3 ms·

There's a great method for learning the characters in the context of Japanese, described in a book called "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig. It helped me

There's a great method for learning the characters in the context of Japanese, described in a book called "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig. It helped me work through about 1000 characters in a month; doing it full-time, you could probably to recognize 2,000 in a month, and read them in another month. He's published a similar book for learning the characters in Chinese; you should check it out. Taking a quick look at the memrise website, I don't think their technique is going to be as helpful as Heisig's. For a variety of reasons (discussed in the book), memorizing the character for "man" by associating it with a picture of a man is not efficient for learning more than the most basic characters.

aquarin 15y ago
Thanks, "He's published a similar book for learning the characters in Chinese" - Do you know the name? Edit: I think I found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Hanzi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Hanzi
- karamazov 15y ago
  Yes, that's the one. I haven't used it myself, but I expect it's good.
gregdetre 15y ago
> memorizing the character for "man" by associating it with a picture of a man is not efficient for learning more than the most basic characters. You're dead right - most Chinese characters are combinatorial, so it would be crazy to try and come up with an image for each. We combine a number of different techniques, including weaving the components into stories. See e.g. the first mem for 'meat' here: http://www.memrise.com/item/14684/meat/ http://www.memrise.com/item/14684/meat/ I don't know if this gets to the heart of your concern... I'm just trying to highlight that the simple animation from 'man' to an image of a man is just one of the approaches we employ. Thanks for taking a look.
- karamazov 15y ago
  One of the great things about Heisig's approach is that the student makes their own images and stories for each character. Something that I invent is much more likely to stick with me than something I see online; and once you get used to it, the strategy only takes a few minutes, probably on par with the amount of time it would take to read through that page. That page presents a lot of information, and most of it isn't ideal for memorizing the character. It's nice to see images and etymologies while you're looking at the character, and they might even allow you to recognize it when you see it later, but it's especially difficult to recall the exact form of the character later from information such as this. I would suggest you take a look at one of Heisig's books if you're interested in chinese characters specifically. It's a very well thought out system, and he spends some time explaining its specific advantages in the beginning of volume 1 of Remembering the Kanji.

aquarin 15y ago

Thanks, "He's published a similar book for learning the characters in Chinese" - Do you know the name? Edit: I think I found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Hanzi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Hanzi

karamazov 15y ago
Yes, that's the one. I haven't used it myself, but I expect it's good.

gregdetre 15y ago

> memorizing the character for "man" by associating it with a picture of a man is not efficient for learning more than the most basic characters. You're dead right - most Chinese characters are combinatorial, so it would be crazy to try and come up with an image for each. We combine a number of different techniques, including weaving the components into stories. See e.g. the first mem for 'meat' here: http://www.memrise.com/item/14684/meat/ http://www.memrise.com/item/14684/meat/ I don't know if this gets to the heart of your concern... I'm just trying to highlight that the simple animation from 'man' to an image of a man is just one of the approaches we employ. Thanks for taking a look.

karamazov 15y ago
One of the great things about Heisig's approach is that the student makes their own images and stories for each character. Something that I invent is much more likely to stick with me than something I see online; and once you get used to it, the strategy only takes a few minutes, probably on par with the amount of time it would take to read through that page. That page presents a lot of information, and most of it isn't ideal for memorizing the character. It's nice to see images and etymologies while you're looking at the character, and they might even allow you to recognize it when you see it later, but it's especially difficult to recall the exact form of the character later from information such as this. I would suggest you take a look at one of Heisig's books if you're interested in chinese characters specifically. It's a very well thought out system, and he spends some time explaining its specific advantages in the beginning of volume 1 of Remembering the Kanji.