The trouble is, once you get past the basics, much of what goes on in language schools seems trite, superfluous, and-worst of all-dull. Learning Japanese takes hard work, and there’s a place for classroom learning, particularly at the beginner level. Now don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe in quick fixes. As Heisig points out, that puts you on the same level as a Chinese speaker-who already understands the semantics-and prepares you to pick up the readings from actual texts. The system gives you only an English keyword, not the Japanese readings. And it may seem a cheap shortcut-but that’s because it is. The system has its drawbacks: how you can visualize a “state of mind” as a concrete object, I have no idea. 館 (hall) is #1472 in Heisig’s book-late for such a common character, but it only appears after the learner knows all the components within it. Nobody can quite remember why Japanese schoolchildren must learn 導 (guidance) a year before its component 寸 (a unit of measurement), but there’s no reason a foreign learner should. His second stroke of genius was to arrange kanji in a sensible order. After training the reader with a few hundred pre-concocted stories, Heisig lets us loose on all 2,042 characters. In an early example, he asks us to memorize 冒, risk, as mothers telling us not to look into the sun, 日, because of risk to our eyes, 目. First, he broke characters down into primitives with a concrete meaning and constructed stories around them. Heisig-now a Nanzen Institute professor-taught himself kanji when he arrived here in 1977 using two innovations. I lacked a system.Įnter James Heisig, with his book Remembering the Kanji. I knew about mnemonics-visualizing characters as stories-and I found some success, but my stories were too vague, or I’d mix up elements. This I tried, but seconds after the weekly test I’d forgotten half of them. With kanji, I was taught to learn by muscle-burning repetition. This is a concept lost in the teaching of Japanese, with its emphasis on dry textbook language. After all, isn’t the culture why we love this place? But coupled with the framework of a supporting syllabus, it might just be the best way to learn. Many set out to learn Japanese through real media and end up floundering.
Procrastinating on Wikipedia? It was on the Japanese one.Īfter two years of rigorously studying these materials, he became fluent enough to land a job with a Japanese software company, without taking a single class.
Watching a Hollywood movie? He saw the Japanese dub. As a successful dieter swaps breakfast waffles for muesli, Khatzumoto-while living in the US-replaced Western culture with Japanese. “Khatzumoto,” of the website All Japanese All The Time, eschewed classes in favor of self-study. You can stick with Yoda, meditate and lift rocks in the air, or you can choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, and choke people and shoot lightning bolts. I call it the “dark side,” because it’s the easier way to power in the Force-I mean, Japanese. From day one, the language is set up as an unassailable mountain with no summit. Small wonder Japanese has a reputation for flummoxing even the most ardent learners. #1: “Want to learn Japanese? It’s difficult. Here’s the received wisdom of learning Japanese: “Always with the questions! I’m getting a divorce.” He looks you in the eye, and asks: “Please fill in the blank. You’ve found yourself drawn in by his little ways, the words he speaks: so alien, and yet so beautiful! A language you’ve found fascinating like no other. Illustration by Kohji Shiiki The Dark Side of Japanese Why can’t learning nihongo be a hobby rather than a struggle?