Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 and Remembering Traditional Hanzi 1

[OneEye]

It's very good. I'm not as far through it as I wanted to be by now (I'm a horrible procrastinator), but I've had very little trouble memorizing the characters quickly so far. Some of the stories he supplies don't really work for me, so I make up different ones. He keeps them pretty G-rated and bland most of the time, presumably to appeal to a wider audience.

[youreallygotme]

Where can you get these book fastest? I checked Amazon and they don't have any? I'm residing in Europe, and I would like to start reading Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 before Christmas

[OneEye]

I ordered mine directly from the publisher. It arrived in 3 days.

http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shopcore/?PHPSESSID=5cf3f765f2764ea581a23bbe917dad7b&page=shop%2Fbrowse&db_name=uhpress&search_type=Specific+Search&sfield=author&subject_keyword=heisig

[urban_chaos]

I'm in the UK.

I also ordered the book directly from the Uni of Hawaii Press and it's been just over 6 weeks for delivery so far.

On their website it says 2-4 weeks for International mail delivery, after 4 weeks I contacted them by email and was told it sometimes takes 6 weeks and to contact them again at the end of this week if it still hasn't arrived.

not a happy customer.

[youreallygotme]

Only 3 days? That's great Where do you live?

[OneEye]

Texas

[HerrPetersen]

I have ordered it via amazon.de (Germany) and have been waiting about 3 weeks (without yet receiving it).

[Volapuk49]

I expressed it from publisher, Hawai'i to Maryland. It arrived in a few days.

I love the book. Yes, the mnemonics are definitely like the Japanese book; bland but helpful. However, the way he builds up the characters and points out elements below the level of the radicals is helpful for me.

The first volume covers 1,500 of the most common characters. I have the traditional character volume.

I compared it with the Japanese ( kan ji) text. These are not the exact same han zi and not the same order. Also, many mnemonics are different.

This is absolutely different from the Japanese version. Now I understand why he said not to use the kan ji version to learn han zi. It is a different book.

The book is definitely worth the wait.

[OneEye]

Agreed. I have RTK also, and it is definitely different.

[renzhe]

Everyone, please keep us informed of your progress.

It will be interesting to see how effective this system is.

Personally, I'm especially interested in how much it helps retention, as I find this to be the hardest part of learning.

[yigedeguoren]

In the past I've always somehow avoided learning characters properly. I could read a little bit, but not write. I've always focused on speaking. That's what I needed.

But, I promised myself that as soon as Heisig's book is out, that I'd change that

So here is what I think of the book so far.

As people already said, the mnemonics are not ... always very useful for me. For more than half of them I make my own story, but that's fair enough. It's part of the game. Time consuming though.

What I'm actually pleased the most with is retention. Once you've got a good story and remember it well, remembering the character is really easy. But I've to admit that I haven't learned that many yet

[glddrgn]

hey.. I'm completely new to learning chinese... and since I'm pretty serious about it, I wanted to tackle the hanzi right from the start

I bought this book and now I would like to use an SRS for reviewing..

Does anyone have any tips on how to introduce the RTH characters into the SRS? Is there already a RTH list available (traditional)?

Or should I just type all characters into the SRS manually with the IME?

[jiangl]

glddrgn, I don't believe a list exists, although that certainly may have changed since the last time I checked.

skritter.com -a character memorization site utilizing spaced repetition, free for now- plans to introduce Traditional characters soon, I believe.

[KanjiHanzi]

Wow! Isn't this Mr Heisig stirring up interest!!! I am rather new to this forum so I haven't had time to read very much, but I just added a post somewhere here introducing Kanji Hanzi Hub, a blog full of Heisig commentaries as well as Google group/mailing list.

Briefly I would like to add an insight here (after finishing "Remembering the Kanji" after three attempts over many years): if you just started with "Remembering the Hanzi" start all over again and start to add READINGS to the Hanzi. It's such an idiotic waste of time and energy to get through all these 3000 - Three Thousand!!! - characters and then start all over again and adding the pronunciations.

I really, really hate myself for NOT doing this with Kanji and Japanese. At least one on-reading per character. I TOTALLY DISAGREE with Heisig that this is a distraction. I rather find that it is of GREAT HELP to also have the sound in Mandarin when learning new characters there (as well as converting from Kanji meaning to Hanzi meaning where there is any difference).

It is also much easier to group similar characters after phonetics adn this of course requires you have the reading. If you take the character for green/blue (qing1) ...

青

... you will also get an approximate reading of all character containing blue/green as a component. OK, the tones will differ in this case and there might even be some JING here and there,. but in my opinion these approximations are vastly superior to not having any readings at all.

