Remembering Simplified Hanzi: Book 1, How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters [Paperback]

James W. Heisig (Author), Timothy W. Richardson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr; 1st edition (October 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824833236
• ISBN-13: 978-0824833237
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1.2 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James W. Heisig is professor and permanent research fellow at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 92 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars From a Mandarin learner in China... February 12, 2010

By Bill

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Heisig/Richardson's book, Remembering Simplified Hanzi Book 1, is of value, but I agree with others who say it has limited potential. I have studied Mandarin full-time in China for nearly 18 months. I decided to risk it and spend many hours studying the book while all my classmates chose a more traditional approach. I was definitely looking for a shortcut because remember characters *is* a long and hard process. I was hoping to have a distinct advantage over my classmates--an edge if you will. I believe in "working smart." I fully completed Book 1 and made flashcards for over 98% of the characters. Let me give a few suggestions and insights for those who are considering the book: (1) It will NOT make learning Mandarin simple. Nothing will. (2) Do not set your expectations too high. After completing the book, you will still not be able to comprehend any written material or be able to converse with anyone. Think of the book as a supplement, a tool, for *one* aspect of learning Mandarin--character memorization. (3) Sometimes the stories for certain characters are harder to remember than the characters themselves. For many of the characters, you can remember it quicker if you just write it a few times. (4) I found that my classmates write much faster than me. They have used the traditional method of writing each character multiple times. Every time I want to write a character, I have to remember a story. There is a lot more brain work required; but for those who put in the hard work of writing characters over and over, the recall is more instantaneous. (5) After going through the characters and book once, you will most likely *not* remember it forever. I think the subtitle, "How to Not Forget..." is a bit of a stretch.... I still need refreshing of the stories and images after I have given each character a fair amount of time. (6) The character's meaning given in the book frequently does not match what the character means in words and context. For example, the meaning assigned for the character "zhuang1" is "attire," but in the two-character word "an1 zhuang1," the meaning of "zhuang1" is "install" and has nothing to do with "attire." Thus, one character can have multiple meanings and you simply cannot reduce a character to a single meaning as in the book. (7) The responses to critics in the book by Heisig/Richardson do not and should not nullify the criticisms. Some of the criticisms are quite legitimate and similar to what is in my review. There *are* limitations to this method. (8) I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the pronunciation (pinyin) of the word. This is an essential part of the character. In the Heisig/Richardson method, this comes later--you learn the character and its meaning first, and come back later and learn the pronunciation. Well, if you do not know the pronunciation for any given character, YOU DON'T KNOW THE CHARACTER. Don't think that you will *know* the characters after you finish the book. You'll only know them halfway. This goes back to not setting your expectations too high. (9) This book would be best used *before* you learn Mandarin in a classroom or Mandarin-speaking environment. I would suggest spending some time going through the book before studying in China or before starting a Mandarin program. You can self-study this book without a language partner and completely outside of a language environment. The book *will* help to make memorizing characters easier since it gives you another aspect by which to remember the character. I find it helpful to go back to my flashcards when I'm learning new characters. I think they're probably best learned in the context of words and sentences rather than by themselves. (10) I have found it helpful to use multiple methods to remember Chinese characters: writing them, having mnemonic/creative ways to memorize them (such as this book), learning what they mean in context, finding words that use them, learning their pronunciation and saying them out loud, etc. I suspect that some (certainly not all) who have success with the Heisig/Richardson method already have great memories. Mine is average or perhaps slightly above average. I think most of the people who read this book have similar memorization difficulties as myself. (11) I value the book and Heisig/Richardson method for assigning meaning to parts of characters which have no inherent meaning; "primitives" (a broader meaning than radicals) such as brushes, combs, towels, etc. If nothing else, it would be helpful to scan and memorize these primitives found throughout the book. This will make learning characters easier, but still not simple. Sorry for the long review, but I hope it will ultimately save you hours and shattered dreams. Now, back to studying Han Zi... Read more ›

47 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best way to learn to write Chinese December 17, 2008

By Harold Goodman

Format:Paperback

Speak Mandarin Chinese For BeginnersThe Michel Thomas Method (8-CD Beginner's Program)Michel Thomas Method Speak Mandarin Chinese Advanced

I am the author of the Michel Thomas CD courses to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese. I was taught by Mr. Thomas how to insure success for learners without memorization, homework, anxiety and testing. I am interested in innovative ways to teach; innovative ways that have proven track records.

Dr. Heisig is justly famous for his previous books on how to learn to write the Japanese kan ji ( Chinese-derived characters). Writing the kan ji and original Chinese han zi ( characters) has been a major stumbling block for most students. Without knowing the characters one cannot be literate in either of these languages.

The genius of Heisig's method is in devising an approach whereby he breaks the characters down into component parts and then systematically teaches the student to build them up again in a skillful way that results in the learner knowing the characters.

