Reddit Reddit reviews Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters (English and Japanese Edition)

We found 14 Reddit comments about Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters (English and Japanese Edition). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters (English and Japanese Edition)
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14 Reddit comments about Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters (English and Japanese Edition):

u/[deleted] · 6 pointsr/LearnJapanese

This is the best. Heisig's "remembering kanji" is, in my opinion, the best way to learn kanjis. By using his method, I was able to remember a lot of kanji without too much efforts (~200 kanji, I stopped for know because it's exam time). Plus if you use it with this 100% free website(http://kanji.koohii.com/), then you save the trouble to make flashcards (keep a piece of paper to trace the kanji however).

One down : the order of the kanji is not in the "most useful first" order, so you may learn a number of not useful kanji. But you learn them good. And you can always work out the jlpt kanji aside :)

u/smokeshack · 6 pointsr/japanese

Rosetta Stone sucks donkey dong. Use Tae Kim's guide, Remembering the Kanji, and Genki. For listening, Pimsleur's and Japanese Pod 101 are quite good.

u/Shmurk · 4 pointsr/AskReddit
u/giesse · 3 pointsr/japan

Remembering the Kanji and Mnemosyne

And of course read this

u/zooey1692 · 3 pointsr/LearnJapanese

Two resources that a majority of folks here will (without doubt) plug to you:

Kanji Damage

Heisig's Remembering the Kanji

Both of these are based around learning the components that comprise the Kanji (radicals) as opposed to learning each Kanji stroke by stroke. Make some flash cards and drill! I would suggest writing them out, but others seem content using an SRS like Anki. Some people also advise following Heisig's method and NOT learning the Japanese pronunciations until you've learning a hefty majority of the common use kanji, while others say you should learn the readings while you go (the Kanji Damage way). I've been chugging through Heisig's book at twenty kanji a day and it's been pretty easy.

Overall, as has been said over and over in this subreddit, do whatever you need to do to make learning it easy for you! Try stuff out and if it doesn't stick, move on to the next resource. Best of luck!

EDIT: I'd also like to add how even though kanji will seem really intimidating at first, once you get in the groove you'll find it's incredibly easy. Seriously. I'm at over 300 Kanji after three weeks of studying and can easily retain 90% of that when I'm studying and reviewing. If you approach it from the right angle, it shouldn't be too bad! :)

u/morewood · 2 pointsr/japan

If you really want to learn Japanese for real you should buy Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1 and use this site until you have learned enough kanjis. Then proceed with SRS'ing sentences. After a year or so doing it everyday you will be able to get around Japanese websites and such!
EDIT: my sentence didn't made sense.

u/Agrona · 2 pointsr/Images

This is essentially the method (but with illustrations) behind Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, which is excellent.

u/Spoggerific · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

He's not kidding. Mnemonics are the shit.

I'm learning kanji at the rate of 20 per day with the help of this book's mnemonic system. I spend at most five minutes per character, and after studying them and writing them down only once, I am able to remember them incredibly easy.

With the help of anki for review, it only takes me about four separate reviews spaced over a week or two to remember a character, essentially, permanently. According to my anki history, I've never failed a card that the system considers "memorized", and my success rate for cards a week or less old is 82%.

Before I came across that book I linked a little bit above, I was trying to memorize them by rote, writing each character down dozens and dozens of times every day until it stuck. I could only do maybe three or four characters each day, and I almost always half-forgot them three days later.

u/d11b · 2 pointsr/japanese

If you are a serious learner of the language, then this is site all you need IMO: All Japanese All The Time. I stumbled across this site while in college and in the course of three years (one of which was spent abroad in Japan), I learned Japanese to a very high level. If you are still a student, it will be even easier for you to take on this method.

One more thing. This is also a part of the AJATT method, but deserves separate recognition: Remembering the Kanji. In all my years of learning Japanese, this book was the single most useful text I've ever encountered.

Good luck!

u/InCraZPen · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Depends on what method of learning you subscribe to. The book you suggest is fine, and the Genki books are fine for the standard way of learning.

Learning Kana is easy...actually easier than English as there is no guessing, there is only one way to pernounce "ichi" as written in kana. The problem is Kanji, and oh what a problem it is.

