Customer Reviews

Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters

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After reams and reams of paper trying to remember roughly the appropriate meanings and writings of Kanji, the method outlined in Heisig's book has been totally refreshing and revitalising. Of course, it will not aid your pronunciation in any form, yet, frankly, I do not think I would have even attempted to learn the Kanji in a systematic way but for Heisig's method.

Alongside the RTK website for stories you have difficulty with, to get the maximum value from this product, you should use an SRS system such as Anki in order to maintain knowledge of the Kanji you have already learned. It is more than realistic to have a 95% perfect recollection rate (at 0-10 seconds a Kanji) from the keywords that you have seen before, and a 75% recollection rate of 'new' Kanji, even when one progresses in to the latter half of the 2200 Kanji that comprise the book. The SRS is a useful way to focus your attention to the way in which some stories will work for your thought patterns, and others will not, and with this it becomes easy to solidify and create strong imaginative memories.

The thought of having to write out hundreds of several stroke characters perfectly from visual memory is, for me at least, ludicrous, and as such, splitting each Kanji into simple 'primitives', of which there is rarely any more than 3, and who's location is indicated by the progression of the story, makes things much simpler. It is widely documented that many feats of memory are accomplished using mnemonic techniques, and thus, if you struggle with Kanji, it is not that Kanji are intrinsically hard, or that you are not up to the task, rather, it is more likely that your method of learning them has not been good enough.

It may take you less than a month of fairly intensive study, or much longer, but there is no doubt that this is the most efficient way I have come across to learn the precise writing, and a usable meaning of the Kanji. Though one does not learn the Kanji pronunciation readings, the task of allocating these becomes much, much easier once the Kanji themselves become readable. It is for this reason that native Chinese speakers have been shown to acquire Japanese much more quickly than their Western counterparts. The sounds and grammar as arguably just as different, but the edge of relative literacy provides a platform for all study. This book can level that playing field.

Don't be afraid of Kanji, grow to love them!

I don't usualy write review, but this book really helps me. I now know and remember 200 kanji (writing and meaning), thanks to Heisig and my determination. The kanji are ordered by memory difficulty and not by usefulness. It is muck easier to learn that way! You will learn the kanji for gall bladder before the one for sister, water, etc. which may seems strange, but it's really a good way to remember them. I don't think I could learn all the joyo kanji wihtout Heisig's method.

Since I started to read this book I discover how amazing our brain can be. I remember 300 kanji so far (about 20/day), it's fun and even when you think I don't remember one, after putting together all the pieces of stories I when through, it comes up straight away! Can't wait to know all of them!!