The first volume presents the most commonly used 1,500 Chinese characters. This will get you through 90% of any common Chinese text which is a nice place to start. The second volume, which is in the works, takes us through an additional 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000. With 3,000 characters the reader can tackle 99.5% of written Chinese.

One thing which is important to understand ahead of time is that this book does not encourage repetitive writing of the character being learned. Indeed, with Dr. Heisig's approach one need only write the character one time.... What we are doing here is learning English-language keywords that are related to each character. These are attached to mnemonics or little stories which help fix the necessary keyword(s) and primitive elements ( smaller particles necessary to write the characters). Thus, the concentration here is on learning material in English which will automatically produce a perfectly written character. There is also an emphasis on stroke order which pays off richly later on in one's studies.

By concentrating on teaching and learning in English, the anxiety level is kept quite low.

In order to get the most out of this book I recommend reading the following pages first: Introduction, 105-107 (the best and clearest explanation of the method) as well as 260-261 ( the fruit of the method is finally revealed). Also, make the flash cards described ( p.47-48) and use them as suggested; from Keyword to mnemonic story to actual character and NOT the other way around. This approach will get you the desired result.

There are also two lists in the back of the book providing pin yin pronunciation for each character. However, Heisig does not recommend attempting to learn these the first go around.

This is the most extreme deviation from traditional teaching of Chinese characters ( han zi) that I know of. However, if faithfully followed you will learn 3,000 characters in record time and, more importantly, remember them.

At some point the mnemonic stories and keywords just drop away and you are left with the characters. You just have to understand this when you begin.

Don't go too fast. Find your own pace and be gentle with yourself. Some days you will do more, others less. The important thing is to keep at it.

Until something better comes along this is the only book I would recommend for anyone desiring to learn Han zi.

This review is based on the Traditional character edition. However, the approach is the same. Whether you start with the Simplified or Traditional edition depends on your own needs. It is as easy for the beginner to start with one or the other. However, most people seem to find that once learned, it is far easier to go from Traditional to Simplified than the other way around. The reality is that at least 1,500 characters have been simplified with many being so simplified as to be almost unrecognizable according to Traditional radicals and other lexicographic devices.

If you are at all interested in reading anything published before the 1950's from China as well as any materials from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and much of the history of Singapore, not to mention from other overseas Chinese communities, Traditional characters will be necessary. In addition, of course, Japanese kan ji use the Traditional characters. However, the choice is yours and the switch from one to the other is quite doable. Read more ›

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars works and it is fast November 28, 2009

By K. N. Chartrand

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a system for learning all 3000 Mandarin Chinese simplified characters. The most frequently used 1000 characters appear in the first volume of 1500 characters. Otherwise, the book is organized to provide a framework for remembering characters without any attempt to teach the most common characters first. The disadvantage is that horse and mama are characters 1453 and 1454 while they may be one of the first ten words you learn in other textbooks. You have to finish the book to get all the basic characters under your belt. The advantage is that you have a strictly logical framework to learn the characters and you learn them very fast and remember them.

Since, I probably could have learned the 1500 characters in 3 weeks if I had 8 hours per day to put into it, it's not such a big deal that basic characters come late.

Other books teach common words first, but at the expense of providing a strictly logical framework of radicals and concepts. The book is good because it sticks to the framework and the framework is an incredibly powerful tool to remember the characters.

I've seen criticism about the lack of pronunciation and they are silly.

1) The book suggests you to make flash cards (and that is essential to the method). It provides the pronunciations in an index which you could add to the flashcards. None of the other books like this provide more than that.

2) I am not really going to learn Chinese pronunciation from a book. I'm using videos and cd's for that.

I tried for a couple of weeks to learn chinese without this framework, and I could not keep any character straight for more than three days. So I don't see any way to learn Chinese without a framework....

My strategy is to learn a framework for remembering the English meaning of the characters early in the process. The book doesn't stand alone, but it isn't intended to. It is intended take one huge hurdle to learning Chinese (the alphabet is 3000 characters long!!!) off the table in a few weeks or months.

I've seen criticisms that the book doesn't include the most common words in the first book, and that is wrong.

The book doesn't work for my 6 year old because the stories and tag words target adults. We are using Tuttle and other methods with her. But if you are an educated adult and you want an intelligent and logical framework for remembering the meaning of Chinese characters that is really efficient, this is the book.

The book is based on techniques to memorize that are useful beyond chinese. It's a reasonably common method that incorporates visualization and stories, but applying it to this herculean task with such tremendous effects will give you new insight and appreciation into how your memory works. It is a fun and very interesting process. It is not a all like memorizing 1500 squiggly line patterns, which is where I started.

I have seen reviews misrepresent the facts or the purpose of the book and that motivated me to write this review. This is an excellent book. I am having a blast. I am learning Chinese at level and speed I never even hoped for when I started. Read more ›