Yet another story of how kanji saved my life…would have sounded a lot more dramatic and probably would have been a more interesting read. But, seriously – Kanji rock. Kanji are superheroes. In fact, in the upcoming 8th season of Smallville (yeah, I watch it – What’s it to you?!), we find out that it’s not actually the sun that’s the source of Clark Kent’s superpowers, but the combined energy source of kanji throughout the world.
This is going to be another post which challenges the Heisig method. I won’t study the Heisig way because I can’t justify the time sink. But I learned me some words through the ol’ natural acquisition way; the way children learn language – Through exposure. Notice, I’m saying children “learn” language. They don’t study it. They’re little language-sponges who run around absorbing sentences and phrases, and when they are good and ready to they start taking bits and pieces of language that they’ve absorbed and turn them into their own form of expression.
I absorbed the word 圧力 at some point. (I know exactly when, actually, when my wife was feeling 圧力 from me hounding her to start a mixi.jp account) So, today I’m driving behind this truck on my way to work. On the back is written “高圧ガス”, a term I’ve never come across before. 高い (high) is one of the first hundred words you learn as a student of Japanese. Add to that 圧, meaning “pressure”, and ガス (gas), and here I am driving behind a high-pressure-gas-loaded truck, without ever having to submit myself to Heisig’s method.
So it got me to thinking – How might I say “blood pressure”? I know 血 (blood) is read as けつ as on-yomi (血液), so I take off the 液 and tack on an 圧 in my head, and read it to myself as 血圧 (けつあつ). Low and behold, according to the dictionary, 血圧 is “blood pressure”.
Man, I love kanji!
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Some other good ones to know are ?? (air/atmospheric pressure), ?? (water pressure), ?? (voltage) and ?? (being crushed to death).
BTW, I think Heisig is worth it. I started Heisig in March and am almost finished and I have about 10 times more of these “wow it all fits together now” moments than I had before.
I don`t think you really went against Heisig there, in fact kinda of reconfirmed my trust in his method. Knowing a meaning for each of the Kanji, you come across so many compounds which just “make sense”. And even the ones that don’t, not having to memorise how to write the characters and having the general familiarity with the characters makes learning them much easier. For instance I learnt ???? recently. Heisig gives the meaning of the characters “1″”Life”"Suspend”"Fate” Combining them does not give you the meaning at all, but its easy enought o mam\ke some sort of mnemonic out of them. And once you:ve reviewed the word a few times, the mnemonic just fades away. You`re right about the time sink though. It was a hell of an effort to finish Heisig.
But what I was illustrating here was that with Heisig you learn a bunch of information with no immediate application that will need to be reabsorbed later. If you learn language as working chunks of information, though, not only can you put the language to use immediately, but you can also dissect it on your own later on when you are at the appropriate level to do so. We (English speakers) don’t learn Latin and Greek roots until we are at an appropriate level to do so.
Heisig’s method (for me, at least) only serves to slow me down processing his mnemonic tags. (Which aren’t even necessarily composed of the actual meaning of the ??, meaning you can’t even use it academically)
I need to try Heisig… I think Heisig is great for learning how to WRITE kanji.
Not for learning how to use them.
For writing though, can’t beat it!
My DS Kanji game is beating my butt.
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????????????????????????Heisig???Remembering the Kanji????Henshall???Remembering Japanese Characters??????????????????????????????
I think the number of people learning kanji to use academically is roughly around zero. I have both of those books, and Henshall’s is absolutely useless in terms of presenting an organized method of learning kanji.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to absorb kanji the way you do, but living in America makes it a little harder to have those experiences. I say to each his own, but I would be cautious about downplaying a method that has served many others well.
Also, your example has nothing to do with Heisig at all. Heisig presents a way for westerners to learn to look at and dissect a kanji, and to build one up from scratch when necessary. I used to get ??????confused all the time, but that was because my brain wasn’t used to looking at each piece of the kanji. Going through the whole Heisig book, suddenly I am familiar with each piece, and can easily see the difference between each one.
With this ability, I can look at a kanji like ?, or ?, and learn how to write it in about 15 seconds. I’d say that is a pretty good return on investment.