REMEMBERiNG THE KANJI

When Professor James Heisig was invited to Japan in the late 1970s he had an idea – before learning anything else, learn all of the common-use kanji. He called it divide-and-conquer, and later he published a book called Remembering the Kanji.

Heisig’s method is controversial and many are quick to dismiss it. In fact, I laughed it off as a complete waste of time a few years ago. However, after I rediscovered it, I learned to write over 2000+ distinct kanji from memory in 3 months.

see Learning Kanji for more information on the book

The first thing Heisig noticed was that many kanji share common elements.

tree	木	休 札 束 果 枝 朴 杏 株 板 朽
field	田	卑 果 町 胃 里 略 増 曽 憎 累
eye	目	具 眺 盲 県 看 睡 算 督 眼 睦
moon	月	明 朝 盟 胃 青 湖 肯 塑 勝 期
mouth	口	吉 否 呉 結 呈 呈 因 園 菌 豆

Next, he identified all of these elements, and called them primitives.

休	person + tree	rest
札	tree + hook	tag
束	tree + mouth	bundle
果	field + tree	fruit
枝	tree + branch	tree branch
朴	tree + wand	crude
杏	tree + mouth	apricot
株	tree + vermilion	stocks
板	tree + anti	plank
朽	tree + snare	decay

Finally, he tied the primitives together to a ‘keyword’ using an ‘imaginative’ story. Most of Heisig’s keywords represent the meanings of individual kanji, while other were chosen to minimize confusion.

休	MR.T RESTED next to a TREE	rest
札	every TREE has a price-TAG hanging on a HOOK	tag
束	the stork flew into a TREE with a ‘BUNDLE of Joy’ in its MOUTH	bundle
果	in the FIELD the FRUIT grow on the TREE	fruit
枝	TREE BRANCH	tree branch
朴	this TREE is too CRUDE to make MAGIC WANDS	crude
杏	from the TREE to my MOUTH	apricot
株	I own STOCKS in TREES and VERMILION	stocks
板	DIRTY HARRY made a PLANK from the TREE	plank
朽	the SNARE tied around the TREE caused it to DECAY	decay

*The preceding are my stories, some are probably similar to Heisig’s, some primitives may differ.

That’s the method in a nutshell. I believe there are about 130 unique primitives. There are also a few dozen compound primitives. RtK is not really intended for learning words and compound kanji, however there are many examples where it works rather well.

信頼	believe + trust	trust, faith
裏切る	back + cut + る	betray
必要	invariably + need	necessary
遠慮	distant + prudence	enryo
海軍	sea + army	navy
相談	inter + discussion	consultation, discussion
運転手	take along + rise + hand	driver, chauffeur
弁護士	valve + safeguard + gentleman	lawyer
何時	what + time	when
明日	bright + day	tomorrow
昨日	saw + day	yesterday
遠い	distant + い	distant, far
高校	tall/high + exam	high school
読む	read + む	read
日本	sun + origin	Japan
昼飯	noon + meal	lunch

**Some of the preceding keywords/primitives may be differ from Heisig’s.

Final Notes:
Reviewing the Kanji is a website based on Remembering the Kanji. It has thousands of users and tens-of-thousands of stories to help you get through RtK. I recommend using it in conjunction with RtK for ideas. However, I do not recommend using it’s flash card system for reasons I cover in Outgrowing Reviewing the Kanji.

At this point you may wonder why buy Remembering the Kanji when Reviewing the Kanji is available for free. To be honest, using the website, you can complete RtK without the book. However, the book covers stroke order, primitives, and has many explanation that the website does not. IMO, the book is worth every penny it costs.

Further Reading:
Method Overview
How Long will it Take to Learn Japanese?
Interview with Professor James Heisig
Outgrowing Reviewing the Kanji

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