Why "Remembering the Kanji" is The Best Way to Learn Kanji
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 чер 2024
- I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THIS VIDEO NOW. Here are my current ideas on learning kanji: • Refold JP1K - Learn Ka...
**MY LINKS**
👉 Newsletter: www.mattvsjapan.com
👉 Website: refold.link/matt
👉 Twitter: / mattvsjapan
👉 Instagram: / mattvsjapan_
Calligraphy: • 【お名前美文字】Kis-My-Ft2編（筆ペ...
Music:
/ mega-kick
/ puzzles
*I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THIS VIDEO NOW.* Here are my current ideas on learning kanji: ua-cam.com/video/53qKsYxVhoM/v-deo.html
Me watching the whole 36 minutes carefully and rewinding every three minutes to clearly understand what he said.
Matt: "I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THIS VIDEO NOW."
Matt disagrees with this video now that's he's learnt how to monetise other methods
Its very rare i listen to a 35+ minutes video without looking even once at the time bar.
This is one of those.
erz same same
This is a very convincing and well thought out video. This is why I support you on Patreon.
Hey nice to see you here! I have a little question about the video you posted on your personal second channel - you said you hated RTK, do you still believe it? Just wondering. Also, what do you think of the AJATT method? Greetings from Spain, I really appreciate your and Matt's channel! Keep up!!
Yes he did, I wonder if hes changed his mind now.
My opinion is definitely evolving. I have yet to try RTK, but recently I have been reading a Japanese book with a Japanese tutor in order to finally read a complete book and to maybe learn some new words. Well it turns out when I mistake a kanji it tends to be because of the radical. And each time I make this mistake I think... damn it... if I had a mnemonic in my head for this I most likely wouldn't have made the mistake. And I even directly addressed this issue with my tutor at one point after making multiple mistakes in identifying a word in a row. She seems to think I could just keep reading more books and it would correct herself. And I don't disagree. My weakness is that I haven't read as much as I should, and a lot of my Japanese was learned after I left school and just by living life and using it there so I never needed to know how to read it. So yeah I have considered trying the RTK method but my pride makes it very hard to say "I have changed my mind" although it seems I might have to.
Welcome to the club!
I fucking love it when two "rivals" become friends.
tfw no zorolla gf
Ok wtf
Am I the only one shocked by how those workers literally THROW little chickens in those tubes?
I know! Were there just piles of little chicks in there?
you don't want to know the half of it, trust me. i've seen some vile videos on this shit and it's awful. i'm vegeterian. if this stuff offends you, you should look into becoming one too. the truth is horrifying.
They throw the male chicks to their death to be rendered as animal food, because they are useless as human food stock. Sorry to ruin your day.
@@BigHeavyLove ooooor they can get their meat from private farms where the animals are actually treated well. I'm sure everyone knows the truth about industrial farming by now.
Sidma they are only here and are “useless” because we mass breed them into existence in the first place. My day is fine, what about yours? 😆
1: This video should be called "I'll blow your mind while drawing Kanji for half an hour"
2: Zorolla is now a word. Thanks Matt.
What's the plural? Zorollas? Zorolli?
Although Matt isn't the one writing the Kanji in the video ;-)
Felt kinda dizzy after watching this ngl.
I'm not going to lie, watching someone write Kanji is so satisfying. I missed a ton of what he actually said because I was so into the visual of kanji being written.
Zorolla actually sounds like a fruit
I almost gave up on learning Japanese because of Kanji, but then thought I would make one last gamble and gave this RTK everyone was talking about a chance. It took me almost 2 years, but I finished the book, and when I flipped the last page, I almost literally couldn't hold my tears - I did it. And from then on, my desire to learn was reignited and while I'm still not fluent to this day, the huge Kanji barrier was passed, and it's really all vocab learning and immersion moving forward.
So you know Japanese?
dude, how is your progress?
I could understand 60-70% of what I hear in drama and anime with no subs. For reading, I find it a lot easier to read now and only have to occassionally look up a kanji when something obscure and infrequent comes up. Still not fluent, but MIA gave me the structure I needed and it gave a huge boost.
@@DennisPulido glad to hear that
I wish I'm in your shoes 2 years from now.
sold. I'm buying the book. excellent video.
If you (the person reading this comment) just spent the last 2 or 3 hours looking online for the best way to learn japanese and you came across this video, here's a tip: The best way of learning anything is to just start learning. Do anything. Whatever method you pick, the time spent with that method is time spent learning, rather than time wasted trying to figure out the best way to learn.
I know it's scary thinking that you might devote tens of hours into something that might be less efficient than something else. But don't get discouraged. Spend your time learning, not looking for the best method to learn. I promise you there is no best method for everyone. Just go for it. Pick something and just start learning. If after a while you feel like the thing you picked isn't working out for you, no big deal. Move on to something else. But the important thing is to not get stuck or discouraged by the huge number of resources available. Just do it.
I really needed this, thank you
get the app kanji study holu shit 101 peercemt worth bit
Steven Mendoza i use it, it’s very good so I second this
Aaaaaa lovely thought😭
thank you so much!!! I've been struggling with this for a whole year!
2:35 the moment I found out I am fluent in english hahaha
English is my second language and I read the first sentence so fast.
My English is kind of so-so but I could read it without any effort
same xD
ordinary walker it’s “actually”
same, it actually suprised me tbh
I know I'm a bit late to the party and I know Matt has changed his ideas on learning kanji but from from my experiences I still think this is a good way to learn. I brute forced my way through kanji, simply learning words rather than the kanji that made them up. I learned around 1400 words in about 3 months and after reading a bunch of manga and listening to beginner podcasts that used those words on end I was able to feel "fluent" in terms of those words.
