Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 and Remembering Traditional Hanzi 1

[renzhe]

I can see why people here basically have reservations, skeptical, or outright negative opinions of this method because I've had the same reservations and skeptical attitude myself.

I think that much of the skepsis comes from the opinion that learning Hanzi for Chinese is different from learning Kanji for Japanese (it was debated in this thread, I won't repeat it), and the fact that nobody has learned Chinese characters successfully this way yet.

When people start making huge leaps with this, like they do with RTK, people will become less sceptical.

[jslee]

PROGRESS REPORT (17 October 2008):

The books have been printed and are schedule to be at the

binders on 24 October. They should be ready for shipping

within a few days after that.

Not long until it comes out, and people can get a better judgement of its effectiveness.

[HerrPetersen]

By the way: I finished RTK and applied the method to Chinese. It works pretty good - however it was quiet a lot of work to get the adaptions done. I might also not be such a great example, because I spend only around 15 minutes or so each day for learning Chinese (I only review via Anki).

[renzhe]

How long did it take you to finish the book and how many characters was it?

How good is your recall / how much do you forget?

How much extra effort was getting the pronunciation down?

[HerrPetersen]

The RTK-book contains 2042 kanji. Up to now I made 419 adaptions/additions to those 2042 kanji. In my anki-deck I have around 800 hanzi which are in my "learn word/learn sentences" modell.

Most characters stick really well, for some I don't need to review at all but there are also some where the RTK-keyword was badly chosen (for Chinese) where it takes a little time. I just fished out an example: 整天(organize, heavens), zhěngtiān, the whole day. While the tian1="heavens" (which already doesn't feel like "heaven" but much more like "day") part is pretty clear, the "organize"-part doesnt seem to fit that well.

Getting pronounciation down is probably the hardest part.

This early summer I was adding vocabulary/sentences worth 15+ hanzi a day for over two month - which went pretty easy until the reviews per day piled up to over 130 or so. Right now I have other obligations so I limit myself to reviewing only.

[renzhe]

That's because the meaning of 整 here is "whole, entire", like in 整体. The character has many meanings. There is really no way around it other than learning the alternative meanings as you learn new words.

The reason why I asked about your progress is to get an idea of how effective the Heisig approach is. It's always good to hear from people who have tried a method to learn how effective it is, and what issues arise.

[leosmith]

Hi everybody. FYI - I Just got this from Dr. Heisig. Looks like he responded to everyone who's been inquiring about the book:

Announcing the publication of Remembering Hanzi Book 1

You wrote some time ago expressing interest in the progress Remembering the Hanzi was making on its way to publication. I am happy to report that Book 1 (both the Simplified and the Traditional, in separate volumes) is being bound this week and will be available shortly from the University of Hawaii Press (http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shopcore/?db_name=uhpress&page=shop/index&PHPSESSID=36e8e41e32d2b3e1cf787cb94c42b56d) , and presumably soon after that on Amazon. Pricing details should be available any day on that same web site.

For those living here in the Far East, we expect to have copies in stock by 15 November. Pricing and ordering details will then be available at http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/contact/ordering_books_special.htm .

We hope you will find the books helpful. Meantime, we are making steady progress in the preparation of Book 2, which will complete the full list of 3,000 characters.

J. W. Heisig

T. W. Richardson

[cypherpunks2]

What characters do they include? It says 3000 characters, but which 3000?

[OneEye]

What characters do they include? It says 3000 characters, but which 3000?

That's kind of an odd question. I doubt they would release a list with all of them on there prior to publication. But the website says (emphasis mine):

Book 1 of each course covers 1,500 characters, organized around the 1,000 most frequently used characters (for details on the process of selection, read pages 8-9 of the download). Book 2 will add another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000 frequently-used characters and a solid foundation for the serious student of Chinese.

Meantime, we are making steady progress in the preparation of Book 2, which will complete the full list of 3,000 characters.

I wonder when Book 2 will be released. I believe they were making "steady progress" on Book 1 a year or two ago, so I wonder if Book 2 will be out by the time people start finishing Book 1.

