Tonight on a rare occasion I finished early with my 19 characters from James Heisig’s Remember the Kanji book. With the extra time I decided to skip ahead to read a rather lengthy start to Lesson 31 even though I won’t get there till tomorrow. As I was reading along, Heisig drops a bomb shell on page 270 paragraph two.

In Lesson 31’s summary Heisig is talking about phases in which one passes through Kanji comprehension. He says phases 1-3 are primarily ‘story based’ phases. The idea being that to learn a particular keyword/kanji pair– you begin with a full bodied story, then later reduce it down to plots, then finally into primitives which ‘prompts’ you to remember the other two (if it’s even necessary) in order to remember the associated kanji with the keyword. You do this for all 2,042 Kanji and subsequent kanji afterwards (up to 3,007 in RTK3 or beyond).

In the second paragraph however he explains a forth stage which as you’ll read later is quite shocking:

“There is yet a fourth stage to be reached, as you have probably realized by now, but one you ought not trust until you have completed the full list of the kanji given here. In this stage, the primitive elements are suggested according to form without any immediate association to meaning. Quite early on, you will recall, we insisted that visual memory is to be discarded in favor of imaginative memory. It may now be clear just why that is so. But it should also be getting clear that visual memory deserves a suitable role of some sort or other, once it has a solid foundation. This is a process not to be rushed, however appealing its rewards in terms of writing fluency” (Heisig 270). (Emphasis added)

This is a huge shift from what he said in the beginning. Note exactly what Heisig said: “Visual memory is to be discarded in favor of imaginative memory.” This is in fact a radical understatement. What Heisig really said was this in his introduction:

“What makes forgetting the kanji so natural is their lack of connection with normal patterns of visual memory… the more efficient way would be to relate the characters to something other than their sounds so to break ties with the visual memory we rely on for learning our alphabets” (Heisig 1) (Emphasis Added)

He goes on to talk about popular strategies that use objects (like a tree or a mountain) to remember the kanji in a sort of ‘visual mnumonic’ , but writes,

“Proper etymological studies are most helpful after one has learned the general-use kanji. Before that, they only add to one’s memory problems. We need a still more radical departure from visual memory” (Heisig 2) (Emphasis Added)

Heisig is explaining that visual substitutes simply mask the overarching problem of Kanji-recollection which is why Visual Memory, as a method of learning, is to be avoided. However if you are still convinced NOT to depart from Visual Memory Learning Heisig writes a ‘zinger’ — that sometimes we make up for ‘our forgetting of kanji’ –due to poor visual memory– by making excuses for it as Heisig explains on page 3 of the Introduction,

“Now the odd thing is not that this occurs, but rather that, instead of openly admitting one’s distrust of purely visual memory, one accuses oneself of a poor memory or lack of discipline and keeps on following the same routine. Thus, by placing the blame on a poor visual memory, one overlooks the possibility of another form of memory that could handle the task with relative ease: imaginative memory” (Heisig 3).

This last point was where I was at for the last 1,105 frames. This notion that patterns of visual memory or the use of visual memory when recalling kanji to a keyword was a wretched sin and would lead to forgetting a kanji/keyword pair soon, Vis-à-vis the “Kaleidoscope Phenomenon” (explained below). However what Heisig is saying in Lesson 31 is that once there is a base, a foundation if you will (through the aforementioned “three phases”) perhaps visual memory, “deserves a suitable role of some sort or other” rather then being the scourge of the earth?

Why is this Heisig? I believe It all comes back to the Kaleidoscope example presented on page 2.

Heisig writes, “Let me paint the impasse in another, more graphic, way. Picture yourself holding a kaleidoscope up to the light as still as possible, trying to 3x in memory the particular pattern that the play of light and mirrors and colored stones has created. Chances are you have such an untrained memory for such things that it will take some time; but let us suppose that you succeed after ten or fifteen minutes. You close your eyes, trace the pattern in your head, and then check your image against the original pattern until you are sure you have it remembered. Then someone passes by and jars your elbow. The pattern is lost, and in its place a new jumble appears. Immediately your memory begins to scramble. You set the kaleidoscope aside, sit down, and try to draw what you had just memorized, but to no avail. There is simply nothing left in memory to grab hold of.” (Heisig 2)

In this example Heisig is giving a great reason for why NOT to use visual memory. In short, it’s because the instant visual memorization of the pattern yielded poor results. In this case imaginative memory would have saved this poor soul. I believe now what Heisig is presenting is if instead of simply ‘memorizing’ this pattern in the Kaleidoscope we make a story about a building with a triangle staircase and an oval window for example, then wrote that story down– perhaps ran it through an SRS for a few times– when the rude gentleman who nudged your shoulder and ruined the image came around again you would be able to still draw the image easily because you would of had a story which could bring back more easily that image. Moreover, say this image was a particularly unique image and you wanted to draw it as art or draw it for a friend (or multiple friends). This would be feasibly impossible without some sort of record (such as a photo). In the latter example (using a story rather then your visual memory), if you’re drawing the image for the 6^th or 7^th time over a period of time– the story you made will eventually fade and in its place are the primitives (building, stair, window). These primitives bring up an image which you draw without hesitance. Even later on, Heisig is saying there will be a point in which you will no longer need the primitives because visual memory will suffice ONLY because it has been rooted in something much more durable.

In relating this to Kanji, and more broadly Japanese, the preferred approach to learning vis-à-vis Visual memory– skipped the precious step of this ‘foundation building’ which anchors in the mind a point in which to recall vast amounts of information. We are told, or it is perhaps implied, that ‘kanji bashing’ through long drawn out repetition, will build a core foundation- as good as- Heisig’s phases of recollection (Stories> Plots> Primitives). The product of the former method can end up being no more better then if you would have done nothing at all in some cases, while the Heisig’s method produces someone who (theoretically) is able to recall and produce like that visual student a kanji/correct meaning/and phrase over a greater period of time and with a more accurate precision. That is to say, in the end, everyone will using visual memory- but only the Heisig people will be rooted in solid foundation.

Heisig explains it another way,

“In short, the number of steps required to learn the Japanese writing system has not been increased by what we have been doing. It has simply become more pronounced than it is in traditional methods of drawing and redrawing the kanji hundreds of times until they are learned, and in that way the whole process has become much more efficient. Pausing to think about just what your mind has been doing through this book should make the ideas mentioned in the Introduction much more plausible now than they must have seemed way back then” (Heisig 270) (Emphasis added).

This is Heisig’s way of telling us that my efforts thus far have not been in vain, but in fact been enhancement over others who are too attempting advanced Japanese studies (like where I used to be) . Perhaps this last comment is also to comfort any other skeptics that have made it this far, but are still unsure if what they’re doing in RTK is an exercise in frugality or an exercise in futility. After 1,105 frames & 30 lessons I’m leaning towards the former: Frugality. The time wasted on trying to fill up pages of identical kanji over and over could have been spent better firming up the foundation of my knowledge of the said kanji. Truth be told- the reality likely is- with time I’ve spent on Anki and Kanji Koohii thus far- I’ve probably written the same kanji an equal amount of time overall as if I did it repetitively. The difference being of course I now have a ‘story based’ foundation on which to draw upon.

So what’s the verdict? Use visual memory sparingly. In fact continue to avoid it at all costs until after RTK1 is finished with. In time visual memory will offer itself more freely with better results. It’s an enhanced technique that if implemented could save anyone scores of time. The downside of course still remains that this ‘exercise in ‘enhanced kanji techniques’ will set you back a good three months– so as all us Eagle Scouts say, “be prepared.”

Good food for thought for anyone for or against or on the fence.

~J

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