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>How many kanji can you read? That's not the point of the book; the point of the book is to build symbolic recognition and memory by hooking into words you alr

>How many kanji can you read? That's not the point of the book; the point of the book is to build symbolic recognition and memory by hooking into words you already know. It's not there to teach you vocab, which is how one does learn readings and usages. I will say that even about half way through, many kanji I see are no longer unintelligible blobs, but I can identify them with high accuracy and associate with a word. Sure, I can't read them, but I can recognize them, which is all I need to associate that with vocab with readings. I already tried sitting down with kanji vocab and it wasn't worth it - I'd recognize kanji only from context and the general shape of the blobs, as if they were fuzzy in my mind. I was unable to actually write them, because I didn't recognize the components from which most of them are formed. Heisig removes those worries automatically.

tokinonagare 4y ago
> the point of the book is to build symbolic recognition So basically totally pointless and a waste of time and money because this ability comes really quickly when learning how to write kanji. This can be useful when the phonetic value is learnt with the corresponding graphical part, but since Heisig skips pronunciations the whole method doesn't not teach anything really useful.
- claudiawerner 4y ago
  "Learning to write kanji" is something completely separate from learning to recognize kanji. The book teaches you how to write kanji. The usefulness fo the book derives entirely from association with memory you already have. You're ignoring the fact that mnemonics which already exist in your mind can be used to write the kanji.