I had one big problem though. It took me way too long to remember a word, it would take me anywhere from 2 days to a whole week before I learned a word, the only reason I learned so many so fast was because of constant reading, listening, and learning 12 new words from anki a day (even though most of the words I was learning we're not common at all!). I met back up with an old friend who learned through this method and I decided to try it again, learning around 25 new kanjis a day. At first I was confused, simply learning the kanjis/the compenents of the kanjis, could that really work?
Well after around 3 days of learning 25 words a day (so I'm current at 75 words) I can say that it's 100% helpful. While I'll say that I really wish they'd give the readings to these cards so you can actually learn how to read words without knowing the meaning, the real value I go with it was being able to learn words much faster, I actually see the indivudial kanjis rather than just the word. I One of the first kanjis you learn through RRTK is 世, I was studying my core 6k (I do not recommend this deck to anyone unless they're going to live in Japan or want to) and I saw the word 世話. Now I know what the word is because it wasn't a new one but I was keen on just looking at the first kanji and it really clicked with me how useful this deck could be.
All in all I really feel like you should at least try RRTK, I have a study abroad in around 3 months so I'm hoping by them I've finished the RRTK or I'm at least nearing the end. I'm not fluent if anyone's wondering and I won't be fluent by the time I go. But I'm hoping with listening to podcasts for hours on end, and doing my anki, on top of reading manga, that, by the time I leave I'll be fluent in what I know, which in my opinion is the best way to look at it. I'd rather speak English with someone who 100% know's 2k words rather than someone who know's 4k but doesn't know how to use half of them and on top of that can't understand when I speak to him.
Good luck everyone on their Japanese goals!
Thankyou for including my music!
Sorry for using it without asking for permission! Thanks for being cool about it!!! haha
Dig the music!
the music is sick bro
Damn, this is you? Sounds smooth
Ending reference was spot on.
This exactly how I learned english. I started to read a bunch of fanfics for fun and out of 10 words of a sentence I wouldn't know at least 1, so I used Google to translate the words and as the time passed I started to use the translator less, and now I can understand and read almost everything in english. It's not perfect, of course, but I can communicate without trouble. All I know about grammar and structure of the language it's just instinctive, I didn't study the language, I just memorized it somehow with the In-context approach without even knowing it. Now I'm trying to learn japanese and this video really helped me, I already memorized Hiragana and Katagana but I memorized it just the way people memorize Kanji on WaniKani and everything you said IT'S SO TRUE, yes I can recognize and understand Hiragana and Katagana if I see it but I can't recall it from memory and writting it's also an issue, so I'm willing to go with Remembering the Kanji so I can REALLY remember The Kanji. Great video.
well if that paragraph if anything, i can guarantee that you're better in english than most americans
@@haris6772 Thank you!
same with me, but instead of fanfics I used to read mangas. and when I got into the intermediate level I was able to read, write and speak completely by intuitive knowledge (my listening wasn't so great tho). I knew almost no grammar but if I read a phrase I could tell if it was right or wrong and even correct it. that's so crazy, isn't it? human mind is amazing... but after that I went to a local English school in my city and decided to go straight to basic classes even though I was advanced because I didn't know grammar and 1 year later I was fluent.
I’m somewhat fluent in English nowadays and I learnt the same way you did, only that alongside with reading fanfic I also watched a lot of English yt videos. In fact most of my teachers got mad at me because I would get bad scores at grammar tests and then be perfectly able to write long stories or comprehend complex texts. I learnt hiragana and Katakana a year ago and was barely able to write too but now that I’ve started taking Japanese classes I had to do all the exercises of the book and I’m able to write pretty well after only a few months, it might be hard at first but at least for me it was only when starting.
English does not have kanji though so im not sure whether it is same comparison
That orange paint pen is beautiful
A Wanikani user's critique: Your conclusion is valid for an extremely motivated individual following the AJATT/MIA paradigm. But.
Your critique of Wanikani, while you make some good points, is somewhat superficial and often factually incorrect.
I do know and appreciate RTK and follow MIA to a degree, so i'll try to be as objective as possible.
To summarize very shortly: Yes, WK is more expensive (i'd argue money well spent), and if you can spend multiple hours a day, Heisig is the fastest method (3 months vs 1 year), but RTK supplies zero motivation and most people will quit it before finishing. Which isn't surprising when the reward of RTK book 1 is that you can write 2000 Kanji and know a keyword for it, but you can't actually understand any Japanese because you don't know the meaning of vocabulary using the Kanji, not to mention pronunciation.
With WK, you're steadily learning 6000+ pieces of vocabulary (plus example sentences), and the most important 1-2 readings of a kanji, mostly only one.
So the completion time of RTK can't actually be directly compared to WK. All the benefits you listed at 27:23 also apply to WK.
And the biggest benefit of WK is that unlike RTK, it comes with a community. There are book clubs, discussion threads, and various ways to keep you motivated. And if you reached maximum WK pace and are still hungry to learn, you can then put time into immersion, grammar, whatever you want.
With WK, in 7 months, i've learned about 1000 Kanji and 2600 vocabulary items. I use it to this day, and don't regret it one bit.
If you go max speed, you can complete WK in one year, but very few people even manage to do that.
My critique In more detail:
(𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙣𝙤𝙬)
Yes, WK doesn't teach writing directly, but most people don't need handwriting almost ever, and you can still learn it later. If you absolutely want to learn handwriting and you're learning Japanese for 6 hours a day without fail, sure, learn it first with RTK.
Or learn it alongside WK with the stroke order script.
There's really nothing about RTK that teaches writing except telling you to do it and showing stroke order.
