Characters learned from grades 1-6?

[Thunderthief]

Ok well I have "A Guide To Reading and Writing Japanese" Kanji handbook second revised edition 1961, 59th reprint 1987. It has the characters listed that are, or rather were, were what was learned from grades 1-6. I dont think this is up to date, so can anyone tell me what the standard of learning is now? According to this book...

Grade 1: 1-46
Grade 2: 47-151
Grade 3: 152-338
Grade 4: 339-543
Grade 5: 544-737
Grade 6: 738-881

I know I probably need it get a newer edition (it lists shi as 4 lol), but my budget is tight right now.

[RockLee]

shi/yon are both 4 in Japanese...

[Thunderthief]

Err I know that...... but my older books all list 4 as Shi my newer ones as Yon, so I assume dit was an outdated character.

[KrazyKat]

If the book is from 1987 or even 1961 all of the Kanji will be modern. If the book was from before the second world war then you may need to worry. :-)

The same character is used to write 4 whether it is yon or shi, 四. 4 is also used to write it.

It doesn't matter whether or not you learn Kanji in the same order as a Japanese child - you aren't one. You need to learn Kanji in the order best suited for yourself, so don't worry about sticking to the 'grade' system.

[Thunderthief]

I just prefer to do things in an orderly fashion and most text books published in the states tend to disagree with each other, so I figure going by how its actually done in Japan is most efficent.

[JimmySeal]

The current set of kyoiku kanji (since 1982) has 1006 characters and the breakdown is as follows:

Grade 1: 80
Grade 2: 160
Grade 3: 200
Grade 4: 200
Grade 5: 185
Grade 6: 181

I can think of few things more inefficient than trying to learn the kanji by grade order. That system is intended for Japanese people living in Japan, so however ineffective it is for them (and it's rather ineffective), multiply that by 10 or 20 in your case. For the love of God, stay away from those lists.

[yorkii]

I just prefer to do things in an orderly fashion and most text books published in the states tend to disagree with each other, so I figure going by how its actually done in Japan is most efficent.

you would think so, but I tend to disagree.

japanese school kids learning kanji already know the word for the kanji, just not how to write it. and so they learn kanji based on a prior knowledge of the language. we learn japanese differently to japanese children and as such, probably have different "kanji requirements" (if such a thing existed)

[Mukade]

If you feel that the lists give you the kind of structure you need to stick with your kanji study, then by all means do so. The grade lists are just fine, as they start by teaching you kanji that are extremely common. Not only that, but most of the first grade kanji are radicals, as well, so learning them will give you an understanding of what comprises all the later kanji you will study.

Consider the first grade characters:
一 右 雨 円 王 音 下 火 花 貝 学 気 九 休 玉 金 空 月 犬 見 五 口 校 左 三 山 子 四 糸 字 耳 七 車 手 十 出 女 小 上 森 人 水 正 生 青 夕 石 赤 千 川 先 早 草 足 村 大 男 竹 中 虫 町 天 田 土 二 日 入 年 白 八 百 文 木 本 名 目 立 力 林 六

Can you identify any of these that wouldn't be useful to know? These are all extremely fundamental. Are you going to skip over 目 for now so you can instead study 議? That seems silly.

At the same time, though, don't feel restricted by these lists. If you see a character keep popping up over and over, then by all means learn it, even if they don't teach it until high school.

Also, I wouldn't recommend studying the kanji as stand-alone units. Always try to learn them in context. For example, if you make a flashcard, don't put 右 on one side and みぎ、う- on the other. Instead, put:

右
右折

on one side with:

みぎ - right
うせつ - right turn

on the other.

[JimmySeal]

Can you identify any of these that wouldn't be useful to know?
I can't. But then again, if you listed all 1945 Joyo Kanji, I'd be hard pressed to find any that aren't useful. 匁 and 厘 spring to mind. I don't think there are many others.
Are you going to skip over 目 for now so you can instead study 議? That seems silly.
Much like the English alphabet is to English, the kanji are essential to being able to read Japanese, and it's necessary to know at least 2000 to be able to read. Saying "learn the common, more useful ones first and leave the others for later" is no different from teaching the alphabet by having students learn vowels and the more common consonants first, and putting off letters like V, Z and Q for a few years until the students have the other ones down solid. Ridiculous, right? So am I going to skip over 目 and study 議 first? Yes, if that's the most efficient way to learn all of the kanji. What's so special about 目? So what if it occurs more often? If you can't read them all, you can't read.

