Heisig's Method for Learning Japanese

Here's the first big tool I'd like to introduce to you guys, as it really revolutionized the way I learned kanji. I hope my explanation wasn't confusing - let me know if you have any questions! Drawing those example stories were time consuming but fun... maybe I can do those kind of examples again later on if you guys are interested :)

Here's the blog post where you can find out more and get Heisig's book yourself: http://culturequirk.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-take-on-learning-kanji.html

http://culturequirk.org
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Music is "Dance Monster," Kevin MacLeod (http://www.incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution 3.0" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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[manjing]

manjing (1 秒前) スパム報告

I would like to mention that Heisig methods aren't really Heisig's. It has been the way Chinese learn chinese characters for thousand of years. Chinese characters were formed from pictures, hence the method.

So it would be really wrong to credit Heisig for it. But I do credit him for teaching Westerners how Chinese/Japanese learn chinese character or Kanji

[CultureQuirk]

@manjing You're definitely right, sorry about the confusion! I've mentioned in other videos how kanji is formed from Chinese characters and whatnot; I just wanted to recommend Heisig's book in particular in this video. I often hear it referred to as "Heisig's method" since, as you said, he's spread this method in the Western world, but we should be more careful not to give him *too* much credit. Thanks for the input, hope that clears things up for others as well!

[adshap8]

I'm a big fan of Heisig. Combine it with an spaced repetition program linke "Anki" and you can really speed through the kanji. Nice pictures as well haha.

[CultureQuirk]

@adshap8 Thanks! I totally agree and definitely plan to talk about SRS in the future~

[pepposole]

What about Kanji Quiz for Android to review RTK book?

[CultureQuirk]

@kakundo87 That makes a lot of sense - thanks for the input! While I realized that Japanese people learn kanji by repetition, I've never though about how aware they are of the pictographs, and I wasn't familiar with how the Chinese do it. So while the method itself is not really his, I guess it could still make sense to refer to it as "Heisig's method" for Japanese learning. In any case, his books are very helpful for Westerners. Like you said, using our creative side is such a great tool :)

[kakundo87]

Which means some kanji are easily associated with their real counter parts and others are not! While everyone in japan learns them by re-writing them over and over again, Heisig uses mnemonics to learn them kanjis. When we use our creative side of the brain for memory, we get outstanding results :) I believe it is called Heisig's method because he started to use mnemonics into Kanji. If I'm not mistaken they certainly do not do that in Japanese Schools, although I can't say the same for chinese

[kakundo87]

@CultureQuirk I would like to stress the fact that even though kanji evolved from chinese characters, the way the ministry of Japanese education addresses the learning of the kanji characters throughout all of Japan is merely by repetition of writing (although chinese characters are obviously pictographs, many of them evolved throughout time in Japan, which morphed into very different "shapes" to the original ones)

[marcusbirdtv]

Awesome video!