Hey everyone. I'm a 2nd year student of Japanese at UGA and I just recently finished my study of Heisig's first "Remembering the Kanji" book. This post isn't about a learning resource (per se- you could call it a shameless plug for Heisig) but rather a place for dumping ridiculous ideas to learn from (well, that's a learning resource, right?).
All I can say is.. serious students of Japanese: Learn Kanji. The language suddenly makes far more sense, even if you don't know words to use all of them with. That being said, I think I was infected by these 2042 ridiculous stories floating around in my head to continue the trend when I went to continue my learning outside of Kanji and class.
What I'm trying to do (and looking for input from others about) is to come up with ridiculous words/phrases to help remember kanji writing/reading/meaning, vocab, etc. I've noticed that the more ridiculous it is, the more it sticks in my mind. Some of it's useless, some of it isn't, but it all helps work the brain and get me better conditioned to continue taking in the massive amount of information that is a language.
Here's a few I've done:
① 残酷な牧師は銃で殺す。 [ざんこくな ぼくしは じゅうで ころす]
Cruel ministers kill with guns. (From a rather odd discussion in Akira-sensei's round table discussion group last year)
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② 右往左往 [うおうさおう] :: (noun, suru-verb) move about in confusion (going right and left)
This helps me remember and keep distinct one of the on'yomi for 右 and 左.
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③ 公共交通機関 [こうきょうこうつうきかん] :: Public Transportation
公共 [こうきょう]： Public
交通 [こうつう]： Transportation/Traffic
機関 [きかん]： Mechanism/Facility
交通機関 [こうつうきかん]： Transportation Facilities
Knowing the pronunciation and writing of 「公共交通機関」 has helped me not only better remember all the kanji it contains, but also the words that make it up. I hear them come up in various contexts （交通事故[こうつうじこ]: traffic accident) and learning the new word is easier because I already know half of it. I apply this to other words as well, but public transportation is especially fun to say/write.
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The most recent, where I basically just took some of the most-stroke Kanji I knew and decided to combine them into a phrase of some sort. There's probably no need to know 鬱(well, maybe this one) or 鼈 but they're fun to know/write/etc.
④ 憂鬱な鼈の襲撃 [ゆううつな すっぽんの しゅうげき] :: Depressing Snapping Turtle Attack (If I were to make an RPG, this would definately be in it..)
or 憂鬱鼈襲撃 if you like. Looks more dense. Like a forest of delicious Kanji.
(Note: 襲撃 can be translated "an attack" but there's a more generic word for that (攻撃 [こうげき]）. The http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/ definition I got gives me the impression that this isn't exactly a "surprise attack" but it carries the idea of catching the opponent off-guard. Anyway, I just needed an excuse to use 襲.)
：：goo辞書の定義：：
「襲撃」： 敵の不意をついて攻撃すること。
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Feel free to yell at me for errors or a general hatred of inanity. But it's fun, I promise.
Ah, OK! I know who you are now. =)
Congratulations on making it through the first volume of Heisig! Have you started Vol II?
How long did it take you to get through the first book? Are you spot testing your retention?
Hi Tony-Sensei,
You don't know me but we've certainly run into each other as I like to drop in the Japanese TA office from time to time for no reason (Read: To bug ナイト先生..!). You told me of your website when I came by on Friday with a friend, who told you of the recording studio in the SLC, and I figured I'd come check it out.
Ah, I really like 東西南北! That's fun to say.
Hi, there! I don't recognize the nick, but is this someone I know?
I think that learning phrases like that are great. I kept 右 and 左 straight by using my landlord's name, which was 佐野 [さの] さん。The kanji in their name isn't 左, but it has 左 in it, so I thought of them living in the apartment to my left, and remembered it that way. I learned the word 左右 [さゆう] to get the other reading. 右往左往 is even better, though, because you get that extra 往 reading. (That one I learned from 往復 [おうふく], which was pretty easy because I was often buying round trip tickets, and so had to use the word.)
Everyone should also learn 東西南北 [とうざいなんぼく], since that gives you all the readings for the direction kanji, along with the order of the directions from "luckiest" to "unluckiest". =)
Thanks! The book was definitely a beast. I sold my summer to Heisig and completed Vol I taking from mid-June until the day before fall classes began. I figured I wouldn't have time to speed through once I had a full load of classes.
I haven't started Vol II.. I'm considering skipping it in favor of way-too-much Japanese study and picking up readings as I go. Testing it for a few weeks before deciding, though. (It's going well so far, though I realize there's 2000+ of them bouncing around in my head). The only reason I think it will work is the pure amount of time I have to put into study, otherwise I'd probably have gone for Vol II right away. My idea is that this way I'll learn more of the language at the same time as the readings, rather than devoting so much brain power to another Heisig book if it's not necessary.
As for retention and such, I'm using this wonderful website: http://kanji.koohii.com
I very rarely forget how to write one and forget the meaning of ~5 daily from the 100 or so due for review each morning. However, the cards are steadily moving towards the "well-known" end of the pool and I'm not worried about forgetting a few here and there before I have Japanese words to go with them (the ones I have words for I find it almost impossible to forget unless I haven't sufficiently learned the word).