Consider yourself properly warned

[fluxs]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has by now created a full list of the traditional hanzi in the book for Anki or Mnemosyne?

Secondly, has anyone tried the approach of rote memorizing x thousand sentences? After learning chinese for so long I was wondering what people think about that method.

thanks a lot

[HerrPetersen]

I have a (unchecked) spreadsheet of all RSH with keywords (no stories) and reading, which you can use to create an anki-deck with. If you want it, just pm me. As for the sentence-approach, you can read through this thread for both supportive and critical perspectives.

[chalimac]

This might sound like a rant but it is my honest opinion:

- Heisig method forgets the most important thing: context. Languages do not float in the void like platonic ideas. They relate to everyday things and expressions.

- A chinese hanzi meaning depens on the usage. 别 means "other" and "don't". Which keyword" do you use? Besides, as you all know, most words involve two hanzi.

- What would I suggest? Learn with contextualized materials like children do. The best for chinese that I know is the "Chinese reader" series by DeFrancis. For japanese that would be "Kanji in context".

- Why invent histories when hanzi have fascinating historical etymologies that can help you to remember them. Check them here:

http://www.chineseetymology.org/ (more scientific)

http://chinese-characters.org/ (more casual and memorable)

Sorry if I bother someone. I just tell the method that made it for me. I tried Heisig before adopting this way (DeFrancis+ real etymologies).

[OneEye]

- Heisig method forgets the most important thing: context. Languages do not float in the void like platonic ideas. They relate to everyday things and expressions.

No, he doesn't forget context. He delays it. You get all the characters (writing and a keyword ONLY - he never promises anything beyond that) under your belt, and then you learn them in context. It's a long shortcut to real, native level Chinese rather than using childrens' books, which I can't stand doing.

- A chinese hanzi meaning depens on the usage. 别 means "other" and "don't". Which keyword" do you use? Besides, as you all know, most words involve two hanzi.

He uses "don't." Like I said, he doesn't pretend to teach all possible meanings of each hanzi, just one keyword and the writing. You learn the other meanings later, in context. With other characters, in multi-character words.

This dead horse has really been beaten. Haven't we been over all of this? Heisig's method is not intended to be an all-in-one, "finish my book and you'll be fluent" approach. He never markets it that way and the only people that put it in that light are the people who go out of their way to pan the book.

How about giving us your opinion of the book in it's own context, doing what it is intended to do? That would certainly be more useful than telling us that it doesn't teach something it never claimed to teach in the first place.

[chalimac]

It's a long shortcut

That's my objection.

to real, native level Chinese rather than using childrens' books

I'm not advocating for the use of children materials. In DeFrancis you learn a sentence like this in the first volume "What's the difference between Concise Grammar of Chinese and Sketch of Modern Chinese Grammar?" Hardly childish.

How about giving us your opinion of the book in it's own context, doing what it is intended to do?

I said I don't agree with the invented narratives. Besides, the introduction to the method has some wrong statements in my opinion:

there is nothing in the nature of a character dictating that it must be verbalized one way or another.

Wrong. They are phonetic-semantic compounds.

written characters bring a high degree of clarity to the multiplicity of meanings carried by homophones in the spoken language.

Wrong. Spoken language is perfectly clear. Homophones are not a problem because of bisyllabic words (the ones you don't learn in Heisig).

As I said, Heisig might work for you. I just don't see the effort it demands proportionate to the results.

[renzhe]

- Heisig method forgets the most important thing: context. Languages do not float in the void like platonic ideas. They relate to everyday things and expressions.

I don't think that Heisig forgets context. Heisig doesn't teach vocabulary, he teaches a writing system.

Learning hanzi is only a small part of learning the Chinese language. You get context and vocabulary through reading, listening and conversation with a qualified teacher and/or immersion.

The Chinese also learn to write hanzi out of context. As long as you don't stop there, but are exposed to vocabulary in context through reading, listening and conversation, there is no problem.

- Why invent histories when hanzi have fascinating historical etymologies that can help you to remember them. Check them here:

This is fine, but not all characters have proven valid etymologies and using invented stories often results in learning much faster.

Also, etymology may not help you with phonetic parts -- which phonetic part was picked and why, especially if the pronunciation doesn't match anymore.

Wrong. Spoken language is perfectly clear. Homophones are not a problem because of bisyllabic words (the ones you don't learn in Heisig).

There is no problem as long as you write language exactly as it is spoken.

Alas, Chinese (especially advanced stuff) is rarely written like that, and homophones do become a nuissance. Written language very often contracts bisyllabic words to single characters and often borrows from classical Chinese (which was never a spoken language to begin with).

Edited March 23, 2009 at 10:23 AM by renzhe
clearing up a misunderstanding on my part