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James W. Heisig

Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters 6th Updated Edition

by James W. Heisig (Author)

1,722 ratings

Book 1 of 2: Remembering the Kanji

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Updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the Japanese government in 2010 as “general-use” kanji, the sixth edition of this popular text aims to provide students with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of forgetting how to write the kanji, or for a way to systematize what he or she already knows.

The author begins with writing the kanji because―contrary to first impressions―it is in fact simpler than learning how to the pronounce them. By ordering the kanji according to their component parts or “primitive elements,” and then assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of “imaginative memory” to learn the various combinations that make up the kanji. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji’s “story,” whose protagonists are the primitive elements.

In this way, one is able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their Japanese pronunciations, one is then in a much better position to learn the readings (which are treated in a separate volume).

Remembering the Kanji has helped tens of thousands of students advance towards literacy at their own pace, and to acquire a facility that traditional methods have long since given up on as all but impossible for those not raised with the kanji from childhood.

ISBN-10

0824835921
ISBN-13

978-0824835927
Edition

6th Updated
Publisher

University of Hawaii Press
Publication date

March 31, 2011
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches
Print length

496 pages
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About the Author

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

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Hawaii Press; 6th Updated edition (March 31, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0824835921
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0824835927
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #48,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14 in Japanese Language Instruction (Books)
- #42 in Alphabet Reference
- #58 in Linguistics Reference

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James W. Heisig

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James W. Heisig, is emeritus professor and research fellow of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, located on the campus of Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. His books, translations, and edited collections,which have appeared in 13 languages,currently number 83 volumes.

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Michael D. Brown

Learn to Read Japanese in 56 lessons?

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2018

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After trying over the past five years different approaches to learn Japanese, I finally found a method of learning Japanese that sticks. Using Remembering the Kanji as a guide is a huge advantage. The author presents the kanji in a foundational order with their meaning and with mnemonic stories that make them truly memorable. After learning the primitive kanji and their meanings, he presents kanji that are composed from the primitives and creates a mnemonic using the meaning of the primitives that helps the reader remember the new kanji’s meaning.

I’ve been studying a full lesson each day (around 15-20 kanji) since I received the book on Wednesday, learning 74 kanji so far. My process:

Read the kanji and it’s meaning
Write the kanji once
Read the story to understand it’s mnemonic
Repeat through the end of the lesson

To supplement/reinforce my learning, I use a tool called Anki which is a “Flashcard” app that uses a technique called Spaced Repetition to help you review the items you don’t know until they are reinforced and presents them later to confirm the memory.

After downloading Anki you can find a prebuilt memory deck on the site that presents the kanji in the same order as the book. You have to use the desktop version to download the deck, but it synchronizes with the mobile versions so you can study on your phone. When doing my Anki review I write down the character as they are presented so I can both practice the writing and reinforce its meaning with the character. I set Anki Max New Per Day setting to 30 which aligns with presenting the kanji almost in sync with my daily lessons. Finally after the Anki review, I read through all the kanji I’ve written in my notebook.

These three activities reinforce what I’m learning and have so far contributed to me learning 74 of the kanji in five days. The book has 56 lessons and 2200 kanji. I’m confident that following my approach I will master them in 56 days.

One thing to note this first book focuses only on learning the writing and meaning of the kanji. The second book in the series teaches the pronunciation. After finishing this first book I will journey into part two. Book three adds on an additional thousand kanji to increase fluency. And there is also remembering the Kana which teaches the Japanese syllabaries hiragana and katakana.

Using this plan, by the new year I will be able to read basic Japanese. By the summer I should be able to understand spoken and possibly speak Japanese.

79 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Let's teach you Latin, because once you know Latin, learning English is a little easier

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2019

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That is the logic behind this book. Set umpteen hundreds of hours on fire memorizing pictograms with only English concepts, which I have found, are occasionally wrong. And they are wrong enough to have me not trusting this book, even for the very limited, but time consuming, purpose it has.

Now the RTK apology squad will say, yes, this book doesn't teach you to read a single word of Japanese, despite the cover saying "A systematic guide to reading the Japanese characters", so really what is the point? The author is of the mind that if you set hundreds of hours on fire learning all the kanji with only very basic English concepts then learning Japanese would be easier. But at what opportunity cost? Hundreds and hundreds of hours you will NEVER get back that could have otherwise been spent learning Japanese the right way.

First problem is obvious. It doesn't teach you to read Japanese characters. Despite the book title, it simply doesn't. Despite the author's apparent confusion, Japanese is not Chinese and is not read like Chinese, not remotely close. In the introduction, after your money has been set afire of course, the author tries explaining this away; actually learning to read the Japanese characters is for another book. Okay, wish that had been put on the cover instead of the lie that was, but whatever. The end result is that you are much better off just starting with that other book.

