Essential kanji or Remembering the Kanji?

[tapirs]

I'm trying to learn Japanese, and so far I've learned all the kana. I'm trying to move on to Kanji. Which book will be more helpful for me?

I've head people say that there's no Kana in Heisig's, book, but a checked a preview of vol 2, and it does.

Also, how long will it take to learn these kanji? 4 months? 6 months?

[JanneM]

By "learning the Kanji", Heisig simply means associating the character with a meaning. Which is not really what _actually_ learning the kanji is about. Especially as sometimes his assigned meaning has little to do with the meaning of the character in normal usage.

Remembering how to write them is a good thing to study of course, but the real challenge is to learn the readings, the associated meanings (not just he single one Heisig assigns) and the common vocabulary that uses the character.

I got Heisig's book, but quickly gave up on it when I realized I wasn't learning the most useful and challenging pars. I much prefer Henshall: "A guide to remembering Japanese Characters". I use it as the basis for making my own flash cards (in mnemosyne) and practice vocabulary along with the characters themselves.

[Iryoku]

[gpbites]

[Kai13]

RTK. I used it during last summer, I finished it in 3 months. Thanks to it I can study new words and don't forget the kanji.

[tapirs]

[gpbites]

[Kai13]

I found it really useful because before I used to learn new words in kanji and one week later I had already forgotten them. With RTK that does not happen. RTK is only useful to learn how to WRITE the kanji, and to know the meaning of the kanji sometimes, but mostly to write.

Example:

I was having a test and I had to write salt. I didn't know in hiragana and I panicked, then, after thinking for 10 seconds I remembered the kanji and got the question right

I slowly remembered the story and the kanji.　塩

Oh, and most of my classmates (if not all) learn new vocabulary in hiragana, they only learn in kanji what the sensei tell us to, but I, every new word I get, if it's commonly written in kanji I learn it in kanji, and put it on my srs.

[Michael]

Hey there Tapirs,

Sorry, but I have not used either of those books. I did look at them though and decided against both.
You might try looking at (if you haven't already) the White Rabbit Press flash cards. I made my own flash cards for levels 3 and 4, but saved a lot of time buying the WRP set for level 2.
http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/product.php?productid=16165&cat=248&page=1

Other suggestions:
http://www.kanjiclinic.com/ I really like these articles that talk about learning Kanji. (She fully supports Heisigs books, but those books didn't fit my learning style.)
http://www.kanjiabc.net/ Good as a reference for what you are studying. You can isolate JLPT kanji.
http://www.kanjiabc.net/ Hit the blue/green button, enter one kanji, and it will show you the stroke order.
http://www.jisho.org/kanji/radicals/ If you can't read a kanji, you can find it here by clicking on the pieces used to make it.
http://kinkonkid.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html This book is reprinted in a 4 part article, but I can't find it now. This is a good summery about the book. It is about how kanji came to Japan and what happened to it since it has been here.
http://www.nihongoresources.com/language/writing/kana.html This shows where Kana comes from and the related kanji. Since you already know kana, this might help you learn some kanji. Often the kana pronunciation and the kanji pronunciation are the same.

Hope that is useful for you. I change how I study all the time. Right now it is most useful for me to read new kanji in context and check the meanings as I go.
You don't have to commit to one book for the whole jouyou kanji set so have fun.

Michael

[tapirs]

Thank you very much, Michael. The flashcards seem a lot more useful than the books mentioned. Though, they are a bit pricey.

[JanneM]

Making your own flashcards is a lot cheaper, but of course takes a fair amount of time. On the other hand, that is not time wasted; the process of looking up info and actually making each card is a pretty effective way of learning the card as well.

[NeWbY]

[tapirs]