Completing RTK first makes sense when you're AJATT-immersing in Japanese 24 hours a day and have no other hobbies. But RTK needs excessive self-motivation, and many people quit it, because there is zero external incentive. Most people have a job besides learning Japanese (or other studies), and only few will have the energy to additionally read a book alone, create hundreds of flash cards and repeat brush strokes for a few months.
And by the way, almost noone manages WK maximum speed anyways, it's already a heavy time commitment that requires 1-2 hours minimum every day without missing one.
Yes, WK is slow in the beginning, probably too slow, but from level 14 or so, going max speed will mean about 200-300 reviews a day, and about 150 new items to learn in one week, 30+ of them kanji with reading (the rest is a few radicals and 100+ vocab).
Sure, your motivation should be intrinsic, but when the system can supply incentive, it will save many people from quitting. Let me tell you that WK is extremely motivating, and a necessary sacrifice for that is that you can't go faster than a certain pace. Instead you'll do everything to keep your pace as best as possible, doing reviews whenever they become available. There's nothing like the feeling of having completed all your lessons and reviews.
One of your critiques of WK is memory interference: you learn similar information simultaneously (like にん and じん readings for 人), which confuses your memory. This is easily remedied by creating mnemonics for the readings and via SRS. Sure, you presented the example of someone always confusing it in the SRS, but that's just bad learning style. If you continuously mix up items in SRS, isolate them, and find a way to remember the difference.
Also, memory interference will affect all Japanese learning approaches, including RTK. Many kanji will have similar 'keywords' and strokes.
27:30 WK gives you pre-made mnemonics: Sure, often the best way is to create highly personal and vivid mnemonics yourself. But noone stops you from doing that and saving them in a meaning or reading note on WK, that's exactly what i often do. More importantly, some mnemonics in WK are simply universal, clever, and very efficient, and you might not have thought of them yourself.
WK does a lot of unnecessary work for you, like creating flash cards.
A general critique of the video is that it's not immediately clear as to which approach, RTK and WK, is in-context or out-of-context, but in the end, with the clarification video, it becomes clear that you think both are out of context. RTK clearly is, while WK has vocabulary and example sentences, so it's somewhere in the middle i'd say. Ame-Jin also makes this point in his video.
28:13 "WK forces you to learn Kanji readings and vocabulary out of context": not quite true. You learn one or two readings with the kanji, then the rest separately with vocabulary. Also there's example sentences. Almost like in the wild, "in-context".
In the clarification video at 5:07, you talk about the input hypothesis and that learning and acquisition are different things. I agree to some degree, but i wouldn't discard learning so easily. Sometimes i learn vocabulary in SRS, then in an anime hear a sentence with a new word i just learned, or a new grammar, and i immediately understand it. In that case, learning became acquisition.
36:01 shows my biggest problem with RTK: motivational psychology. Your solution to getting demotivated is "sometimes progress is invisible, just get motivated". Unfortunately this just doesn't work for most people and they'll get disinterested and give up.
You may disregard this sort of thing and say that if you want to learn japanese, you should be intrinsically motivated and learn for hours and hours without incentive, and if you can do that, that's great. But motivational psychology is a thing and makes a difference for the majority of people learning japanese.
RTK is like a university without professors and co-students. It's just you and the book. Some people learn like this, autodidactically, always alone. But even for those, i'd argue a community of like minded spirits has enormous benefits.
Also, Amejin's video was used without asking him, which isn't strictly wrong because it has a free license, but it would be common courtesy. (see Amejin's thoughts in his video at 26:15)
He also refutes some of the criticisms of WK in this video, though he doesn't go into MIA at all and strictly compares RTK with WK:
WaniKani VS Remembering the Kanji (Matt vs Japan VIDEO RESPONSE)
ua-cam.com/video/ISip9JRbYNs/v-deo.html
𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗱, you make a lot of good arguments for RTK and MIA. Just not so much against WK, in my opinion. And who knows, maybe i'll start doing RTK myself one day when i have a lot of time. Though when i just want to learn handwriting, it may be more likely that i'll just practice handwriting, because after being done with WK and some reading practice, i think handwriting will be the only disadvantage i will have had from using WK over RTK.
For context, i've started using Wanikani about 4 months and 10 days ago, level 18/60, and i've "learned" about 600 Kanji and 1800 words of vocabulary. And i don't regret a minute of my time spent with WK. Ok, maybe some of the time spent on weird forum threads ;)
edit: 7 months on Wanikani now, more than 1000 Kanji and 2600 vocab items learned. Still no regret.
In addition, i learn grammar with Bunpro, and immerse mostly actively. That fills my time pretty well. Just looking to add some MIA methods like passive and active immersion.
Having said all that, this comment is not meant to discredit you, i really appreciate your perspective and all the content you do for the community, and i really like a lot of the ideas you put forward with the MIA project.
As WK user I couldn't agree more. Have been learning kanji before with "Normal" way but after WK kanjis are getting in my head faster and longer
I started using Wanikani and i really enjoy it so far. Should i stick with it or should i go with Remembering the Kanji? Also, does BunPro really help you with grammar because I've read some mixed reviews online about it. Do you think Tae Kim's guide is a good way to learn grammar? www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/ sorry for asking a lot of questions. I really want to learn Japanese. Have you heard of IMABI www.imabi.net/ What do you think of the website?
@@dominicmendoza2189 I've heard very mixed things about Tae Kim's stuff, I would suggest at least checking with imabi. I've heard of people using tae kim to learn how to use the grammar quickly, then correcting potential errors with imabi. I'm not an expert though.
Ok, thank you for your reply and feedback!
His points still stand, learning kanji in isolation then learning the pronunciation is way more easier then learning kanji, kunyomi, onyomi and vocab at the same time. I find it way easier to learn the reading and vocabulary when i know what kanji I'm looking at, it would be effortless. In WK you won't learn all kanji until about a year and half.
