Japanese Learning Resources #3: Remembering the Kanji by Heisig!! 

Hey thanks man! Te's kicked my butt for the longest time until I learned those tricks in that video :P Keep kicked fanny, freddy! :D

It worked for me. Once I hit 1,000 I brought it down to 5 since N2 only requires about that many, and I'm 12 months out from that test so no need to rush. But I'm still on 10 words a day!

I actually teared up. Dude thank you so much.

Thanks man!

Best of luck Christina!

Welcome to the family ^_^

Jennifer Holeman thanks Jennifer!! I try really hard ^_^ I actually have! I paid for several months just to be able to give my opinion on it: honestly I didn’t find enough value to warrant paying for it back then. I know they’ve updated it recently and to be fair I haven’t tried the new updated paid version, but if it’s anything like the old, I’d save your money for something more worth while personally! But that’s just my ¥2!

Chad Zimmerman Thanks so much for the quick reply!! Yes, from the other reviews i have seen on Memrise, the older version was not much to write home about, but I have been very impressed with what the newer version has to offer just for the free version : funny, memorable videos of native speakers, master vocabulary list for what you’ve been learning (something that Duolingo lacks which drives me crazy XP), the “point your camera at the backpack on the floor and it tells you how to say backpack in the target language O.O” feature. I have heard other Japanese learners use it in conjunction with Remembering the Kanji and didn’t know if those custom “decks” could only be accessed at the Premium level. Sorry, I am rambling now, haha. Thanks again for your input. Recent subscriber!! Looking forward to learning more about Japan with you!!

@@jenniferholeman2957 In the long run I personally still wouldn't use those features myself, but I wouldn't mind giving it another try for a month and doing a video about my thoughts!

Not yet, but buying now because I'm ALWAYS looking for good kanji resources!

I'm removing these for self promotion. If you want to edit it and just leave the opinion and information than feel free.

Chad Zimmerman did you end up buying it? What are your thoughts on it vs RTK?

I watched the other video tho but still couldn't understand ): u say it's waste of time learning how to read kanji because you might never read them in the first place so I thought maybe you relying on reading to know that

This book helps you distinguish 2200 kanji and exactly how to write them. You are then given a keyword or "image" in your head of what the kanji is relating to. So after RTK, vocab is said to be easier in remembering the kanji itself, apart from the rest and remember your given keyword or image. What I plan on doing after I finish; Tae Kim's Guide Grammer guide... and then start sentence mining and adding vocab through Subs2srs and Manga/Novels etc. Check out MattvsJapan

Grant K thanks!

Hey man I appreciate your input! I still disagree. I'm pretty serious about Japanese since it's kind of my job haha and I've never learnt any writing of it. I can read and community and even work in Japan without any English just fine. So I don't think it's necessary still for memorization at all. But I can appreciate your frankness and candor for wanting to maintain that piece and I think you, and anyone reading your comment who agrees to should to do it 100%! :D I may be wrong and I'm totally okay with this. haha I'm not above it and embrace failure pretty often because I learn from it. But I've passed the N2, started several businesses inside of Japan working with Japanese people and even went to an all Japanese program in school in Japan and never had to learn to write kanji. So even though I maintain my position, I respect and honor yours dude! Also Matt is a really cool guy. Listen to him :)

I actually never used the second book, and most of the learners I've spoken to who did use book 1 and 3 never used 2. I just learned the readings by actually learning words from my textbooks once I was able to remember and connect the dots of the kanji! Sorry!

Hey man I've never even gotten a first! So get yours in while you can! :D

Its a number that you hear pretty constantly from Japanese people I’ve talked to over the last 9 years or so. Most can recognize quite a bit to some extent or another, meaning they might know what it means but not how to read it, they know how to read it but not what it means, they know both what it means and how to read it (although they may not know which reading in a certain context), they also may know it perfectly well, and I’ve had plenty of adults tell me when we go out to drink at an izakaya they’ve never seen a kanji I point to before xD The 1,000 number I bring up often is around what most japanese people can recognize both it’s reading and meaning. It becomes a gradient often after that :)

This resource isn't for that. You learn their pronunciations as you go about your regular learning process. This simply is to be able to differentiate the kanji's easily from one another and form solidified meanings to help build word pictures in your head for the radicals for memorization. I'll give you a very basic example you can scale up: in the book you learn 猫 means cat. So when you then go into a resource to learn, say, either a book you encounter that kanji in, or a word list that is teaching you the word, you'll see the kana ねこ somewhere involving the kanji (either in the form of furigana above the kanji, or in the column of the word you're learning in a dictionary). So, you know it means cat from this book, and now from that main learning resource you know cat means ねこ, so then you can draw the conclusion that ねこ = 猫. That's how you learn a reading. And you can keep learning things with multiple readings by just learning vocab as you normally would from either means. This book isn't for learning the pronunciations, it's just to remember the kanji in your head as separate them from similar looking kanji. There are additional RTK books that say they teach you pronunciation but I find them way less helpful than just doing whatever main method of language acquisition you choose. Be it a class, a textbook or an app.

@@ThatsMyChad I understand now.Thank u so much for your time.

@@vladouki4066 Sorry if it wasn't as clear in the video I try my best but I'm not much of a teacher ^_^ hope this helps!

I went to several different language schools with no problems. I also worked in Japan no teaching English. I never studied how to write kanji and I'm fine.

not*

@@ThatsMyChad it's scientifically proven that you retain more information when you write things down by hand via learning it through electronic means.

Ex Pe Ns Iv E As fuck