Hi All,

I just got around to using the book "Remembering the simplified Hanzi1" by James Heisig and Timothy Richardson.

After using it for a few days, I am so convinced that it is the best method ever to use in learning the characters, I came to reactivate my Skritter account at a little before 6am this morning, on the hopes that they would add the words from this book.

I was quite pleased that this book is already on the list (and I hope book 2 will appear as well).

However, this book works differently than other systems.

Two suggestions:

1. I would like to be able to add the characters lesson by lesson. This was I am not learning characters in lessons I haven't covered, and that can make the shuffling easier.

2. I don't want to know anything about the pronunciation of the characters; at least not until I have finished the book. This is the method the book uses, and although I can turn off tones and mute pronunciation, even the pinyin is a distrcation now.

However, I would like to be able to turn those features on in a lesson by lesson basis.

I don't know how much this is to ask, but if there are other RSH1 fans out there, perhaps they have similar sentiments.

Even without these modifications, I am still now going to use Skitter more often to challenge myself (esp. at work) when I don't have my handmade flashcards.

Thanks!

In practice section, hit settings button and click on "Hide Reading". Pinyin will go away for individual characters, though it will reappear once you've written the character.

Thanks for another recommendation for Heisig. I may have to try it yet...

Just leave the pinyin on. You'll be grateful for doing so later (I certainly am).

Umm I also own Remembering the Simplified Hanzi and I've gotten through about half of the book with 85% retention rate and good recognition otherwise but I do wish I have used the pinyin as in unlike in Japanese from where the Heisig method originates, Chinese characters have a strong phonetic component to them. Now I believe that it would be foolish not to try to exploit that while learning the characters especially if learning them in that order where you learn a radical (or a primitive) and all characters composed with it.

After I am done with some HSK list and my uni textbook I would like to go through Heisig with Skritter and the help of piniyin...

I tried out that Skritter list earlier and found it very interesting and helpful, but decided to put it off until later because I wanted to learn more common words first. I think the downside of the technique is that you are also learning a lot of words that are less useful, at least in the beginning.

Just out of curiosity – I have never seen the actual book. Does it add a lot of content besides the character list?

A couple of points:

(1) Heisig encourages thinking about the structure of characters and provides a very important approach to learning the writing system as a whole. With Skritter it is an amazing combination.

(2) You haven't learned the characters until you know the pronunciation with tones. This is, by far, the easiest way of finding characters in a dictionary, a key component of most input methods (other than thing like Cangjie and Wubi that have their own problems), and essential for reading.

Given these points, I still agree with learning the characters at first without pronunciation and later doing one or more additional passes tightening up the standard of what is meant by 'I know this character'.

I am totally amazed by Skritter but one quibble I have is that it doesn't support this tightening of learning standard. There are a bunch of things that can be used but I felt that the best one in my case was to blow away my database completely in order to get a good new start. I would like Skritter to better to better address this issue but still think it is a totally amazing tool for learning writing.

Good luck with your learning.

It does not add a lot of content to the characters, but I think its just working awesome. In the past two days I have learned 60 characters with only a few min of study.

The thing that take the longest is making your own flashcards, which I think I could not do without.

I will try at least letting skritter say the sounds, so maybe I will just pick that up too.

Its true that the characters are not always high usage, but once you learn the system (and their own unique "library" of characters) you can use the system to learn other characters.

I would guess you should have a notebook where you try to make as many sentences as you can using the newly learned characters.

It seems early to be so confident, but if I can continue learning at this rate, I don't see why I cant learn 3000 characters by the end of the year. I feel like Ive found a miracle weight loss drug.

Theoretically, leaning 25 characters a day you can do a lot more than 3000, but there has to be a retention curve, not to mention time to make and even quizz yourself with physical flash cards (thanks skritter)

Though I would still like to learn by lessons I have already covered in the book.

Plus the book is only about $22-25.

Yeah, chew through those characters! Without having tried it, from what I've read, I like the Heisig approach, although I'd have to agree that a modified approach for Chinese which takes phonetics into account would make more sense to me. Anyway, you can turn tone practice off until you do it all and then turn it on and go through it again really fast if you want.

I'm not sure what you mean by just learning lessons you've covered in the book. Skritter should have the same vocab in order as the book, so that's what it should be doing. If you get to a place you haven't covered, just stop practicing or adding? You can turn the adding to manual or the move-to-next-section to manual to make sure Skritter doesn't get ahead of you.

As a devotee of Heisig, I can definitely say that learning 3000 characters by the end of the year is definitely doable. I would also say that you will need to use the pronunciation when studying with Skritter simply because the definitions for characters aren't necessarily unique, and so you will need the pronunciation to know which character Skritter is asking you to write.

I also find that as I continue learning new characters, the pronunciation provides clues to the phonetic component. The reverse is also true in that I find that I am now finding that I can often sound out characters given their components, thereby making it that much easier to look them up in the dictionary.

Why has nobody complimented AdmOxalate on his amazing profile picture? ;)

Apparently great minds think alike. Here is a picture my wife took of me:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nanyleon/4009185967/in/set-72157622459660591/

James

Okay, jww, I'm with you. AdmOxalate, very nice avatar. Hahahah! I just looked at it again.

Where does the picture come from?

Jww, I liked yours as well. Very classy. Why not use that for every profile picture? :)

Learning 3000 characters in year? At just 1600 after 2 years (even though the first year wasn't very intense), I am impressed. I guess there are the words and usage on top of that or are you able to use those 3000 characters with reasonable fluency? ...I have never seen the Heisig books.

BTW: my eyes hurt when I see AdmOxalate or faceleg, the mom in me is worried your faces will be stuck. But don't change them, I would miss them.

Its a picture of me in the lab. I have it on all my "don't touch" stickers; there are a lot of buffers/solutions people will help themselves to instead of making it themselves.

Thanks for all the helpful comments.

People will actually respond to a face, especially one with prominent eyes. I remember one study in which an open jar with money was left in an open place. The researchers hung a picture above the jar, one was a neutral scenery, the other was a person with their eyes looking down. People were much less likely to take money with the eyes looking at them, even if it was clear no one else would be able to catch them.