[cypherpunks2]

Well, they seem to have pretty much nailed the list, so I don't see any reason why they couldn't release it. It's not like the book is just a character list, the main thing are the keywords, the component breakdown and the ordering.

They seem to have put some work behind the selection, so it would be interesting to see.

[~Rachel~]

This is good news, imo! It would be great to have another option for remembering Hanzi. My current method is to make my own wacky stories/ideas for them, and... well, as my Chinese grade breakdown reflects, it's not going very well. ;) I'll be sure to keep my eye out for this book. I do hope it's out before my Study Abroad trip so I can find my way around...

[OneEye]

Well, they seem to have pretty much nailed the list, so I don't see any reason why they couldn't release it. It's not like the book is just a character list, the main thing are the keywords, the component breakdown and the ordering.

They seem to have put some work behind the selection, so it would be interesting to see.

But what would be the point? No other books that I know of have that, besides Harbaugh's (kind of), so why would Heisig do it?

[Ace52]

Hi there. I read the current thread with much interest- I can't believe there are so many people out there who support the Heisig method! It's like Mind-Mapping for Hanzi, in a sense...

I found of particular interest the fact that people might be interested in sharing stories, kind of like a collective effort to do sth similar to what the RTK forum does for Kanji.

Here's my suggestion:

Is there anyone out there who would like to do sth similar for RTH? I know this idea has been floated already, but here's what I can contribute:

I spent a few days translating the mnemonics from http://taeglich.chinesisch-trainer.de/index.php?alle=2. (It means "Daily Chinese" in German). The original mnemonics/ stories are in German, and I translated them into English (I am a native speaker of English). Being fluent in German myself (I spent 15 years learning the language upto degree-level) I managed to translate 1029 Hanzi, which was the total last time I checked. I have the translated database in UTF-8 format, and in an Excel spreadsheet.

I offer no guarantees that the database is 100% perfectly and seamlessly translated. However, I have university-level experience of translating German, and used a dictionary for esp. complicated or multi-faceted words. In short, I did the best I could...

I'm more than willing to share the translated mnemonics/ stories with anyone else (we should really thank the creator of "Taeglich Chinesisch"- all credit is due to him). BUT: could I ask, that anyone I share the stories with come up with some stories for RTH 1, and esp. RTH 2 when it comes out? There are still 2000 characters in total left to go, minus the 1000 odd at "Taeglich Chinesisch". Besides, a collective effort is really only one if everybody chips in.

Post a reply if any of you are interested- I'm a new member to this forum, so I cannot be PM'ed yet.

Thanks.

[Hofmann]

Ace52,

That database rocks! The 21-or-something links below each character are very convenient.

[roddy]

"I'm a new member to this forum, so I cannot be PM'ed yet."

You can now.

[OneEye]

From http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering%20Hanzi%201.htm:

PROGRESS REPORT (23 October 2008):

The books are finished. See announcement at www.uhpress.hawaii.edu under "New Books." Amazon should catch up in a few days.

Sweet. I'm ordering it right now.

[OneEye]

And, I should add, there is an index for pronunciations, according to the Table of Contents. That should please many of the naysayers (not all, I know).

[HerrPetersen]

@Ace52 - There is a page, which does exactly that, only for the Kanji. It is embedded into an vocabulary trainer. You can post Heisig-stories and you can mark stories you like. The creator got the permission from Heisig to use the official keywords. If there is enough demand, he said that he would do the same for Chinese. Anyhow, here is the page:

http://kanji.koohii.com/main.php

Edit: update - The creator of kanji.koohii.com is definitly planning to start a RTH-page: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=31406#p31406

Edited October 31, 2008 at 05:11 PM by HerrPetersen

[OneEye]

Edit: update - The creator of kanji.koohii.com is definitly planning to start a RTH-page: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=31406#p31406

That would be cool. Probably a while down the road though from what it looks like.

My copy came in the mail today. Actually yesterday but I didn't check the mail until this evening. I'm picking it up at the apartment office first thing in the morning.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

OneEye (or other early buyers): what are your impressions of the book?