I tried WK, learned couple kanjis, its reading and its use in vocabulary, overall pretty slow for me 2 weeks of memorizing for just a small amount of kanji and vocab. I remember vocabulary faster when reading books or subtitle that i know the kanji but don't know the meaning, then just quickly look up the meaning and remembered it after 2 to 4 recalls. You see, context really helps you remember thing, why use mnemonics when you can recall the context of certain kanji and its association with the vocab. I'm not saying mnemonics is useless, when i was starting to memorize kanji, i use mnemonics a lot, after about couple hundreds of kanji i find it easy to just drop the mnemonics and just remember by shape.
Also for SRS you can combine Anki with Remembering the Kanji for easier tracking. Overall I think WK is pretty slow, but for the long run WK might be better. For gaining vocabularies thru immersion is way easier, but i guess it's different for everyone.
Watching the calligraphy of the kanji is very soothing. Like one of those "ultimately satisfying to watch" videos that come up in my recommendations from time to time. 😊
I was glad to hear you reinforce something that I have been finding to be true myself. I just started my Japanese journey and I decided to just listen to Japanese podcasts all day even though I have no idea what is being said. I hear them speak but it is all so fast and I can't tell when one word ends and the next begins. After doing this for awhile it is almost like it has been slowing down in my head though. I am now beginning to be able to pick out words from what initially sounded like gibberish and I can look them up. I feel like it is a natural way to learn. I mean, if you think about it, that is how we learned to speak. We sat and listened to those around us, mimicked, asked what words we were mimicking meant, then ultimately put it all together.
This was a great video. Thank you very much for the great information.
hello! Have you made any progress from that? Just interested.
What’s the podcast called?
You singlehandedly motivated me to really dive in to learning Kanji for the first time with this video. Thank you so much! The example at the end with the movie was so nostalgic and made me smile. I cant wait to be able to read and learn to paint calligraphy the way you do! Thank you again
I watched this video a couple months ago and it convinced me to buy the first volume of RTK and I've been consistently using Anki and learning 25 new kanji every day. I'm only halfway through the book but I've already noticed a difference in my Japanese reading ability. I'm so glad I found this video and bought RTK. I'm still in the process, but I'm pretty sure it changed my life.
UPPPDAAAATE TIMMME!
Clay Hamilton can we get an update?
just putting this reply here incase he does an update so I get notif
It's been a year, update man?
Update man cmon
I was able to read that text at 7:50 as fast as my native langage (which isn't english btw) and I was shit in High School, I just spent years waching english content on youtube and reading stuffs and few years ago... I realised I could speak with a decent accent as well :D. Gives me hope to attack Japanese in the same manner :)
majora231 what’s your native language?
@@user-kx2fn4yy6e I'd say the same what majora did. My native is Russian
I did pretty much the same and became fluent as well. I didn't read stuff here and there thou, I actually put a lot of time into it.
wow me too!:) It's cool how our brain is able to remember a language completely on its own, like a baby does!
@@MrStalyn I never studied conciously, I just realised I was fluent on day thanks to youtube :p
Five minutes after the Apple/Zorolla example I couldn't remember what the first word was, but my dumb a$$ can remembered Zorolla… This is now a permanent word in my vocabulary... "Damn, check out that Zorolla over there.", "This Zorolla that just hit me up is bad af.", "She's out of my league, she's a goshdarn Zorolla."
Explains it so well, everything I can't bring into words is being summed up here! And nice calming/mesmerizing video too!
Fascinating and insightful video. Thank you!
This is honestly one of the best videos I’ve ever seen on UA-cam. I’m completely sold on the RTK method and will be starting my journey tomorrow. When I come back in the future, I’ll be thanking you again Matt, you’ve changed my Japanese learning experience. Thank you so much Matt.
How did it go, senpai?
So did it work?
Updates!
The way you are explaining and interpreting the issue is really smart, well done! and thank you.
This book is why I'm so good at writing the Kanji for shellfish.
2:29 Damn. I knew about this already, but I'm amazed how quickly I could read through that text. And I'm not even a native English speaker. Sorry for the unimportant comment.
I'm not studying Japanese, but this is an excellent motivational video that re-sparked my interest for Chinese. It seems like Mr. Heisig wrote a book for the Chinese characters too. Gonna give it a try. Thank you!
This is by far the best and the most convincing source i’ve found about learning the Kanji, it also provides a very good insight into the process of learning languages and memorization teachiques in general and the cognitive process behined each. Plus the writing of the Kanji is so satisfying to watch!
Thank you, I was too confused about how to start learning and whether to learn the readings and the various meaning at once... etc, this put me on the right track, if I ever did manage to learn the Kanji from this book I’ll be sure to come back again.
Wow. Another eye opening video. Your channel is amazing!
Hey, Matt. I've recently started watching your videos and I can say I find them tremendously helpful.
I've been studying Japanese since July of 2017. Looking through your AJAAT video made me half-proud of myself for, alone, hitting some key points when I initially planned my studies (like lots of untranslated input and starting to learn kanji as soon as possible and with emphasis over grammar). However, this video has made me realize that I haven't been doing kanji studying that right. I started using Wanikani in August of that same year and am now 20 levels (1/3) of the way through it.
Before I talk a bit about my experience in compensating for Wanikani's faults while still using it, I want to point out some of the inaccuracies you made in explaining Wanikani's method:
-Teaching the readings. In nearly every kanji, Wanikani only teaches you one of the readings in isolation (usually the on' but sometimes the kun') and you are expected to learn the other readings when you learn the associated vocabulary which is unlocked after you have gotten 4 correct answers in the SRS for both the reading they taught you and the meaning. They *do* teach the meaning and one of the readings at the same time. However, in the case of kanji like 人 which has two readings which are tremendously common, they give you both of them and you're expected to make mnemonics on your own for each word and why it's read as ジン in some cases and ニン in others.