I did not succeed as to learn any language takes a good amount of effort that you are willing to put in but here is a method I subscribe to. Using this book you would learn how to read Japanese using Kanji the quickest. The thing is, that what you are learning in this book isn't actually how to read, but more how to reckognize each kanji symbol. The idea is that once you learn how to recognize each Kanji, it will be 100x easier to put words to it. This book falls into the method that this guy http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ follows. Which while crazy, I can see being effective.

Japanese is hard fyi

u/Maarifrah · 1 pointr/japanese

I like RTK. Some people have problems with it, but it worked for me. Also using anki with a kanji deck is very helpful.

u/grumpypants_mcnallen · 1 pointr/AskReddit

> My knowledge of kanji is laughable at best.

Heisig's Remembering the Kanji has a very novel approach to learning the kanji, although It's not for everyone. The problem for me was that I was both being too lazy, but also that it works best with English as your primary language.

As for vocabulary training I'm not sure.

u/mcaruso · 1 pointr/LearnJapanese

Yep, that's definitely true. This, incidentally, is what Heisig set out to do with Remembering the Kanji, to give an English speaker the same advantage in Japanese as a Chinese speaker (that is, know how to write each kanji and a rough approximation to its meaning).

u/Futur3Blu3s · -1 pointsr/IWantToLearn

Let me start by telling you to save yourself the trouble. Learning Japanese is a long hard road and once you get to the end you'll realize that the Anime or manga that spurred your desire to learn is actually juvenile and terrible. The economy here stinks and translation is one of the most boring, tedious jobs in existence. Furthermore, even after you achieve intermediate proficiency and can speak and understand a lot of Japanese, you'll realize that it doesn't matter because speaking Japanese requires being Japanese to a certain extent and you won't and can't ever be Japanese.

If that still doesn't persuade you to learn any other language, here are a few resources:

Reviewing the Kanji Forum - This is a site devoted to Heisig's Reviewing the Kanji which is a series of books devoted to learning the Kanji independently and then learning the readings later. I suggest you do this. It will take anywhere from 3 months to a year and you won't be able to read or write any Japanese at the end of it, but in my opinion, this foundation is of profound necessity. After you do this, acquiring vocabulary and understanding even complicated scientific terms in Japanese will be leaps and bounds easier.

Tae Kim's guide to basic Japanese grammar - This is a basic primer. Free and through. Study it and internalize it. It's no substitute for a class and instructors to drill you, but it's free and explains concepts in Japanese grammar in a way that will complement any classes you take and/or let you work at your own pace towards more complicated material.

Anki - Download Anki. It's a Spaced Repitition System (SRS) program. Make two decks. A sentences deck and a vocabulary deck. Whenever you learn a new word, put it into the vocab deck and put interesting sentences into the sentences deck. Finish your reviews every day. (Like braces, this is something that will be with you for the rest of your life, so learn to love it.) Time box your reviews to about 5 minutes at a time.

Kanji in Context - Start working through this series of books. I do something like 2 kanji a day in the vocabulary workbook, putting all the words into an Anki deck and obscuring the kanji I'm learning, such that the answer to the card is to write that kanji. This primarily enforces the readings I'm learning. Writing things increases your ability to dedicate them to memory. I put the sentences into the sentences deck. Prepare to get behind. Maybe you'll slag through it.

lang-8 - Once you've got some conversational Japanese under your belt, sign up at Lang-8 and write some or respond to other journal entries. Native speakers congregate here and will correct your Japanese, talk to you in Japanese, and generally have a conversation.

Buy or research ways to study for the JLPT and sign up for level 4. The goal is not passing this test (only level 1 and 2 really matter and even then, most people who get this certification are NEVER asked they took it) but simply setting a deadline. Level 5 (test changed this year) is crazy easy. Make this your goal. Even if you can't actually get to a testing site or don't have the money, convince yourself that you do and buy some JLPT study guides and work towards level X (again, probably 5). Once you feel confident you can pass level 5, start studying for level 4 and so on. Use the bi-annual deadlines to keep yourself studying. Watch Japanese stuff on Youtube, find a way to go to Japan and do all this in a native environment. Once you get to the end of the road, you'll probably end up discovering that it wasn't worth it.

My recommendation is to learn Mandarin if you're interested in learning an Asian language and something European if you're interested in History. (If you're interested in reading historic Japanese texts, good luck. You'll have to learn Japanese and then classic Japanese. (Most natives can't read pre-WWII newspapers easily or at all-- this is where you're headed.))