Remembering the Kanji
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Remembering the Kanji is a series of three volumes by James Heisig, intended to teach the 3000 most frequent Kanji to students of the Japanese language.
Remembering the Hanzi by the same author is intended to teach the 3000 most frequent Hanzi to students of the Chinese language. (This book has two variants: Remembering Simplified Hanzi and Remembering Traditional Hanzi, each in two volumes.)
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[edit] Remembering the Kanji I
Remembering the Kanji I: A Complete Course on How Not To Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters is the first in the Remembering the Kanji book series by James Heisig. It was published in 1977.
In the book, Heisig presents a method for learning how to associate the meaning and writing of 2042 kanji, including all the jōyō kanji. There is no attention given to the readings of the kanji, as Heisig believes that one should learn the writing and meaning first, before moving on to the readings in Volume II.
[edit] Heisig's method
The method differs markedly from traditional rote-memorization techniques practiced in most courses. The course teaches the student to utilize all the constituent parts of a kanji's written form, and a mnemonic device that Heisig refers to as "imaginative memory".
Each kanji (and each non-kanji component) is assigned a unique keyword, a simple concept with a specific range of meaning. A kanji's written form and its keyword are associated by imagining a scene or story connecting the meaning of the given kanji with the meanings of all the elements used to write that kanji.
The method requires the student to invent their own stories to associate the keyword meaning with the written form. The text presents detailed stories in Part I, proceeding through Part II with less verbose stories, encouraging the student to use the stories as practice for creating their own. After the 508 kanji in Parts I and II, the remainder of the kanji (Part III) have the component keywords but no stories. In cases where the reader may be easily confused or for difficult kanji, Heisig often provides a small story or hint.
All the kanji are analysed by components -- Heisig terms these "primitives" -- which may be traditional radicals, other kanji themselves or a collection of strokes not normally identified as independent entities. The basic primitives are introduced throughout the book, just as they are needed to learn the kanji that use them. This order is designed to introduce the kanji efficiently, from the primitives and kanji already learned, rather than the order of their frequency or the dictates of the jōyō grading.
[edit] Remembering the Kanji II
Remembering the Kanji II: A Systematic Guide to Reading Japanese Characters is the second in the Remembering the Kanji.
Volume II presents the official readings of the 2042 kanji introduced in Volume I.
[edit] Differences from Volume I
Unlike the first volume, this book does not rely on "imaginative memory". The book is mainly focused on the Chinese readings, however one chapter does suggest a mnemonic device for learning the Japanese readings. Heisig splits the kanji into various chapters, according to the most appropriate method to learn their readings. For each Chinese reading of a kanji, an example compound word is given.
[edit] Heisig's method
Heisig groups roughly half the kanji according to "signal primitives" that signal a certain Chinese reading. For example, 中 often signals the pronunciation chū, as it does with 仲,沖 and 忠. However, for the majority of these kanji, there will be one or more exceptions to this rule. These are presented by Heisig in an increasing order of difficulty.
The remainder of the Chinese readings are introduced in separate chapters, designed to help the student learn the readings from everyday words and useful compounds.
[edit] Remembering the Kanji III
Remembering the Kanji III: Writing and Reading Japanese Characters for Upper-Level Proficiency (ISBN 0-87040-931-X) is the third in the Remembering the Kanji book series by James Heisig. This volume was co-authored by Tanya Sienko.
Volume III presents a further 965 kanji in addition to the 2042 kanji introduced in Volume I and Volume II. It is split into two parts. The first is in the style of Volume I, where the writing and keywords are learned. The majority of the new kanji are introduced according to their traditional radical. The other part is in a similar style to Volume II, where the readings of the kanji are learned.
[edit] Remembering the Kana
Remembering the Kana is a book by James Heisig for remembering hiragana and katakana. It uses mostly the same imaginative memory technique as Remembering the Kanji I, though some katakana are prompted to be learned as simplified forms of their hiragana counterparts.
[edit] Remembering the Hanzi
Heisig and Timothy Richardson have also written Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2009) and Remembering Traditional Hanzi 1, which apply the same method to Chinese. Volume 2 of each book is currently in preparation.
[edit] External links
- List of Heisig keyword gradings by James R. Hester at sci.lang.japan
- A support and encouragement group for people using the book "Remembering the Kanji"
- A sample of "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig containing the first 200 kanji.
- A formatted index to Remembering the Kanji.
- Publisher webpage contains an errata
- Reviewing the Kanji A site for story sharing among people using the book, including a review system and forum.
- The Author's index at Nanzan U
For the Hanzi books:
- Heisig's page for the books, containing downloads of the introduction and first 100 or so characters, and errata to the first printing.
The kana book:
