Has anyone finished Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi and been disappointed?

[Tomas Tomas]

i did both heisig books (simplified) and maintain them through anki

 

i add new characters to my heisig deck only as i come across them in vocab study, i use his mnemonics and make up my own keyword based on the pleco definition

 

am very glad i did it! 

 

my heisig deck only takes about 10 minutes a day to review now

[lechuan]

I finished Remembering the Simplified Hanzi 1, and I'm currently working on Volume 2. I use Skritter for review. This keeps the characters on the edge of my memory, but I find I only really start internalizing them once I start using them in real reading/writing.

All the numbered primary keywords are "pure". If the secondary keywords make you feel dirty, you can use the primary keywords. The unnumbered components may have a made-up visual meaning, but these are relatively few, and i don't find they negatively impact the learning process in any way.

The genius in Heisig is the character groupings and keywords. I am starting to study Remembering the Traditional Hanzi, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the traditional/simplified keywords were designed to prevent clashes between both systems.

I think I would have been disappointed if I had taken Heisig's advice to learn the character meanings without pronunciation. As far as I can tell, Heisig's advice may work if you can spend 8 hours a day cramming all the characters in a short time, then quickly learning to use them in a textbook/class. Just my guess, as I only spent about half an hour per day on Heisig and Skritter reviews, in which case I found it very useful to learn the pronunciation right away. I used the Matthews' mnemonics method from Tuttle's Learning Chinese Characters.

[steveboy]

Dear All:

 

I am blown away by the breadth and quality of first-hand accounts shared. I wish I had posted sooner. Thank you to all responders.

 

A little background for those who asked about my level/what I'm doing now:

 

I spent 6 months in China two years ago and focused on speaking at the cost of writing. Now I am back in China, in an intermediate course at Renmin. I should have dropped down a class but am only realizing that now at semester's end. 

 

These are my personal take-aways from the responses:

 

1. Heisig:

• ​best for beginners
• notable strength is in the order of characters presented
• can and should be modified to the individual
• useful modification is to change key words using Pleco definitions
• better to learn pronunciations duing Heisig
• Skritter is one way to learn pronunciations during Heisig
• most people who finish it feel it was useful, some exceptions
• purity concerns about component name purity are maybe not a big deal in big picture

2. General:

• To remember characters, one must learn and review every single day
• Heisig is not a "study once, remember forever" method
• ANKI
• with or without Heisig, the end goal is to learn words

 

Now....

 

I'm still not sure, but I am strongly considering trying out Heisig beginning in January.

 

If I was a beginner, then I would definitely try Heisig. But now I am in the middle of school and I worry it will get in the way. In either case I do want to finally get Anki going (for sentences).

 

Whether I Heisig or not, I want to go back to develop my base. (un)fortunately, this will have to be in addition to what I am doing in classes. This isn't ideal, but having learned Chinese on and off for two years now, the start should go quickly. 

 

Beginning in January, I will either:

 

• Start Heisig, learning 30 words per day with Skritter, or,

 

• Start HSK 1/2/3, learning 30 words per day with Skritter for words and Anki for sentences

 

I'll post back to let you know how it goes.

 

Thanks again!!

[imron]

My advice would be not to learn 30 words a day, because you'll most likely burn out and then do nothing for a while. Start with 5-10, and if after a couple of weeks you find the pace manageable, slowly increase in lots of 5 or so.

[alanmd]

I find I learn best when I am using and reinforcing what I learn in many different ways- do some flashcards, some writing practice, listen to podcasts, some Chinese readers, some grammar practice, chat with some native speakers, watch some movies & TV shows with dual language subtitles...

For me all that beds words in a lot more than just cramming Hanzi would. But my brain is quite old and tired, and we all learn differently.

Things like being able to chat with my elderly Cantonese neighbour who has no English (and only a little more Mandarin) are the most rewarding.