Anyway, I don't think it invalidates your point -- to the contrary --, just wanted to clarify some of the information.
When it comes to my personal experience, I started using in conjuction a fan-made website called Kaniwani. Kaniwani is like reverse Wanikani (as the name would imply) in that it gives you the english meaning and forces you to type out the word. I've personally adopted this site and use it with my pencil and paper and make it so I force myself to recall the stroke order and pronunciation (they also give you an indication for the pitch accent and audio) and only if I write it down correctly do I mark it as right.
With that being said, I think I've been able to cover the deficiencies of Wanikani and I'm at a point where I feel much more comfortable sentence-mining in Light Novels than I was before. Though this video has convinced me to take a look at RTK and compare the results.
Summing up: Wanikani for recognition and reading, Kaniwani for writing, recalling, and pronunciation.
Why is this unlisted? I fucking love it!
Really good and in depth explanation, really appreciate the video!
Thanks for the great video. It confirms and explains even further the way I teach second language acquisition, and the way I believe it should be taught, that is, intuitive, with specific chunk development, and so much more! 👏🏼🔥
I already bought KKLC and its arriving soon, but this video has convinced me to start on Heisig today. Really good vid
Interesting video! Will have to check out RTK. The kanji writing in the background is so soothing to watch but also amusing when I realized the person was writing out names of Arashi members! Haha
oh my gosh thank you so much for this!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have changed my entire learning approach, which I now realize was stunted out-of-context! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! I've been struggling with learning Japanese for a whole year because I put too much pressure on myself! Thank you for such an in-depth, affirming video!!!
This is a wonderfully thorough video and I agree with your analysis. I was just recently thinking about this exact topic and came to similar conclusions. In my Japanese learning so far I've already been doing a mix of out-of-context (Kanji reading and writing apps like Kanji Tree) and in-context (Duolingo, reading Japanese news and trying to read magazines) kanji approaches. You have earned a new subscriber!
I tried RTK a few years ago but couldn't get past 200 kanji. I've been studying Kanji Damage for the last 2 months and have managed to memorize 700 kanji. I know that's not a lot but spending about 65 minutes per day on kanji reviews, I am happy with my progress. I find the order the kanji appear in better to understand and easier to memorize. I know the mnemonics are a little crass but personally I don't mind them. I'd suggest people who gave up on RTK to give Kanji Damage a shot. Maybe it'll help you like it helped me.
Matt, this is marvelous. I'm just past the kana, so I'm keenly interested in learning kanji the right way from the start. This was enormously helpful.
Thanks one more time, Matt. I was almost dropping my RTK journey halfway through it but you convinced me to keep it up. It'll certainly pay off in the future.
Thanks for this Matt. Just discovered your channel. This was extremely informative and can be applied as a learning strategy even outside of learning Japanese. Much obliged!
This is the video that convinced me to start ajatting and I haven't regretted it even though I'm early on in the process, so thanks lol
Id have to argue on the contrary. With WaniKani you're learning the kanjis and meanings by breaking them down into 1-4 radicals rather than 2-20 strokes and giving them mneumonics as to remember meaning and reading using the meaning and reading mneumonics until your brain cuts the middleman. The recommended approach is to learn around 300 kanji and 1000 vocabulary before you start learning grammar. This is so you can uncover the hidden variable.
For example think about it this way. Imagine learning math for the first time using algebra. Instead of learning problems with the numbers you already know, they decide to teach you the problems before you know the numbers. Addition is X + Y, division is X/Y etc etc. As the rules for math go on it gets really hard to keep track, X(Y+Z) = 16X^2 / 2W. Wouldn't these problems be a lot easier starting with numbers rather than learning the problems like this before learning numbers, and then having to go back and apply the numbers in places you don't know? How about learning the kanji before, and then learning the grammar. You have something to apply that grammar too, and you can learn things without having to look up kanji every 2 words. If you go back to that problem, but already know what WXY and Z equal, applying those in the future is much easier. Of course Kanji is just that, but over 2500.
Id also like to add that wanikani teaches you to distinguish. If you're worried about getting them wrong, you're using the app wrong. The trick is to see the entire word, understand what that word means, and how to read it. If you only focus on one meaning of a word and try to perfect that, when you learn the next meaning and go back to the previous meanings words you're bound to get confused. With Wanikani, you're thrown in the middle of a language which is difficult for having many readings for words, and you have to use the methods they give you to remember what the word means and how to read it. If the word has for example the kanji for moon in it, and you get it wrong, maybe you used the reading "getsu" instead of "tsuki" you have to establish a connection between the word and that reading. When you get the next review you have to apply that connection. Theres no way to guess through all 9 sts stages, and when you get it wrong, you'll get bumped down and you'll have to learn from faliure and apply that knowledge next time and the time after.
Therefor you arent looking at each and every kanji and thinking about what reading should be used for every word, you're looking at every word and naturally knowing what reading to use. The same goes for okurigana.
This was really informative and a great video, thank you!
Very usefull information! Huge thanks for explaining RTK and WK!!
Subscribed!
thank you for the well-thought-out video. it is really informative. As a Japanese learner and English language teacher, I share the same point of view. The components that make up a character should be the 1st factor to be considered when teaching characters to GROWN-UPS, since they have better logical thinking than children (while their rote-memory sucks hard)
It is the same case with English that I notice the clear difference between grownups and children when it comes to learning languages. When I teach grownups the word "improve" for example, I tell them "im" means "inside", and "if you want to PROVE yourself, you have to IM-PROVE everyday", they get it immediately and never forget it, while children just don't get what I am saying.
