actually I didn’t know the word for gall bladder either…just the kanji with the general meaning for it, but I just looked up the actual word…it is 胆嚢　たんのう　tannou

That second kanji actual isn’t in the first RTK book, but I think it is often written as 胆のう…at least as often as people write about gall bladders anyways.

There’s no way I’m gonna learn that second kanji right now, because I don’t want to be bothered and also it’s not important. But hopefully I’ll remember the word. But overall, words with new kanji are a pain in the ass.

Whereas when I learn a new word with all RTK kanji, which is the vast majority of useful words, I’m good to go. For example, I decided to look up another random body part that I didn’t know: eardrum 鼓膜　こまく　komaku

Both those are RTK kanji with key words of drum and membrane respectively, so I have a nice hook to remember not only the word but also the writing. As an added bonus, I already know the word 字幕 じまく jimaku “subtitles”. If you look at the right character in each word, you will notice they have the same main part. So I just made a mental note that maybe that radical sometimes/often/always has the reading まくmaku. Which also helps reinforce the word.

So basically the more kanji you know, it is easy to learn words…and RTK is a fast way to learn a lot of kanji quickly.

I think most of y’all are fairly open to Heisig, so you don’t need convincing…but just thought I’d toss out an example ^_^

Fail?

I learned perhaps 150 by rote memorization, writing them over and over again. It wasn’t terribly efficient, and many of those I still can’t write with great accuracy, but I recognize them (and many more) and know what they mean, and with that I can make quite a bit of sense out of Japan. Doing Heisig now, I’m learning quicker, but I’m not gaining many more tools for understanding the language, at least at this early point. This is maybe my third serious attempt to do Heisig on a regular basis, so we’ll see if it really sticks this time.

Japanese is a language that you really have to devote yourself to on an almost religious basis. Learning French or Wolof for me was fairly easy. I just kinda picked it up, mostly. While much of my conversational Japanese was learned the same way, in order to really master the language I’ll have to get serious about it in a way that I never had to with French or Wolof.

I think we agree a little about step 3 actually, with maybe a little difference in emphasis. While you’re doing RTK, it’s great to learn 一生懸命　but I wouldn’t worry at all about the kanji in it until covering them in RTK.

But I do think there is a large benefit to finishing it as quickly as possible. If you compare finishing the book to being only halfway done, the difference in kanji knowledge may only two-fold, but the overall benefits you’ll get are many times greater than that difference would suggest.

Also, I think well-structured courses for a full-time student would need a different plan than part-time self-study where there is maybe more need to prioritize.

There is so much to each kanji that is necessary in learning the full language, and yet I found at time most of it was skipped. At Sophia because both parts of the language were split into separate classes, we could focus on learning kanji and then learn new grammar and vocabulary separately, but also use them both with each other. I found that using what I learned from both classes at the same time helped me to retain my kanji and my grammar skills much better than I had in my UT classes.

And that is why I don’t really agree with step 3. There should be equal focus on kanji and grammar and vocabulary. It can be done, very effectively, I know this from my own studies. What I believe though is that kanji should be learned very much like the system you say. Learning the radicals first is the key, and thats how I was taught too. Once you learn those, writing kanji, and understanding them becomes much easier. Learn all the sayings, how to write them, the vocabulary with them and so on. And continuing down the list through all 2000 is good. I would do 40 kanji a week, it was pretty daunting but very helpful.

It certainly is a challenge. We end up learning kanji much faster than Japanese people. Students are still learning the 2000 kanji in high school, and many of my friends, old adults even, don’t even know some of the kanji I learned in my first years of study. Its quite interesting.

Maybe I should add my thoughts on learning Japanese to a blog post?