I did an analysis of the first 3 pages of リング by 鈴木光司, a fairly easy book for adults. Not counting the kanji with furigana, there were 243 distinct characters, broken down as follows:

Grade 1: 40
Grade 2: 64
Grade 3: 44
Grade 4: 33
Grade 5: 15
Grade 6: 12
Other joyo kanji: 32
Other kanji included in Heisig volume 1: 1
All other kanji: 2

This means that after learning all of grades 1-3 (this would take the average person about 1.5-2 years), one would only be able to read 61% of the kanji on those 3 pages. After completing grades 1-6 (probably after about 5 years), there would still be 35 kanji on just those 3 pages that you wouldn’t be able to read.

With Heisig, someone can learn all 2000 in 3 months, actually be able to remember them, and then leisurely go on to learning how to pronounce them. Anything else is futile.

[Mukade]

In reading your response, JimmySeal, I don't see that we disagree.

You are arguing that characters need to be learned in their entirety as fast as possible if one wants to be literate in a reasonable amount of time.

I agree.

I argue that when studying kanji in their entirety, using some sort of referent to guide your studies facilitates learning.

You agree (I mean, you champion Heisig - which is just another kind of list, after all).

Saying "learn the common, more useful ones first and leave the others for later" is no different from teaching the alphabet by having students learn vowels and the more common consonants first, and putting off letters like V, Z and Q for a few years until the students have the other ones down solid.

I never said that you should leave the less common ones for a few years. All I said was that the order the grade lists put the kanji in isn't completely useless, as you will be studying very useful kanji right from the get-go.

In fact, if you are a beginner of Japanese (which most people who are just starting to learn kanji would be), then your language ability isn't going to be much beyond the first couple grades of kanji.

I mean, as a first-year student, I don't think I'm going to be attempting to read 利益、清純、and 保釈. I'm going to be sticking to 名前、飲む、and 高い.


With Heisig, someone can learn all 2000 in 3 months, actually be able to remember them, and then leisurely go on to learning how to pronounce them. Anything else is futile.

I think this is a bit of a stretch. Working through Heisig's first book is only part of the puzzle. Say I work through the first book in 3 months (I did it in 6, but I've never been a particularly good student). I can say with confidence that I can remember how to write and give the English meaning for all 2000 that he lists. Because of this, I know that 冒 means 'risk' and 険 means 'inaccessible.' However, when I sit down to read, I see the compound 冒険 and I'm already stuck. What does this word mean? I can't figure it out just using the two meanings I've memorized.

I'm not saying this example completely invalidates Heisig (I have other reasons to do that...but I'll save that for another thread). It does mean, however, that knowing the writing, the meaning and (at the very least) compounds that the characters appear in should all be learned as quickly as possible if you want to achieve literacy.

[KrazyKat]

Much like the English alphabet is to English, the kanji are essential to being able to read Japanese, and it's necessary to know at least 2000 to be able to read.

I'm afraid that I have to disagree with you here. However, maybe thats just because we differ over what we mean by 'be able to read'.

Let me just say first, however, that I haven't used the Heisig method and that I don't yet know all of the jouyou Kanji.

Now, I would say that the number of Kanji that a beginner needs to know to begin to read would be closer to 1000. In the first place, a beginner won't start be reading books aimed at adults. If they have any sense they will eb reading books that contain lots of furigana. Then they can still read the words if they don't know all of the Kanji. Of course they will still need to look up kanji, but they will also have to look up words. And thats the point. In order to be able to read, the student needs to be able to read words, not Kanji. Just learning the meaning of kanji won't help them to know words, what will they do when the come across something like 唐突. It doesn't matter how many meanings of kanji you know, if you don't know words you won't be able to read. As the student continues to read they will lean these kanji and words in context.