This is a great video! Just a few minutes in I paused it and purchased Remembering the Kanji online. I currently use WaniKani and I plan to experiment using WK and RTK in conjunction. I do have a few notes about WaniKani though which I don't agree with you about.
1. I believe the issue of confusing readings (such as 'nin' vs 'jin') can be helped by inventing mnemonics which utilize the reading specific to each word. For example, the word 'tanin' could use a mnemonic related to a tanning bed, eliminating the possibility of thinking it's 'tajin' if your mnemonic is strong enough.
2. You can enter your own notes on WK. If the given mnemonic on WK is a very strong one, I will use it. But for the most part I create my own mnemonics anyway.
3. The SRS system employed by WK eliminates the need to try to space your 'flash cards' out optimally. It does it automatically. I personally do not consider the given one to two year time frame to be an extremely long time.
That said I do think you made some valid points about WaniKani's drawbacks. Some sort of in-context supplement is necessary, and I take the time to write out the kanji separately to memorize all the exact strokes. But the fact that I can use it at any given time (on my phone) without using a physical book or paper or creating digital flashcards from scratch is a major convenience. WaniKani has a lot of perks and I think it's right for a lot of people. But learning any language will require the use of lots of different resources, in my opinion. I'm excited to give Remembering the Kanji a try!
awesome vid!! I had a hard time trying to look for a Kanji book that would thoroughly bring out how Kanji should be learned and I'm so glad I came to this vid... thanks heaps
You sold me on the book. I bought myself a copy on Amazon. Thank you for all of the information.
Your intelligence and rational thought process is so refreshing on UA-cam where 90% of creators are just loud an nonsensical.
It took me a long time to recognize that I was unconsciously seeing words as picture, and giving them my own meaning. Studying French and Japanese made me come up with little tricks to remember, like よる and よむ . I remember よる as night because 'your night' is a lyric from a song I like, and よむ is similar to night, meaning read, and you read at night.
For anyone wondering if you should use this method- it's wonderful. Fantastic video!!
Subscribed. I was just starting to put this a bit together looking at my own progress (and what's been working vs what hasn't been). Feel like I just jumped months ahead in my understanding of what was going on. Looking to forward to the rest of your videos.
thanks matt, you are a lifesaver!!
Welp, I have been using the Kodansha book for a good while now and I'm at roughly entry number 1050. Altho I can safely say I pretty much memorize about 900 of those at least with multiple words that use them and thus, different readings and the meanings. I also planned on going thru the entire thing once I have completed the jouyou list.
Regarding the mnemonics, I actually hardly utilize them at all nor make up my own. Instead, I personally found the best way for me to memorize characters and their meanings is going thru the example words multiple times, while blocking the readings after the initial read. That, combined with writing every new character on paper along with the words I memorize lots of times seems to work for me. And every time before I start a new session of characters (roughly 8-ish a day), I recap the ones from yesterday again before that.
I probably shouldn't swap at this point anymore but you did raise some interesting points.. A bit conflicted lol.
What you just described was rot memorization. Which everyone will say is worse than mnemonics
Not even learning Japanese, but damn this is gold.
You've really opened my eyes. I just heard about you and AJATT yesterday and I've been doing research about it and the concepts behind it (Stephen Krashen's theories, antimoon, the ineffectiveness of traditional language learning) day and night since. What you say and the things I've discovered ring so true to me that I can't ignore them! I'm a fairly long time user of wanikani and I've had the exact experiences that you were talking about (confusing readings, ect.) and this approach with RTK seems to really make sense! At first it all sounded so crazy, like how speaking can actually be detrimental for your learning??? It all goes against "common sense" But the more and more I dug into it, the more it made sense. Then I read comments about your videos on reddit again, and I realized that so many of those people are just making excuses when they say things like "we all learn language differently/spending months on RTK alone is boring/ you won't need to write kanji by hand almost ever". I mean, this approach just seems so effective! Sadly I don't have enough time to go as fast as you, even with my time organized. While I do want to get really good at Japanese, I'm busy dedicating most of my time to get better at drawing. However I'm going to incorporate many AJATT methods into my studies, beginning with ditching wanikani for RTK and then having as much immersion as possible.
This video has saved my life. Thank you! Matt vs. Japan
Maybe im too late to the party and I wont get an answer, but, how about the other 2 editions, are those the same as first one? Should those 2 be considered also? Great vid.
Hello there so basically rtk 2 is for the kanjis readings and rtk 3 is it's reading on a higher profiency level
12:48 "affinity" and "green".
Thanks Heisig-sama
great content as usual, you're the best man
This is so useful, thank you!
Ok but why my guy throwing the chicks like that, they are just baby :(
The Kanji writing in the background is oddly satisfying...
My friend, u r a genius! Thank you so much for sharing this method with us!
Very good analysis. I have the Chinese equivalent book "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" and thought about stopping. But your analysis gave me a lot to think about. Thank you very much!
Matt: What company created your iPhone
Me: iPhone
Matt: ಠ_ಠ
Me: 😐 Forgive me I'm dumb
Lmao, I said the same thing
I come back to this video every once in a while to tell myself I am doing the right thing by remembering all this stupid squiggles. Currently at #700 RTK.
I do it as well, currently I am at 500 kanji in, I don't regret my choices, and being able to write 災 and 煩 on my friends head it's actually quite amazing
ヂモプォスLinda hows it going now?
I feel a little dumb asking this, but I’m quite new to learning Japanese with no knowledge of it. But what is RTK exactly and what does it stand for? I’ve also just started watching matts videos im just finding advice.
@@selevworld RTK is a book series called "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig.
