12/3/2007

During my quest to give you ever more informative yet mildly entertaining posts about Japanese, I’ve noticed that the most carefully thought-out posts toiled over for many days and nights often have the least comments. It’s OK. I’m assuming it’s a sign that the post is SO GOOD that nobody has found anything objectionable to comment about. On the other hand, inflammatory posts like calling James Heisig a douche bag, attracts comments like flies to a pile of turd. And because I enjoy comments like a grab bag of Christmas presents, here I am with another flame post.

Actually, I didn’t really call Heisig a douche bag. In fact, though I’ve never met him, I’m sure he’s a very smart and great guy. Furthermore, many people commented that they couldn’t even begin memorizing how to write kanji without the help of his book. That’s great, and I’m glad that the book helped them find a method that works for them. After all, our brains are complex so it’s natural that certain techniques work better for certain people. Even so, after over 50 comments, nobody has stepped forth and met my challenge by saying, “Yes, I can write whole words and sentences like a native using his methods.” So I remain a skeptic about the long-term durability of the method and still don’t give a damn whether or not you can write all the 常用漢字 from memory. Here’s the real test – see if you can write words for a ２級 Kanji test by studying with Heisig’s methods, even just the answers that only use 常用漢字. If so, I’ll buy the books myself and start studying because I could hardly answer most of those questions.

If that’s not enough to incite you into commenting, here some more fodder.

I think it’s better to teach casual Japanese before polite Japanese. It sounds crazy I know, but first of all, it’s how all native speakers started out as kids so it can’t be that bad. Second, it’s much more useful grammatically and socially if you’re in high school or college. Finally, I worked at one of the largest, oldest, and most traditional Japanese companies in Tokyo and “business Japanese” was just putting “desu” and “masu” at the end of every sentence. The rest is knowing phrases like 「いつもお世話になっております」, honorific/humble, and vocabulary that’s too difficult for beginners anyway.

Discuss.

[Update]

I’d like to clarify that I have no issues with Heisig’s book itself but rather how it promises to enable you to gain native proficiency in writing kanji. I mentioned this in the comments as well but I find the following claims a bit far-fetched.

“…the goal of the book is still to attain native proficiency in writing the Japanese characters…”

“Virtually all teachers of Japanese, native and foreign, would agree with me that learning to write the kanji with native proficiency is the greatest single obstacle to the foreign adult approaching Japanese-indeed so great as to be presumed insurmountable. [lines skipped] In fact, as this books seeks to demonstrate, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“…they are not likely ever to have considered reorganizing their pedagogy to take advantage of the older student’s facility with generalized principles. So great is this neglect that I would have to say that I have never met a Japanese teacher who can claim to have taught a foreign adult to write basic general-use kanji that all high-school graduates in Japan know.”

(I infer from this that the book can teach a foreign adult to write like all high school graduates.)

Now, somebody posted a comment saying that Heisig probably meant that you will be able to write individual kanji like a native; namely being able to write all 2000 or so characters. However, if that was what he meant, then what he is saying doesn’t even really make any sense. Native speakers don’t think about each kanji individually, they learn to write them in words. For example, if you were to ask any native speaker who doesn’t speak English, “What is 「接」?” they will say, “Oh, that’s 「接」 from 「接続」 or 「直接」” because 「接」 by itself doesn’t mean anything. Or if there’s a 訓読み for the kanji such as 「動」, they might say, “Oh, that means 「動く」”. So even if you could write all ~2000 characters with the keywords, you still won’t be writing kanji with native proficiency. That means his claims are either misleading or just inaccurate.

Why couldn’t he just write something a bit more modest like this?

By being able to write each individual character, you can use them as building blocks to help you remember how to write words that use those characters as you progress in your studies.

Sure, it doesn’t sound as revolutionary as, “You can write kanji with native proficiency, something I’ve not once seen a Japanese teacher teach successfully” but it sure is more accurate. Oh I don’t know, maybe I should just change the introduction to my grammar guide to say, “The goal of this guide is to gain native proficiency in Japanese grammar. Most people think such a goal is insurmountable but nothing could be further from the truth.”