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[japanman]

It's all a matter of individual personality and learning styles then.
But to anyone who is into the Heisig system, two things I can recommend. 1) Joining a site called www.kanji.koohii.com This is great for reviewing your kanji and sharing stories 2) You can get free flashcards at www.polarcloud.com/kanji

[JimDunlop2]

Thanks for the polarcloud link. Those are fantastic!!!

There's only one comment that I have to make, though. Part of the learning process is writing out the kanji. Therefore, MAKING your own kanji cards rather than already getting them pre-made is better, IMO.

On the other hand, if you remembered to incorporate the writing practice in your routine, and wrote out each kanji a few times, you could have the best of both worlds -- have professional-looking flashcards AND writing practice.

The only other thing would be to print those out onto card stock paper so they aren't so thin.

I'm also experimenting with different "flashcard systems" right now. I'd say that it is the number one obstacle for me right now. I don't want to make excuses for myself (and for my lack of motivation) but that IS the one issue that I've been running up against -- the lack of an effective flashcard system.

Here are my thoughts on it.

A good system must:

- be quick and efficient to produce "en masse." There's nothing more frustrating that having to spend hours of intimate time with the paper cutter just to cut up a fresh batch of cards

- be easy to use/re-use. My current system of keeping a stack of 250 cards together in a pile, bound by a rubber band just isn't very good.

- be reasonably priced. Tuttle cards are too expensive, Buying A4 sheets of card stock isn't that bad but then I'm faced by the issue in point 1.

- be readily available. 100-yen shops (surprisingly) don't carry much in the way of blank index cards. Go figure. That means I have to go across town to the stationary shop and hope that the same cards I bought last time are in stock.

- be portable. I want to be able to take my cards everywhere. I know some people have completely gone paper-free and just used some of the various software that's out there to go along with the Heisig system. That's cool but I usually don't have my computer with me.

Anyway, here's a brief update on my progress otherwise....

Slowly getting back into the swing of it after a long hiatus. Have been reviewing some cards today. I called my buddy the other day (he also started the system recently) to see if he's fallen off the wagon (he did) so we discussed some ways we could keep each other motivated (maybe over some beers or something)...

Current number of kanji learnt = 260.

[japanman]

I do writing practice with each kanji and keep the flashcards for reference. They will become for useful when i've finished book 1 and I start learning the readings by making kanji-chains.
Do you know about the Leitner system? This is perfect for organising your flashcards.

[JimDunlop2]

[japanman]

The site I mentioned before www.kanji.koohii.com uses the Leitner system but you could easily do it yourself. Just make a space on each card for its expirery date, write it lightly in pencil. then when your cards move to the next pile, write the new date and put them at the bottom of the pile in question. Everyday, just check the date on the top of all your piles and see if today's date appears.

[leosmith]

Nice to see so many ESL folks learning kanji. I used Heisig's RTK1 too. Excellent method for me. I did it all with paper flashcards. It took me 30 weeks, 10 hrs per week.

I tried to use RTK2, but found my lack of vocabulary to be a big slow down. I know some guy who used RTK2, and it only took him about 100 hours, but he knew about 90% of the vocab in the book. I only knew about 20%.

So I quit about half way through RTK2, and decided to try to learn how to read my own vocabulary words. It was very easy - definitely the most satisfying experience since I started learning Japanese. So the Heisig method worked, and when I completed RTK1, I was finished with single character study. Well, except for new characters which I occasionally encounter. I use the Heisig method to learn those, of course.

Now I use Supermemo. Although difficult to learn how to use, it's an excellent flashcard program that really minimizes my review time. I gradually fed all my vocabulary, RTK1 and RTK2 stuff into the program, and every day supermemo decides, based on my pass/fail history, what I need to review.

So if I had to do RTK1 all over, I'd start out with paper flashcards, then after a few days dump them into supermemo. It's a cycle. Every day I'd learn some, review some, and enter some into supermemo.

Good luck with your studies!

[nonsmoker]

Here's a stupid question: If you can read and write Chinese, will you be able to understand most Japanese Kanji?

[JimDunlop2]

No. You will have somewhat of an advantage, however. Modern Chinese uses many "simplified" characters which may have been derived from other characters that both Japanese and Chinese shared at some point, but don't any longer.

Also, the "Chinese readings" in Japanese are nowhere near the actual Chinese readings in Chinese for the most part... But as is pointed out in RTK1, many Chinese people who undertake learning Japanese do already know many MEANINGS of the Japanese kanji when they see them, and they most certainly have experience writing them -- so their task is a little less difficult than ours, who are starting at zero.

Likewise, I've asked many Japanese people who visit China how much they've understood on their trip (in the way of street signs, menus, etc) and the answer I usually get is -- that they can get the gist of something, but not actually read it properly. I would assume that the inverse then is also true.

[canuck]

[nonsmoker]

[zorro (3)]

Jim, do they not sell those 100 yen kanji learning cards in your 100 yen shop? The ones I mentioned in the previous page of this thread. Sounds like they woud be really useful for you here.

[Gypsy Rose Kim]

I use one of these to make flashcards (though I don't use the Heisig method).

[/url]http://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-12-Inch-Euro-Paper-Trimmer/dp/B00019DTRQ/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-1375347-0265618?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1180695581&sr=8-2[url][url]


It's cheap, easy, and...dare I say...fun cutting the cards. A big advantage is that it can also be used to score index cards, so you can make the kind that fold like greeting cards as mentioned by the previous poster. To be honest, I don't know how lived without it.[/url]

[king of the bees]

Just thought I'd add my support for RTK1. I started on the weekend and I've now got the writing of 573 characters (I have quite a bit of spare time at the moment). I've also been reading a lot of manga with furigana and Japanese wikipedia + rikaichan to get the actual readings of the new characters. I'd recommend it to anyone.

JimDunlop2, how's it coming along?

[JimDunlop2]

<sigh> Slowly. But I AM back into studying though. Armed with the new set of flashcards (see the most recent link about that) I've been taking my cards to the gym and reviewing them on the exercise bike...

But since my last report, no NEW kanji -- only reviewing and re-reviewing all the ones I already know. The more of em you learn, the longer it takes to review em all...lol...

I'll post here again when I've made a significant jump (like the 500 mark) or so.

Thanks for asking, though, Mr. Bees.

[barashkov1]

I've been looking over the first volume for remembering the kanji and I've been using a computerized flashcard system where I have to input the kanji I want to learn but the problem is that I need to know either the chinese or japanese readings to input the kanji (which heisig doesn't tell us). Does anyone have a solution to this problem other than purchasing the second book? Even just like a list of all the kanji as they appear in the heisig book on a standard internet site (I haven't been able to successfully copy & paste kanji from the pdf file).
Also what is the best free online japanese dictionary?