Second problem, kanji order. This uses the process of building kanji like a house showing how kanji are linked. This is interesting from a historical angle perhaps, but not at all useful for learning Japanese or even kanji. If you are going to bother learning kanji, learn them in the order of usage rather than blowing weeks learning JLPT 1 unicorns first as this book does. One reason for this is simple, usefulness. If you learn the most commonly used kanji first, you can USE the most commonly used kanji first whether it is reading children's books, writing simple exercises, watching subbed children's TV shows, whatever. You see immediate progress and that motivates you to move even faster. It stops being work and starts being fun. RTK is neither fun nor useful.

Third - Kanji English conceptual descriptions are occasionally VERY wrong. Kanji 100 for example, a JLPT 1 unicorn for cavity, is a very professional/technical word for hole actually, not even taught in school outside of history class (you see it if you come across Confucius, but that is about it). However, it uses an English story of a child's dental X-Ray to help you remember it as meaning cavity. Okay, except this isn't the kanji for the Japanese concept of a dental cavity (or even the concept of tooth decay). Dental cavity is a completely different kanji (worm tooth). It isn't exactly the end of the world, but imagine you spend hundreds and hundreds of hours learning English and then walk into the dentist telling him/her you have a hollow in your tooth instead of a more 'natural' word like cavity. This is what sets native speakers apart. Things can be technically correct whilst just odd and unnatural sounding. That is what can happen with this book as it implants incorrect English context and concepts which ultimately leads to incorrect usage in practice, or confusion when you finally come across the correct usage.

Fourth is just the logic of this "system". An English equivalent would be spending hundreds and hundreds of hours learning Latin because then learning English would be easier. No. Just no. Put those hundreds of hours into basic English and you would be actually using it faster, enjoying the fruits of your labor. Then if you want to do some SAT stuff, pick up a few important Latin prefixes, suffixes and roots to help you figure stuff out on a test. You don't need all of Latin to do it.

So ultimately this book, even after hundreds of hours doesn't get you a single word closer to reading or writing Japanese. After all of this work, you still will end up resorting to kanji drills and unfortunately unlearning the incorrect English concepts applied. Don't waste your time on this. Do drills starting with the most commonly used kanji first. These days there are zillions of awesome apps for this and draw recognition dictionaries for looking of kanji by simply drawing them (no more looking up words by stroke count) on your phone. Write words, sentences, etc., just like every formal class teaches you to do (eg Genki). Take formal classes, get into conversation classes, consume tons of media starting with toddler books, picture books, same way you learned English. This is how you get speed with reading and writing, practice, practice, practice and it is also how to end up with more natural communication. The 8 week silver bullet is a lie and you will only end up wasting 8 weeks.

I have come across a lot of bad books written by non-native speakers, but worst part I found in this one was the arrogance of the author, claiming that no teacher uses these books because then no one would need teachers. To the contrary, no one uses these books or these methods because they simply don't work and are a waste of effort. Anyone learning to actually read kanji compounds and Japanese text after this is doing it through traditional drill methods, apps, flash cards, writing exercises, etc and they are ultimately hundreds of hours behind those who skipped RTK.

156 people found this helpful

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Michelle

It works, if used and understood correctly.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 20, 2018

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Excellent if used correctly.

The good: If you follow the book page by page you will learn how to recognise all of the kanji.

The bad: You will not learn the readings BUT you will have sowed the seeds of recognition and you can then apply layers onto this as you learn further instead of just trying to over load from the start and learn everything in one go only to forget most of it soon afterwards.

The embarrassing: This book gets slated by people who have either never used it, never completed it, don't appreciate it for what it does do instead of what it does not do or worst of all, if they are an author of a rival book just looking to diss it in a you tube video because they don't like it.

The bottom line is this, many many people swear by this method, if you go into it looking to be able to recognise all of the kanji so as to later on be able to attach the readings to them as needed then you wont be disappointed. Walk before you run = win.

47 people found this helpful

Chris

You could waste so much time trying to learn kanji this way

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2021

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I gave this book a chance, I really did. I worked through several hundred kanji before I decided that any other method for learning kanji would be better. And having since switched to other methods, I have found that to be the case.

I have a few problems with this book. Firstly, the author states at the beginning that learning kanji is very difficult without using his method. He says - "What makes forgetting the kanji so natural is their lack of connection with normal patterns of visual memory. We are used to hills and roads, to the faces of people and the skylines of cities, to flowers, animals, and the phenomena of nature. And while only a fraction of what we see is readily recalled, we are confident that, given proper attention, anything we choose to remember, we can. That confidence is lacking in the world of the kanji."

This just isn't true. Kanji really aren't that difficult and once you're exposed to them enough, they do stick in your head without any need to break them down into small components and make up stories for them. It's true that some are harder to remember than others and there are similar kanji that can be confusing to distinguish from each other at first, but it just takes more practice in the language.

