しあわせ

Confessions of a Yakuza by Dr Junichi Saga pub: Kodansha International Press

History books are so often about generals and leaders and battles and wars. The majority of histories of Japan seem to be about either World War 2 (variously known as The Pacific War, The Showa War, or The War against Japan. ) or the Tokugawa Samurai period.

These are neither. They are about relatively ordinary or even marginalised people from the first half of the 20th century, Late Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods. They are also first hand accounts of these peoples lives. It would appear that in Japan the good old days were niether all that good nor all that long ago.

There are 4 books I want to blog about.
The first is “Confessions of a Yakuza”.
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…in which I stray from the path

Heisig isn’t really working for me straight from the book. So I’ve decided on my own Shiawase system. It takes longer. So it’s not the speed system that Heisig mk1 might be.

What I’ve decided to do is incorporate it into more standard learning. I go beyond the keyword and kanji and I look up Jack Halperns keyword in the Kanji Learners Dictionary, because I don’t trust Heisig sometimes, and I believe Halpern is more accurate. I look up the onyomi and kunyomi. Most importantly I look up example words. Preferably words I already know, and preferably compounds.
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…in which I persevere.

But I wonder if it’s truly worth it.
I find the kanji character can be memorised fairly quickly, and I can produce them when prompted by keyword. But what I’ve learnt is of no immediate use. Even when I look up the kanji a lot are fairly obscure.
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…in which I begin to have doubts.

Already.

I’m coming up against the 2 huge faults the detractors of Heisig come out with.
The “stories” are long-winded nonsense.
The “meanings” given to components are often very forced and sometimes just aren’t true.
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…in which I begin the experiment

Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji continually comes up in any forum about learning kanji. So for better or worse I decide to check it out and see if I can complete the course. (I’ll have a review of the book here soon) And partly for myself, partly as a blogging topic and partly for anyone contemplating using Heisig I’ll chart my progress here.

OK. After reading a bit about it I bought the book. £20 from The Japan Centre.
I am sceptical and have reservations but am willing to experiment. I don’t think it can do any harm.
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