Learning Characters: Chinese Breeze Vs Heisig

[chinopinyin]

I feel that the most natural way to learn characters is to read, read and read. I am currently using the Chinese Breeze series

But I may be wrong: Heisig Remembering the hanzi or Hoenig EZChineseasy Chinese Characters are suggested by many people.

I feel uncomfortable to start learning words like Heisig's reckelessly or prosperous or Hoenig's scholar or jade tablet. Is it really more efficient? Am I missing something?

[Glenn]

The reading part of Heisig comes as a side-effect of learning writings and meanings and how to break down characters. Although, I don't think there are any readings in the two RTH books (I used RTK; the readings were in volume two). In my opinion, just learning to recognize characters in context is fine, but if you really want to get a better handle on them you should learn about them (particularly the different types and how they're constructed) and how to write them. Anyone can appreciate baseball just fine just by watching it, but when you try your hand at it you gain a whole new understanding for how the game is played and what goes on during games, and just what each action entails. I think that's a metaphor for lots of things.

[renzhe]

The problem with reading can be split into three major parts:

1) learning the alphabet

2) learning the vocabulary

3) getting comfortable with reading texts in the given alphabet

In most languages, the first part takes about 20 minutes. If you're doing something more tricky such as Hindi or Arabic, then a few weeks. The second part takes a few years, as does the third, and they are usually done together.

In the Chinese languages, the first part takes about 3 years. The rest is the same.

Because of this (and because it is often cited as THE most difficult part of the language), different methods for memorising around 3,500 characters you need to read most things comfortably have been devised, and you've mentioned a few.

They won't teach you how to read. They will help you cram a number of characters into your memory and make sure you don't forget them immediately. You will still have to flashcard them and read read read over a few years. But many people find that a concentrated isolated character study can be helpful.

In short, they won't teach you how to read Chinese in a few months. They will merely give you a set of characters that you can use to speed up vocabulary acquisition and give you exposure to a wide range of native material for reading -- as opposed to years of boring artificial texts for beginner learners. And this alone is an important thing.

[HerrPetersen]

I have studied hanzi the Heisig way and I have also read all the Chinese Breeze books and greatly enjoyed them. Too bad that they seem to have stalled at level 2?!

When using renzhe's model for learning a language I guess you could say Heisig shortens the amount of time for learning the alphabet but then you have to use more time to learn the other aspects of the language.

[chinopinyin]

Are there any texts using Heisig's characters progressively (e.g. only those in the first 5 chapters, first 10 and so on)?

Does it makes sense to skip, on a first reading, the less relevant characters (e.g. concave)?

[HerrPetersen]

The concept of Heisig is to separate the reading of each hanzi and one key-meaning. If you want to give Heisig a chance I would follow this plan:

1.) Do Heisig I (1500) hanzi. (Doable in less than 2 month,1 - 2 hours a day)

2.) Do some beginner stuff like NPCR, Assimil, Chinese Breezebuild etc. to build up vocab, adding reading(s) to the already Heisig-style-learned hanzi; apply Heisig method to unknown hanzi

3.) After being able to comfortably read 1000 or so hanzi, do Heisig II once it comes out.

Heisig is no magic formula, but it enables you to playfully learn the hanzi in a highly organized manner (ordered by known strokes, not by frequency) giving you the skill to easily break new ones down.

So to answer your question: No I do not know of Heisig reading material only for certain chapters. As for low-frequency charachters: You know them Heisig-style but you won't be able to read them until you run across them in your studies.

[Glenn]

Of course, if you wanted, after you've gotten familiar with the writings and meanings of the Heisig-style characters you've learned, you could go and add the pinyin for them on the cards to drill the readings too.