I would actually argue that this method is detrimental to learning kanji. Looking at the little parts that make up each kanji and then assigning keywords to them and THEN making up a story using those keywords, for 2000+ kanji is such a monumental waste of time. Even many of the people who successfully complete this book say it was a huge slog and not pleasant to do.

Another huge flaw of this book is how much emphasis it places on writing. This is so incredibly unnecessary in this day and age. I'm not saying learning to write kanji is necessarily bad but it's 100% not needed to be fluent in the language. Even a lot of Japanese natives don't know how to write all the kanji but here, huge importance is placed on it.

Another problem I have with this book is how much time it asks of you for so little in return. Advocates of this method say it only takes a couple of months and at the end of that you'll know all the necessary kanji. This really depends on how you define "knowing" them. At best, IF you stick with it and the method actually works for you, you'll be able to recognize kanji much better and have a general sense of what they mean in a sentence. You won't be able to actually read anything though since you're not taught any readings or compound words.

At best, this book is going to take you months to get through. You often hear that you can get through it in a couple of months but I don't believe that's accurate for most people. You would have to do 30+ new kanji every single day to do it at that rate and that's not taking reviewing kanji you've already learned into account. And this was another thing I found really off putting about this method - it eats so much of your study time. Learning Japanese is hard enough as it is without having to dedicate so much effort to something that doesn't even give you the ability to read Japanese at the end of it.

As other reviewers have stated, you would be so much better off spending that time learning actual Japanese. Real sentences that have compound kanji, readings, grammar etc. There are so many great resources out there now - apps, YouTube videos, online courses, audio books etc etc. You can pick kanji up naturally just by being exposed to them. They seem intimidating at first but it's so much better to expose yourself to them naturally in my opinion.

10 people found this helpful

Daniel

Use something along side something like kanji koohii if you're not religious.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 19, 2022

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It's definitely a controversial book as it doesn't teach you the Japanese readings but I think it is beneficial and much faster to learn kanji in your native tongue since you can start to decode Japanese words you already know.

There are a lot of good mnemonics that help the meanings stick but it's not without its faults.

He's clearly religious as he references biblical events a lot, which is a problem if you're not religious and have no idea what he's talking about. He's an American and the book is written in American English which becomes a problem for remembering i.e. graft is used for remembering bribery but in the uk it means hard work. Then there's the uncommon or downright weird choice of meanings such as using "derision" instead of ridicule, "post a bill" for 貼 which means to stick, paste, apply and "effulgent" which you'll probably never remember.

The biggest tip I can give is to read through and go to kanji koohii for any that you think to yourself what the hell is he saying, there you'll find user-created mnemonics.

Update - I'm now 300'ish words in and I've had to knock it down 1 star as the stories have gotten ridiculous to the point where I don't even use them (see photo) and I've noticed a couple of mistakes that should have been caught in a book that's on its 6th edition... i.e. He says 町 is village and 村 is town when in reality 町 is town and 村 is a village, he uses 里 for "ri" when that's an old outdated unit of measurement and the kanji is now used when referring to your parent's house and he used 条 for "twig" which I still haven't been able to figure out because it means article, twig would be 小枝...

L. W.

Good place to start in learning Japanese

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 30, 2016

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Absolutely brilliant method of learning the kanji. Of course you'll have to learn them in actual words, but this book gives you a solid framework to easily build from. Use in association with kanji.koohiidotcom where you can share mnemonics and use their SRS flashcards, as Heisig only provides mnemonics for the first part of the book. You can then adapt the techniques you learn here to create mnemonics for Japanese vocab, allowing you to pick up the language a lot faster. Took me about 5 months to complete. It's a bit dated and un-PC in places, but you can ignore any stories that are distasteful and create your own. It's worth reading alternative keywords on koohii as people have come up with better ones in places. I think it's worth getting a handle on the kanji before you start on the vocab as the kanji will not be an obstacle and you'll be building on what you already know.

14 people found this helpful

Charlotte Steggs

I never thought I'd be able to write so many kanji!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 7, 2014

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I am a Japanese speaker - I studied at uni, went to live in Japan, worked at a major games company as a translator and now at another huge company where I use Japanese every day.
And yet I have always struggled with writing kanji. No matter what I did, I couldn't get them to stick in my brain when I wanted to write them by hand.

Until now.

A large number of my Japanese-speaking friends were using this book and so I bought it to join the bandwagon. I'm probably only 1/10 into the book but I can't believe the amount of kanji I'm able to write just like that, following this method. I use a website in conjunction with it, which has the kanji in the same order as the book and also has some alternative stories just in case you aren't happy with Heisig's ones (as I often am) and I highly recommend you use the website as well.

A great book for beginners as you will learn what those "little picture things" mean, and great for people like me with a high level of Japanese, who can start to look at kanji in a much deeper way to try and remember how to write them.

19 people found this helpful

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Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters 6th Updated Edition

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