4 ms·

> It takes about 10 seconds or so to set an image in your mind of the scene for a character, then a handful of reviews over the following weeks. Then you never

by throwaway2037 2y ago

> It takes about 10 seconds or so to set an image in your mind of the scene for a character, then a handful of reviews over the following weeks. Then you never forget it. As someone with experience using the Heisig method, I would strongly disagree. Yes, it is a helpful system to ease the burden of memorization, but it does not permanently embed this knowledge into your memory after "a handful of reviews over the following weeks". If this were true, there would be many, many more people who have memorized 4000+ Chinese characters, required for fluency.

adastra22 2y ago
Well, "it worked for me." Similar reports for many people who have done fast-track Heisig speed runs, such as Heisig himself. It takes about 10 seconds of initial study to fix a story in mind (which is actually quite long--seriously count out 10 seconds slowly and imagine that time spent fully focused on the character at hand), and a review sequence that gets it in your long-term memory. There are in fact many people who have learned 4000+ Chinese characters, using this or other methods.
Tor3 2y ago
For me the Heisig method was a great help for learning the first few hundred kanji. Knowing those made it way easier to learn to read words containing said kanji, because the meaning of the kanji more often than not helped remembering what the word meant, and, importantly, recognizing the word. But after a few hundred kanji the system starts to get so complicated, with more and more elaborate and contrived mnemonics, that IMO it isn't worth continuing that approach. But that's fine, at that point you're already on board and can learn the rest from reading real texts. (The negative of abandoning Heisig after the first few hundred kanji is that you also stop writing kanji at that point.. which adds to my difficulty of hand-writing Japanese)

adastra22 2y ago

Well, "it worked for me." Similar reports for many people who have done fast-track Heisig speed runs, such as Heisig himself. It takes about 10 seconds of initial study to fix a story in mind (which is actually quite long--seriously count out 10 seconds slowly and imagine that time spent fully focused on the character at hand), and a review sequence that gets it in your long-term memory. There are in fact many people who have learned 4000+ Chinese characters, using this or other methods.

Tor3 2y ago

For me the Heisig method was a great help for learning the first few hundred kanji. Knowing those made it way easier to learn to read words containing said kanji, because the meaning of the kanji more often than not helped remembering what the word meant, and, importantly, recognizing the word. But after a few hundred kanji the system starts to get so complicated, with more and more elaborate and contrived mnemonics, that IMO it isn't worth continuing that approach. But that's fine, at that point you're already on board and can learn the rest from reading real texts. (The negative of abandoning Heisig after the first few hundred kanji is that you also stop writing kanji at that point.. which adds to my difficulty of hand-writing Japanese)