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A review by leaflinglearns
Remembering the Kanji, Volume I: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters by James W. Heisig
informative
slow-paced
4.0
I finally did it. It only took me four years to really commit to it haha.
There's so much back and forth about whether or not RTK is a valuable method. After many years of dipping in and out of learning Japanese with different techniques, I'm at this point around an N3 level (per my iTalki tutor's assessment), though it's hard to judge because I learn a lot of random stuff out of "order" through immersion. I had almost decided against RTK entirely after hitting roughly 600 kanji a year or two prior to when I started to focus on learning Japanese in a sustainable way this year (consistency over intensity, with a focus on fun immersion learning). But as I was working through native content (books, games, websites), I realized how helpful it was when I ran into a word I didn't know but I already knew what the kanji meant. And I realized how helpless I felt staring at a string of kanji whose lines were completely meaningless to me. Because of this and because rote memorization feels like absolute torture, I decided to finally focus and pursue the completion of this book alongside the kanji.koohii.com story database & flashcards (yeah, yeah, I should use anki, whatever). I'm so so happy I stuck to it.
Only reason it's not five stars is because damn sometimes Heisig is so weird in how he decides how to present things.
There's so much back and forth about whether or not RTK is a valuable method. After many years of dipping in and out of learning Japanese with different techniques, I'm at this point around an N3 level (per my iTalki tutor's assessment), though it's hard to judge because I learn a lot of random stuff out of "order" through immersion. I had almost decided against RTK entirely after hitting roughly 600 kanji a year or two prior to when I started to focus on learning Japanese in a sustainable way this year (consistency over intensity, with a focus on fun immersion learning). But as I was working through native content (books, games, websites), I realized how helpful it was when I ran into a word I didn't know but I already knew what the kanji meant. And I realized how helpless I felt staring at a string of kanji whose lines were completely meaningless to me. Because of this and because rote memorization feels like absolute torture, I decided to finally focus and pursue the completion of this book alongside the kanji.koohii.com story database & flashcards (yeah, yeah, I should use anki, whatever). I'm so so happy I stuck to it.
Only reason it's not five stars is because damn sometimes Heisig is so weird in how he decides how to present things.