4 ms·

Why most kanji textbooks suck

11 points by gnosis 16y ago

jbermudes 16y ago
He brings up many great points about the shortcomings of many textbooks and even software for learning a language like Japanese. That's why my favorite introductory kanji textbook is Tokyo University's 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday life (Vol 1 and 2). The chapters are broken up by areas of life that you'd need to know words for (the train station, the post office, the hospital) and they go over the etymology of the ideographs if that helps you remember it. With regards to software, what I see as the holy grail of computer assisted language learning would be a free open standard for documenting one's progress through a language. If I could keep track of all the words/grammar points I've learned from day 1, and it was in a globally available format (online) then any software application that didn't want to be dumb could integrate that knowledge for some awesome applications (Smarter flashcards, smart kanji level adjuster for reading online articles or ebooks, etc.)
atgm 16y ago
Most kanji textbooks suck because learning kanji sucks for westerners. Westerners are generally trying to learn several things at once: the stroke order, the readings, and the meaning. This causes information overload. For example, looking at the word "knowledge" -- imagine that you've never learned to write the alphabet and you're expected to learn to write the letters, the order of the letters, and the pronunciations of specific combinations of the letters! It's simply overwhelming. The easiest way to tackle this is to reduce the information given, which is what books like Heisig's Remembering the Kanji try to do. He tries to teach the stroke order and associate it with a meaning through a mnemonic -- no worrying about the various readings. It's an interesting idea and works great for some people, not so great for other. Kanji in Context is a really good series that focuses on an intermediate learner who already knows enough Japanese to intuit the stroke orders of kanji and can read Japanese sentences. It gives sentences with kanji compounds in them -- you then have a context in which you can focus on learning ONE reading and meaning for that particular kanji in a context. After all, that's how we learn words in our native language -- in context. There are a bunch of other noteworthy books and approaches, and they work for different people. Some people are a lot better with brute force memorization, some people are a lot better with a Japanese context, some people want a story in English, some people remember better with some kind of etymological history... all of these preferences have led to a bunch of different books. I wouldn't really say any of them suck, but the approaches may not work for you or your friends. That having been said! I'm always up for looking over a new book, so Kanjidamage looks interesting, even though it's not actually a book. The slang and "hipster" talk is a major turnoff, though. For people like me who don't use or see that kind of slang often, it just makes another interfacing problem that makes learning kanji harder. Even after reading all of the stuff on the site, I still don't really understand how it's meant to be used, though. It's too long-winded.
- atgm 16y ago
  And it's a bit of a turn-off when I see something like "二日酔い" with an explanation that it literally means "paying for your drink" when it doesn't.
vorg 16y ago
> the most logical, efficient way to study was going from simple-to-complex. They said, "Start with a set of the most basic kanji. Then try to combine every kanji in that set with every other kanji in the set – and lo! You will be able to construct several new kanji just by re-arranging the kanji you already know. Yep! We Westerners learn to write our own language letters first, then words. That's how we naturally want to learn Kanji/Hanzi. So for 我爱你 "I love you": 我=手+戈, 爱=爪+冂+(十+又), 你=人+(勹+小), I find it's easier to learn the character when I've already learnt its components.

11 points by gnosis 16y ago

He brings up many great points about the shortcomings of many textbooks and even software for learning a language like Japanese. That's why my favorite introductory kanji textbook is Tokyo University's 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday life (Vol 1 and 2). The chapters are broken up by areas of life that you'd need to know words for (the train station, the post office, the hospital) and they go over the etymology of the ideographs if that helps you remember it. With regards to software, what I see as the holy grail of computer assisted language learning would be a free open standard for documenting one's progress through a language. If I could keep track of all the words/grammar points I've learned from day 1, and it was in a globally available format (online) then any software application that didn't want to be dumb could integrate that knowledge for some awesome applications (Smarter flashcards, smart kanji level adjuster for reading online articles or ebooks, etc.)

atgm 16y ago

Most kanji textbooks suck because learning kanji sucks for westerners. Westerners are generally trying to learn several things at once: the stroke order, the readings, and the meaning. This causes information overload. For example, looking at the word "knowledge" -- imagine that you've never learned to write the alphabet and you're expected to learn to write the letters, the order of the letters, and the pronunciations of specific combinations of the letters! It's simply overwhelming. The easiest way to tackle this is to reduce the information given, which is what books like Heisig's Remembering the Kanji try to do. He tries to teach the stroke order and associate it with a meaning through a mnemonic -- no worrying about the various readings. It's an interesting idea and works great for some people, not so great for other. Kanji in Context is a really good series that focuses on an intermediate learner who already knows enough Japanese to intuit the stroke orders of kanji and can read Japanese sentences. It gives sentences with kanji compounds in them -- you then have a context in which you can focus on learning ONE reading and meaning for that particular kanji in a context. After all, that's how we learn words in our native language -- in context. There are a bunch of other noteworthy books and approaches, and they work for different people. Some people are a lot better with brute force memorization, some people are a lot better with a Japanese context, some people want a story in English, some people remember better with some kind of etymological history... all of these preferences have led to a bunch of different books. I wouldn't really say any of them suck, but the approaches may not work for you or your friends. That having been said! I'm always up for looking over a new book, so Kanjidamage looks interesting, even though it's not actually a book. The slang and "hipster" talk is a major turnoff, though. For people like me who don't use or see that kind of slang often, it just makes another interfacing problem that makes learning kanji harder. Even after reading all of the stuff on the site, I still don't really understand how it's meant to be used, though. It's too long-winded.

atgm 16y ago
And it's a bit of a turn-off when I see something like "二日酔い" with an explanation that it literally means "paying for your drink" when it doesn't.

vorg 16y ago

> the most logical, efficient way to study was going from simple-to-complex. They said, "Start with a set of the most basic kanji. Then try to combine every kanji in that set with every other kanji in the set – and lo! You will be able to construct several new kanji just by re-arranging the kanji you already know. Yep! We Westerners learn to write our own language letters first, then words. That's how we naturally want to learn Kanji/Hanzi. So for 我爱你 "I love you": 我=手+戈, 爱=爪+冂+(十+又), 你=人+(勹+小), I find it's easier to learn the character when I've already learnt its components.