 冫 in that case, thoug...

2007-05-24T13:02:00.000+09:00

I think I'd be distracted by 冫 in that case, though etymologically speaking it is a variant of exactly that (doesn't help remember how to write it).

Why is it that every kanji I find difficult to remember is according to Henshall "of obscure origin?" That's just lazy.

I wish I could claim credit, but I saw it on TV th...

2007-05-23T22:43:00.000+09:00

I wish I could claim credit, but I saw it on TV the other night. :D

I'm very curious about why characters like 右 and 左 are different... I suspect it has something to do with their history, though.

Way back when I had trouble remembering which way the final two strokes in 冬 went, I came up with a simple mnemonic that those two strokes were the first two strokes of さんずい, the radical you see in 滴, 泳, 江, etc. My reasoning was that, of course, さんずい had to do with water. And water has to do with ice. And ice has to do with winter. That got me back to 冬 and I was set.

I recommend little mnemonics like this.

Makes sense. Thanks for the hint!

2007-05-23T22:29:00.000+09:00

Makes sense. Thanks for the hint!

A lot of the inconsistencies arrive from where the...

2007-05-23T22:19:00.000+09:00

A lot of the inconsistencies arrive from where the different parts of the kanji came from.

For example: 全 vs 金

全 has 王 on the bottom. The stroke order is the same between the two.

金　has 土 on the bottom. This is why the 土 portion is written as it is alone.