Just to demonstrate that 2000 Kanji aren't necessary to be able to enjoy reading, right now I'm reading 秘密 by 東野圭吾, which doesn't commonly use furigana, of the 250 pages I've read so far there were only a handful of times that I wished that I had my Kanji dictionary with me. While there were other Kanji I didn't know, I didn't need to know them to understand the meaning of the sentence, and most of the problems were with readings (especially names) rather than meanings.

Of course, I'm not content with my current level of Kanji and am continuing to study them, but that doesn't mean that I can't read anything. When do Japanese children finally learn about 2000 Kanji? Its towards the end of middle school, I think? Anyway, are you saying that before that point those children have never been able to read anything?

[Mukade]

When do Japanese children finally learn about 2000 Kanji? Its towards the end of middle school, I think?
The remaining grade kanji (after grade 6) get introduced gradually in kokugo classes throughout middle school and high school. The approach to the kanji gets less strict as time goes on, though. So not all the joyo kanji are formally taught. Many will just appear in context during the course of other studies, and the students are expected to look them up and learn them on their own.

Of course, many students don't bother to do this. So what you end up with are high school students with very different kanji abilities. Some can pass 準2級 while others are still struggling with 3級 and ４級 (of the 漢字検定).

[Jagotaro]

Hello JimmySeal, KrazyKat, Mukade, Thunderthief, Yorkii, et al

I'm a new member here. Having been a student of the language,
history, and culture since 1980, it's great to find such a group with
similar interests.

Hope I can contribute to this forum and also learn something.

Yoroshiku...

[JimmySeal]

Both of you make excellent points, Mukade and KrazyKat. Let me say that there are essentially three elements that make the Heisig system work:

1. Every character's writing is learned through the exhaustive use of mnemonics.
2. Every character is assigned one and only one meaning.
3. No two characters are assigned exactly the same meaning.

If there were any other system that incorporated all three of those things and ultimately taught all 1945 joyo kanji, I'd say it was plenty useful, but I know of no such other system.

Allow me to draw an analogy between a kanji studier's brain and a computer. A typical computer filesystem is made up of hundreds or thousands of files. Each of those files is assigned a unique path which consists of a series of directories and a filename. No two files have the exact same path. So when you want to open a file that you've previously stored, you just go to the place where the file is stored and open it.
Now suppose that instead of that, every file you created was just placed at some random spot in memory and you were given its address. So when you wanted to go to open, say, a resume or spreadsheet, you'd have to remember that it's stored at address 5489337537892. If you were to forget that long complicated number, you'd just have to make the file all over again.
Well that's essentially what a kanji learner is doing when they try to just drill the kanji's writing into their head. Maybe they remember a few smaller parts that make up the character, but there's no systematization to it and nothing to anchor it in memory.

Heisig actually assigns each character a unique identifier, so when you want to write a word such as 地帯 all you need remember is that it consists of "ground" and "sash" and then use the mnemonics you've learned to recall how to write them.

I wouldn't dare claim that finishing RTK V1 will enable someone to guess all or even most meanings of kanji compounds. They must be learned on a case by case basis, but with the knowledge from the book already in memory, the process is greatly simplified. Heck, Heisig could have assigned meanings to the kanji at random and the process would still work.

Take for instance KrazyKat's example 唐突. Suppose Heisig had said that 唐 means "toboggan" and 突 means "pumpernickle." Well all you'd have to to learn 唐突 is say to yourself "Ok, the word for "abrupt" consists of the characters for toboggan and pumpernickle for some reason." Done. And in all likelihoood you'd already know from learning other compounds that toboggan can be pronounced とう and pumpernickle can be pronounced とつ. In actuality, the connection between the meanings of the kanji and the meaning of the compound is a lot stronger so that makes it even easier to remember.
Without Heisig? Well maybe you could say to yourself, "Alright, this word is made up of とう from 唐辛子 and とつ from 突然." But how do you remember what those kanji are and how to write them?

You’re right that a good deal of reading can be done with 1000 kanji. If Heisig had written two separate books of 1000 characters each, they would probably be equally effective yet take a bit longer, but when one can easily finish all 2000 in 6 months or less, why not do that? A beginning student who starts off with Heisig can be done with it before they even need to start reading kanji, and at that point they’ll be on par with all the Chinese learners of Japanese who have such an easy time thanks to their kanji background.