Creo que ya he encontrado mi marcha. 12 Kanjis cada día menos el fin de semana cuando descanso aunque sigo haciendo los repasos. Así el lunes estoy fresco con la cabeza vacía y me acuerdo más fácilmente de los nuevos Kanjis.
El problema que puedes encontrar al seguir el método de Heisig si no tienes inglés como lengua materna es no entender gran parte de las palabras que usa como significado de los Kanjis. Viviendo en Inglaterra y con un nivel muy bueno de inglés (eso creía hasta ahora), hay una palabra de cinco que no conozco, a veces más.
Por ejemplo, solamente durante los últimos 4 días, me han salido:
- Lungs (pulmón)
- Stagnate (estancarse)
- Brocade (brocado)
- Canopy (baldaquin)
- Linen (lino)
- Cornerstone (piedra angular)
- Garment (prenda)
- Attire (ataviar)
- Dike(dique)
- Mending (remendar)
- Levy (impuesto)
- Dwindle (disminuir)
Será más fácil aprender los Kanjis en tu lengua materna para poder construir historias sobre palabras que conoces y a las que puedes asociar recuerdos e imágenes. Aunque a mi me gusta en inglés porque me permite aprender nuevo vocabulario al mismo tiempo que memorizo los Kanjis.
7 comentarios:
That's impressive that you're doing the English version even with the Spanish one available!
By the way, those aren't the hardest words - later on there were quite a few keywords that I didn't know (as a native speaker).
Reckon 12 a day is about right too, there's no point going crazily fast and realizing you can't keep it up later.
Sometimes even when I´m translating those words to my native language (French), I'm finding words I have barely used a few times in my whole life.
Don´t know why Heisig used these words, I´m sure he could have found words more usually used. At the end of day, there are only 2.000 Kanjis.
However I was quite happy the other day when I read the word "dwindle" in a newspaper ;)
:O So you're French, living in England, writing in Spanish and learning Japanese??!! That's really incredible!
I'm not sure why he used some of the keywords either - I think sometimes the meanings of kanji overlap quite heavily (like, there are 4 or 5 characters that refer to types of books), and so he ends up using English synonyms to keep them apart.
Nice that the words do come up in English occasionally though ;)
When you put it like that, that's quite unusual. I've just been be moving this last ten years and I've spent at least 2 years and a half in each of the country (Spain, France and England).
I've seen that you are currently learning Cantonese. I did 2 years of Mandarin but found it really hard (writing, reading with the 5 tones). That's why I tried to focus only on Japanese.
Did you also also learn Japanese before? You sure did the whole RTK book. Has it really helped you? Do you still remember most of them?
Must be nice to have experiences of so many places :)
I did learn Japanese before for about three years, and I guess I know enough to get by in Japan. About a year ago I discovered AJATT and decided I'd do Heisig (for Japanese). Before doing the book, I think I knew only 200 kanji or so, and I'd look at a page of Japanese text and be too intimidated to try and read it.
Having finished Heisig, it's real boost to know that literacy is actually possible, and it also gives you a huge leg up when learning new words (since you can see patterns recurring more easily when you know the characters). It also lets you read actual Japanese once you've learned how to say each kanji, which gives you access to a far wider range of learning material than if you could only speak. Certainly, I don't think I'd have been able to learn nearly as much Cantonese without being able to read - if nothing else, the thought of never being able to read is a huge psychological barrier to fluency.
I've been reviewing them almost daily even after I finished the book, so for the last 6 months, and can remember 90% or so of cards on any given day; I deleted 200 because they don't appear in written Chinese, but I've added some more that make up for it :) Anyway, it's definitely worth finishing - Chinese characters are the single biggest hurdle to fluency, but if you can do it you'll be able to master Japanese completely!
Your comment really gives me a boost before starting the 3rd part of the book. Knowing that at the end it would have been worth the effort.
Have you tried RTH to memorize Chinese characters?
Haven't actually tried RTH - partly because I'd have to import it, and partly because I don't really need it.
Chinese characters are broadly the same as Japanese ones - compare 學 and 学, and also 覺 and 覚. Since the Japanese characters were logically simplified, there isn't a whole lot more to learn, as can be seen from those two examples. Also, I think I've only run across 6 or 7 primitives that weren't covered in RTK1, and it's not hard to come up with new meanings for them.
One slight problem is that Japanese has warped the meanings of some characters slightly (especially for the most common ones), but not to the extent that the whole lot needs relearning - if ever you go back to Mandarin, you won't have to do a lot of extra work!
The third part is the hardest (especially coming up to the halfway mark), but once you've broken past that point it's not so bad. Kinda like how coming down a mountain is easier than going up it, even if you're more tired by that point. Anyway, it's just donkey work from now on, so best of luck! ;)
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