Kanji is the ultimate gatekeeper preventing people from learning Japanese (even gatekeeping low class or illiterate Japanese to education).
The idea is to use the book's method with anki flashcards in order to not be intimidated or blocked from learning Japanese at the fastest rate in the later series (making sentence cards).
I don't agree with Matt 100% on not studying anything until you are done with RTK. I think it's very demoralizing, especially if you are new to memorization methods. Also you won't realize your hard work immediately, or understand how valuable it is to just know what the idea of a kanji character means (which is why so many newbies or even people who already know kanji shit on it so much).
Looking back after completing it, it was a struggle, and many get anxious, rush it and get burned out before doing the fun stuff like making sentence cards and reading. But it was definitely worth it.
@@gregai8456 Nice job finishing RTK, what did you move onto after? I want to go RTK method but as you say I’m worried I’ll get burnt out so I’m thinking of at least doing a 1K vocab deck to feel like I’m learning something, or trying the JP1K deck Matt created. Not sure if it’s better than RTK though. What do you think?
Only eight minutes in and this video is incredible! I am bit new around this scene Matt but I can already tell... You 100% dedicated a huge amount of your life to this realm of study. And for that you deserve respect. So, thanks for the content and insights/knowledge man! Like that one quote goes... (can't remember where it comes from or who said it) "to be truly great at something it must become an obsession"... It seems like you proved this quote to be true! haha.
This video is gold. You have my sub sir :)
Can't wait to check your other content out after i finished this video
I've been using Wanikani for a couple months now, and while I do feel like it has helped me a lot, in particular because of the structure and how it forces you to come back every so often to review, I do see some of the problems you've described creeping in, and the fact that it never pushes me to write is a problem. This video definitely makes a very persuasive argument for RTK, and has me interested in giving it a go... Wanikani has helped me progress, but I imagine the further in you get, the more entrenched those potential pitfalls can become. Thanks for the video and making me think about this!
It should also be noted that learning to write every single kanji is very time consuming along with learning the important readings. With the srs wanikani uses, it becomes engrained in your memory despite not writing it. Most people discourage others from learning to write kanji at first because of how time consuming it is. If it’s something you really want to do you can do it this way, but personally I’m doing wanikani and planning to learn how to write more complicated kanji afterwards. At level 60 wanikani will teach you 2,000 kanji.
Agreed. Even though Wani Kani has an interesting idea, it also presents some problems, like not giving you freedom to decide what you are going to study.
Have you even studied grammar?
The reason you can guess the readings and meanings of kanji you've never seen is because of the radicals.
For instance 語/話/詩 all have a meaning related to speaking because of the 言 radical.
And 飯/販/版 are all pronounced はん because of the 反 radical.
Same way you can guess English words through the morphemes if you know the roots.
You still can't grasp the entire meaning just by looking at it though, you have to learn the meaning manually just like new English words you encounter.
I never say you gain the ability to understand new kanji you have never seen before. I say you gain the ability to read words that you have never seen before, that use kanji that you are familiar with
IT’S BACK!!! Matt, even if you don’t agree with this video it gives hope and a light at the end of the tunnel of learning kanji to those who are completely lost; like I used to be before I saw this video. Thank you very much!
Very convincing arguments! Just got my Heisig from the library, pretty excited how long it will take me to finish it
Damn what an apple
りんごおたべます。
Hamo を
@@jagaimo6013 yep he used the wrong particle
So I was right the whole damn time, the key to all of this is to remembering Kanji first....
Incredibly well done video, very nicely made, none of my time was wasted.
This is not only wel thought and convinving. For learning how learning words this video is absolutely splendid!
One thing though, I need your pen, the one in the beginning of video, to write my Kanji, which type is it!?
That's a brush pen.
If you get a water brush and fill it with ink or paint, you get the same effect too
Do you currently do Anki reviews of some kind, and if so, what type of cards do you review? I'm specifically interested in what you're currently doing with Anki if anything, and not general recommendations.
I regularly makes sentence cards to learn new words in both English and Japanese, I make a cards just for pitch accent using a new format I came up with, and I make tons of basic and closed cards for remembering all sorts of things I learn, not just limited to language study. Although I do have a lot of basic cards to remember things like the etymology of words and such.
Matt VS Japan Thanks
do you use closed cards for japanese too?
he explains his problem with cloze cards in "Hating on Fluent Japanese From Anime Pt. 2"
Cookster thank you for your answer! Yes, I watched it, that's why I was wondering if he started to use it lately asd
Thank you so much for this video! It was extremely interesting in many ways and gave me many aha moments. I will definitely buy the Remembering the Kanji book. Price does matter! Lifetime Wanikani subscription is 10x more than the first book! Plus if the service ever shuts down you can’t go back and refer to something you forgot. You are very inspiring!
I've done about 90 kanji with RTK now and am currently learning numbers (with the JFZ videos) and it is so easy to pair the in-context reading with my already known keywords etc I'm blown away. Just as you say near the end. I think I'm going to make RTK an early priority now, it was just a "side quest" before. Thanks!
When he said Japanese kids already know Japanese before they start learning kanji I literally lost my shit lol
Misa Amane ?
Misa Amane Obviously you don’t understand the joke point of the joke was to say that it’s such a simple thing and yet it’s so overlooked
Misa Amane Good job on critiquing a joke from literally almost a year ago I hope you feel so good about your life my guy
@@user-kx2fn4yy6e Tbh, some people on the internet are actually quite stupid so your comment was hard to understand if it was sarcasm or you really felt like that. I have seen comments looking like this and thought it was a joke but then turns out the person really thought that. Lmao, I can't blame @Misa Amane when they thought you really literally lost your shit and were serious about it.
