Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig - part 2

In my previous post I explained how Remembering the Kanji 1 helped me learn the meaning and writing of 2042 kanji. So that's great and impressive at birthday parties and all, but completely useless if you don't also know the pronunciation. So that's what Remembering the Kanji volume 2 is all about.

It took me a while to get started, because it doesn't really give a set way of studying, like volume 1 did. I had to do a lot of research online and a lot of trying out to find a method that worked for me. But I think I have it now.

For those of you doing RTK2, you'll probably say, after reading this: You're crazy. You should be learning compound words, not loose onyomi! I'll explain in a minute why I am not doing that.

First: What is onyomi and what is kunyomi?
Onyomi is the Chinese pronunciation of the kanji.
Kunyomi is the Japanese pronunciation of the kanji.
As I explained in my previous post, the kanji were brought over from China. The Japanese had their own way of saying words, but no symbols. However, the symbols had their own pronunciation. So the Japanese decided to use both. (This is all putting it very simply, of course.) Onyomi is mostly used in compound words; words that consist of two or more kanji. Kunyomi is usually used when kanji stand on their own.

In RTK2, Heisig focuses more on the onyomi, as we've already learnt single kanji, so kunyomi isn't that hard (though he does give a method for it at the end of the book, which I will explain and tell my experiences with when I start doing it). But since onyomi is used to write compound words, it's more difficult and he focuses on it more.

The method he uses is that some of the kanji can be divided into groups in which all the kanji share a certain radical (a symbol that is part of the kanji) and a certain pronunciation. An example: These four kanji (長, 張, 帳, 脹) all have a shared element (also known as primitive): 長 (sometimes these primitives are kanji themselves, sometimes they are radicals and sometimes they are neither). All four are also pronounced as 'chou' (the u indicates that the o is elongated, so it rhymes with 'show', not with 'chew'. This way, it's easy to remember that a kanji with that particular primitive is pronounced that way.

Sounds like a good method. However, there were a few drawbacks for me. First of all; there are kanji that share the same primitive, which get a different pronounciation. Also, these four kanji aren't the only ones that are pronounced 'chou'; there are 23 others as well. And there's a whole bunch of kanji that fall outside these groups altogether. Lastly, and most importantly to me: Heisig focuses on learning compounds with those kanji in it. However, if I only know the onyomi of one part of the compound, it would be rote memorisation for the other part and that is not the way his method works. So, I decided to find another way to work.

At the Reviewing the Kanji website forum, I found some people talking about the 'Movie Method'. The way I understood it, it works as follows: You take all the kanji with a certain onyomi (for example 'chou') and look at the meaning for all of them (you already know the meaning, because you learnt them in RTK1. Though some meanings there are off, most of them are pretty accurate). You then think of a movie you know very well, for example The Lord of the Rings. And then you recreate scenes with those kanji involved, say you had the kanji for roadway, ring, group, etc, it would be easy. But you also get kanji that don't immediately seem to suit with this film, like delight, or permit. It's the trick to make up a story that can also involve those kanji. Which shouldn't be too hard, after finishing RTK1.

However, I'm not too much of a movie buff and I also didn't want to come up with different movies for allll those different onyomi. Also, I didn't want to use the same movie for all or a lot of onyomi, because I was worried I'd mix up the stories. So I decided to go with making up stories, but not attaching them to a movie. Basically the Heisig method, but instead of there being primitives, there were kanji with which to make up a story. I also always make sure to include the pronunciation, or I still don't remember!

An example of a short one:
Onyomi: suu (スウ)
Kanji: 枢 (hinge), 数 (number), 崇 (adore)
Story: My friend Sue (suu) is off her hinges! She actually adores numbers and wants to become a maths teacher!

I've done all the groups of 3, 4, 5 and 6 kanji so far. The smaller the groups, the easier, but if they are smaller than 3 it gets harder. So I am doing the onyomi with 1 and 2 kanji last. The bigger the groups, the harder it gets as well, but after a lot of practice with the smaller groups, those will also be ok. I am considering attaching movies for the biggest groups, and then dividing them up into little scenes (there are a lot of groups with around 20 or 30 kanji, but some are as big as 40 or 50 and the biggest one has 68 kanji). However, I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

As for reviewing; I downloaded Anki, a programme that works with the Spaced Reviewing System I explained in my other post about RTK1. On the front of the Anki card (the bit that you see first) I put the kanji. On the back (the bit that shows up if you click 'Show card' I put the onyomi and the meaning (doesn't hurt reviewing that as well). I've noticed that not all my stories have stuck as well as others, but that's the same with RTK1 and you can always tweek them a bit.

At the moment, I have about 350 cards in Anki; so 350 kanji I know at least one onyomi of (some have 2 or 3). When I'm done with these, I will probably do the kunyomi at the same time as learning the compounds Heisig mentions in the book. I haven't really thought too far ahead. My main goal at the moment is finishing Pimsleur before I go to Japan and hopefully also finishing the onyomi part of RTK2 I am doing now (though I don't know if I'll make it). It's going pretty fast this way, as did RTK1, so once I have all this out of the way, it will make learning sentences and vocabulary that much easier. ^^