As I talked about in my blog post 'My First Three Months Of Learning Mandarin' I am going to start learning with the help of Heisig method so I can recognise characters more easily.Today I bought Heisig's book, after reading though the first section that you can download the Simplified version's First Chapter for free and if it inspires you I recommend you buy the entire book.
Greg at Mandarin Segments has now learnt over 1000 characters in a month and a half using this method as described in his blog.
I recommend this book to you all, and hope to document some of my progress with this method soon. Below are the links for this book in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters.
Also on a side note: before I started learning Mandarin I bought this book: Reading and Writing Chinese: Guide to the Chinese Writing System
But sadly it is traditional characters and not the simplified, so if someone can find a good home for it and cover postage, I would be willing to send it on. Please get in touch!!-------------------------------
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i don't know if you know or the book features the nine-rigid pattern, which is a good and basic method to learn writing chinese characters. we also start learning writing chinese by that and it's a good way because chinese writing is actually about proportion just like drawing a picture.
see this as an example:
http://www.art-virtue.com/YT/TangPoem/Image7.jpg
wanchi
Greg's input regarding the Heisig method intrigued me. Presently I'm using Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 : A Revolutionary New Way To Learn And Remember The 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters.
The mechanism is similar to Heisig's, but I'm not as gung ho as Greg. So far, I've managed to learn 200 characters in 1 month.
Wishing you all the best!
Wanchi, as yet, I am not sure quite how the methods of writing are incorperated into that book.
However I have heard that this grid system you show is the best way to get the characters accurate.
Hajar,
I have heard good things about the Tuttle book too. The main reason (although he doesn't know it yet) is that if I get stuck I know I have someone I can talk to about it and sort things out with.
Thanks ever so much for your wishes. I will share about my progress on the blog.
Charlie
九宫格 is the nine-rigid pattern mentioned by Wanchi.
It's a good tool for you to practise your characters.
But we mainly use it in calligraphy.
Something tells me caligraphy is a way off for me yet.
Would love to be able to in the future though. Never say never.
:D
Hey Charlie, is your book with traditional characters still available? I could give it a good home. What would you need for postage? You have my email... Cheers!
Yes it is still available. Will gladly give you an email about it.
Charlie
ＲＴＨ is fantastic. Unfortunately I've let my Ｈｅｉｓｉｇ-ｉｎｇ ｆａｌｌ ｂｙ ｔｈｅ ｗａｙｓｉｄｅ ｔｈｅ ｐａｓｔ ｓｅｖｅｒａｌ ｍｏｎｔｈｓ ｓｏ I'm not finished like I should be.
I'm actually starting over using RTK since I'll be learning Japanese on the side as well. I'm just learning the hanzi equivalent to the kanji whenever there is one.
Ahh yes, my housemates are trying the RTK, will be interesting to see how they get on.
How have you been testing your recall of the characters? (obviously when you were a bit more into it)
Just wanted to jump in and say as enthusiastically as possible that I really am in love with this book!I read about it here and picked it up at the library -- and I just cannot put it down. I've been studying Chinese for several years now and writing has always been the big problem for me...but the Heisig mehtod of using imagery to aid recall is really effective! Thanks for the rec.
Hey Thomas,
Thanks for dropping by. I am really enthusiastic about it, and from what I have heard it really is one of the best memory tools.
Are you learning the pinyin and the speaking as well as the characters? Guessing if you have been learning a while you will have been.