I promised a few posts back that I would give everyone a little bit of a review of the book “Remembering the Kanji” by James Heisig. The method for studying the kanji outlined in this book is quite unlike any other that you will probably run across. The core of the method relies on imaginative memory, which I will expand on in a bit. The reason I came to try this method of kanji study over others is because of my great luck with Heisig’s other Japanese writing study book, “Remembering the Kana.” With that book, I was able to achieve fast proficiency in both the writing and reading of the characters that comprise the kana. It uses a method similar to the one in “Remembering the Kani,” although it is not 100% the same. I can say up front that I am having an equally good experience with Heisig’s kanji book as I did with his kana book.
First things first, though: this book is not designed to help you “read” the kanji. Unlike “Remembering the Kana,” you will not find the slightest reference to the way the characters are verbalized or read in Japanese. Instead, this book serves to familiarize the reader with the 1850 base kanji required by the Japanese government that all high school students must know upon graduation. By familiarize, I mean you will be able to write the kanji with perfect stroke order and be able to recall their meaning. All of the meanings given in this book are in English, so it won’t help you expand your Japanese vocabulary either. But the ability to write and comprehend meaning in any language is half the battle, especially with a writing system as verbose as Japanese has. So now you know what you are getting into. Clearly, if you wish to use this method, it must be complemented in some what that you can come to learn the readings. For me, I have found that I already know many of the kanji’s readings (or at least one) and by using this method I have been able to proverbally “put a face to a name.”
So how does Heisig’s method work? Like I mentioned before, this method relies on what Heisig refers to as imaginative memory. For each kanji he presents in the book, a story with a strong associated mental image is given. The idea is to see the image in your mind’s eye when looking at the kanji. In this way, you can remember a kanji by drumming up a scene in your head instead of relying on rote memorization.
Heisig creates this images through what he calls primatives. Throughout the course of the book, especially in the early lessons (which is where I am), he takes the simple, basic kanji consisting of few strokes and correlates them to an object, which usually has nothing to do with the actual meaning of the character by itself. These include shellfish, fire, tools, nails, drops (of anything), St. Bernard dogs, etc. The use of imaginative memory by the reader is important at these points, so that future kanji can be more easily broken down into parts. The kanji in RtK are delivered in such a way that the primatives you just learned are combined together to create new kanji and sometimes even new primatives.
For example, 目 (eye) is learned early on. This one is pretty easy because you can sort of imagine if the kanji was rounded you would see an eye, albeit sans iris. Later, you come to learn 貝 (shellfish). How do you remember that this character means shellfish? Heisig has you imagine a shellfish with one giant eyeball on two little legs, skittering around a beach. This character is also given the primative meaning of shellfish, and goes on to appear in many, many more kanji, in which the stories involve shellfish in various situations.
I have so far made it through 130 kanji. If I was to see these kanji on a sign, I would have some idea of their meaning, and if asked to write them, I could reproduce them. But like I said, this book cannot stand on its own. You will need to learn the readings to complement the writings and meanings that you learn in this book. I would say that this book is a great method to use for beginning students of kanji (which I am one myself). The writings and meanings of the kanji I have so far learned have stuck better with me than any other method I have tried. Ultimately, I recommend giving “Remembering the Kanji” a shot.
If you do decide to pick up the book, I highly recommend that you check out the website Reviewing the Kanji, a community-driven site that includes tools to create and organize flashcards and study the kanji after completing a lesson in Heisig’s book. It even has a section for people to submit their own stories for the kanji, many of which I have found to produce even more powerful images than the original prescribed by Heisig.
I hope that this was helpful to all you kanji learners out there! With any luck, I’ll be able to get few a couple hundred before I go to Japan. Then, the real learning begins!