Ains Crev I literally said LOL there’s quite frankly no other way I could’ve made it quite obvious that I was joking
I love wanikani and have supported tofugu since his early youtube days. I was working with rtk at the time I saw beta testing for wanikani was coming, and thought at the time it's best of all worlds. Using rtk, srs, and grammar/sentence examples. It does a lot of the work for you, especially coming up with mnemonics and spaced timing for remembering. It's brilliant.
I cannot thank you enough for this video. When i first stumbled across Remembering the kanji, i sort of dismissed it as i didn't really understand the principles behind such approach (naively i didn't read the introduction). I already knew some Japanese, and the first kanji presented by the book looked a bit odd to me, so i promptly closed the file as it seemed kinda useless. A few months later i saw this video, so i decided to give it a shot (i already knew some japanese, so i wasn't a complete beginner), and i managed to learn something like 500 kanji in a few weeks, being able to recognize some of them in context as well. I'm a theoretical physics student, so i tried to read some physics stuff in japanese just for fun, and i surprizingly i managed to understand the meaning of some words just by looking at them (of course i knew the context very well, it wasn't just about the kanji). Now i'm still grinding throught the book, hoping to finish it before my exams (half of december).
Thank you for making this video. You've helped me put an end to almost an almost yearlong dive into the shitstorm of a debate that surrounds learning kanji. Thanks for lending a voice from experience and a cogent argument.
I can speak from experience as to the efficacy of out of context methods. I managed to cram Kanken 8kyuu only to forget the majority of it shortly after. Inefficiency defined.
I watch a ton of different creator content on how to learn kanji and even until now (which isn't that surprising anyway), people still continue to completely miss the point of remembering the kanji haha. I don't know how someone would have to spell it out. I'm probably wasting my time by writing this but.... it's an INVESTMENT. Remembering the kanji is one of the greatest INVESTMENTS you can make on your journey to any level of fluency.
People always ask, "Okay, so you've finished RTK 1. Can you read the kanji?? Can you?? Not so great is it".... and it's like.... now that i have this foundation, I'm gonna know all the readings within 6 months and you'll take 3x-4x the time if you're lucky. Remember: INVESTMENT.
Great video, Matt!
Dat Zorrolla looking dang fine right there!
Matt, as someone who is studying Japanese while finishing an engineering degree, I'm very glad I found your video by chance. Learning efficiently is not a choice for me, it's a necessity. That being said, I have a question about the "in-context" learning that I am supposed to be doing after finishing RTK. What material (books, audio, digital flashcards) is used for learning these kanji in the context of real sentences? Right now I have Genki I and also try to immerse myself in the language as much as possible, but that's about it. Thank you!
Awesome. Thank you!!
This is the video that saved me from WaniKani almost 2 years ago. Feels greating looking back at how far I've come, WOOHOO!
I get your point, but that guy writing all those Kanjis (which is cool btw not hating it) takes away my attention and then I ended up not knowing what you're saying--- lol
Allee Lee it’s a common error that happens to people who write essay videos. They forget about word delivery. Without it, the listeners become lost.
This happened to me a lot. I was so mesmerised by the visuals of the kanji-writing that I lost all attention on what was being said during the video.
I love looking up at the beautiful craft hole!
Thank you Matt.
Good video. Also, I didn't realize I hadn't subscribed. Fixed that as well.
Thanks!! I read your response on reddit/kanji koohii. We already argued about the topic so no point in bringing up the same points again, but I just wanted to say thank you for taking the video seriously, unlike many others who assumed they knew what I was going to say without listening.
NukeMarine Do I know you? Are you in 日本語と英語 Discord server?
I appreciate your arguments. And I enjoy your videos. But I always wonder, have you ever tried the other methods personally. It’s hard to judge something you haven’t tried before. By the same token I have a natural aversion to learning hundereds of kanji based on meaning alone and not learning how to read until book 2 but I’ve never tried it so I can’t honestly say. I’m glad it works for most people. But speaking as a wanikani user myself, I feel like of all that the arguments you make against it are based on one person’s experience. I find that WaniKani is a system that works very well for me and coupled with other methods of study of the language and constant reading and intake from natural sources I find it to be an excellent (but certainly not the only) way to learn Kanji.
That fact that you mention RTK book 2 makes me question if you actually watched the video or not. How could I have truly tried the other methods when RTK taught me kanji perfectly? The only way would be for me to first un-learn the kanji so I could re-learn them with another method, but of course, that doesn't make any sense. But, in this video I present very logical arguments for the downsides of WaniKani, based on pure reason, backed up with the experience of many users I have talked to. It isn't simply "based on the experience of one person", as you say. If you think the argument is wrong, you need to actually have logic to explain why. Otherwise it just sounds like you are too invested in your current method to consider the possibility that it may not be the best choice. If you understand the arguments I make in the video, it seems practically impossible to refute the fact the viewed from a big-picture point of view, WaniKani is less efficient. That doesn't mean it doesn't work; it just means that RTK is more efficient if your goal is native like fluency. You may feel that WaniKani is doing you great now, but do you truly understand how your current study fits into the big picture of actually reaching fluency?
I'm sorry but you claim that I am too invested in my current method to consider the possibility that it may not be the best choice which may have some truth to it. But it seems to me that the same thing can be applied to you. However, I do see that you are quite fluent when you speak from what I can tell and I most certainly do not claim to be anywhere near as fluent as you are. As I've mentioned before I have never tried RTK and I know it works for many people so I'm sure it's a great system. But it seems very closed minded to bash a system that works so well for many people which you have never tried before.
Also you should check out the video of the person who you used using WaniKani without his knowledge. If you're interested ua-cam.com/video/ISip9JRbYNs/v-deo.html
Talk about being needlessly aggressive.
LOL. Brutal.
Thank you for the motivation