After finishing it, I could not pass JLPT 4k. I already knew some japanese, but could not read anything.

That is RTK does little for your japanese. By itself it is just like learning a very expensive and boring trick.

But after that, I’ve spent 2-3 hours/day studying japanese from real sources (not crappy textbooks). 15 days ago, after 1 month of study, I scored 40% in a past 2k test.
Give me 2 more months and I’ll get a 80%. Give me 1 more year and I’ll get a 80% in the 1kyu.

“Finally, it seems worthwhile to give some brief thought to any ambitions
one might have about “mastering” the Japanese writing system. The idea arises
from, or at least is supported by, a certain bias about learning that comes from
overexposure to schooling: the notion that language is a cluster of skills that
can be rationally divided, systematically learned, and certi³ed by testing. The
kanji, together with the wider structure of Japanese—and indeed of any language
for that matter—resolutely refuse to be mastered in this fashion. The
rational order brought to the kanji in this book is only intended as an aid to
get you close enough to the characters to befriend them, let them surprise you,
inspire you, enlighten you, resist you, and seduce you. But they cannot be mastered
without a full understanding of their long and complex history and an
insight into the secret of their unpredictable vitality—all of which is far too
much for a single mind to bring to the tip of a single pen.”

Like you said, let’s assume he means that you’ll “be able to write, from memory, the same set and quantity of characters that a native Japanese can.” You can only say that statement is true by hiding the fact that while a native Japanese’s memory consists of real words, the memory Heisig is referring to is a bunch of English keywords.

In the real world, when you are writing, you have to recall the correct combination of kanji in the correct order and the correct amount of okurigana if any. Heisig only requires you to remember one keyword. I think it’s a fairly big stretch to compare the memory of a little less than 2,000 keywords to over tens of thousands of kanji words and compounds that a native Japanese memorized in order to actually be able to write real Japanese and not just single characters.

To be accurate, Heisig should have said what his book really does: allow you to write the kanji based on each English key word.

The memory that a native Japanese has is completely different and so much larger than what the book teaches you that having any sort of comparison where the two are equal is just misleading no matter how you phrase it. It’s like comparing one apple to a bushel of oranges and saying they are equal.

People just starting out don’t necessary know how kanji compounds work or the difference between on-yomi vs kun-yomi so just having one sentence saying it doesn’t cover that without actually explaining what it’s not covering doesn’t really help, in my opinion. The book doesn’t even explain what to do after you finish the book so that you can actually attain real mastery. I find that sorely lacking for a book that’s “designed for self-learning”.

There are, of course, many things that the pages of this book will not do for you. You will read nothing about how kanji combine to form compounds. Nor is anything said about the various ways to pronounce the characters. Furthermore, all questions of grammatical usage have been omitted.

and

the goal of this book is still to attain native proficiency in writing the Japanese characters and associating their meanings with their forms.

So there was no need to make this “challenge.” Even a semi-literate person could have concluded that volume 1 does not enable its readers to use kanji just like a native Japanese speaker. In fact, it doesn’t technically teach readers to write a single Japanese word.

Dr. Heisig states very clearly what his book does and does not do, in the second paragraph of the introduction:

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On the other hand, the part you quoted:

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appears in the very last paragraph. At that point, anyone reading it has all the information they need to accurately interpret what he means by that statement.

The introduction is only “misleading” to people who (a) Are under the impression that native Japanese don’t use compounds or grammar, or (b) Decided to skip the beginning of the introduction and start reading it from the middle.
I have no sympathy for either group.

It’s quite obvious Heisig is not claiming to enable people to use kanji like natives simply by finishing his book, and if we take “attain native proficiency in writing the Japanese characters” to mean “be able to write, from memory, the same set and quantity of characters that a native Japanese can,” then the book accomplishes that objective just fine.

I wasn’t aware that that was your challenge. I can’t claim to write like a native but I can claim to write with respectable proficiency I think. Especially when it comes to remembering how to write the kanji in words, thanks to my efforts with Heisig.

>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.

I can do this. In fact, I do it every day with my SRS software.

That seems pretty clear to me. He also says, just before the text you have quoted, “Finally, it seems worthwhile to give some brief thought to any ambitions one might have about mastering the Japanese writing system. The idea arises from, or at least is supported by, a certain bias about learning that comes from overexposure to schooling: the notion that language is a cluster of skills that can be rationally divided, systematically learned, and certified by testing. The kanji, together with the wider structure of Japanese–and indeed of any language for that matter–resolutely refuse to be mastered in this fashion. The rational order brought to the kanji in this book is only intended as an aid to get you close enough to the characters to befriend them, let them surprise you, inspire you, enlighten you, resist you, and seduce you. But they cannot be mastered without a full understanding of their long and complex history and an insight into the secret of their unpredictable vitality–all of which is far too much for a single mind to bring to the tip of a single pen.” and after “If the logical systematization and the playful irreverence contained in the pages that follow can help spare even a few of those who pick the book up the grave error of deciding to pursue their study of the Japanese language without aspiring to such proficiency, the efforts that went into it will have more than received their reward.”

Please excuse the bulk of my quotes, but I really feel that you took his words out of context and that their real context should be seen. You are very inspirational to a lot of Japanese learners (myself included) and as such I think many people will not even follow the link to the book intro, they will just trust you when you say the book is probably not worth the time. I don’t think he claims his book is the only step to be “as good as a native”, just a good first step, or even a decent back step. He also seeks to allay fears that “foreigners can’t attain native proficiency in kanji” an attitude that I know you must have encountered.

I finished the book and I have friends who have finished the book, and I know many people who have finished the book. No I am not native yet but I am much closer than I was. I know others who have taken themselves much closer to “native” than I am starting with this book. In fact one of them recommended it to me. I took level 2 JLPT in December. I finished the book in May of that same year. The #1 thing I took away was not “how to write the characters”(i can do it but so what) but “a very effective method to tackle any new characters I may encounter”. The reason I think you find very few people touting the second and third books is because people just don’t like them. Book two is pretty dull and boring, book three is hard to find. You may be interested to know that the third book does in fact give example compounds for readings at the same time. The idea being that the work load should be manageable by this time. I did half of book two and what it did for me was put me to sleep but to be fair I can accurately “sound out” new words for about 1000 characters. Yes you can do that naturally but the ordered list allowed me to do it quickly(May to November for 1000 characters with very few errors but they do crop up from time to time). After half the book I decided that I just cant deal with boring word lists so I should just go read. That is where I am now. So, no I can’t pass your challenge. I am fully confident there is at least one person I know of who did finish the book who could, but he probably never would be bothered to try. I would like to know, however, can you find me one person (who isn’t a lying flamer) that has finished the book and gone on to study, only to decide that the book was a waste of time?

At the end of the day studying language is a bit like a religion, we all have our own beliefs and to make someone “see it your way” is usually not easy.

Why run the risk of turning someone off to a book they liked and that was working for them just because they trust you and then have them turn to a method that they don’t like that leads them to quit? I never thought of you as a “rain on your parade” kind of person.

It sounds great to say “hey you should learn kanjis like a native” but in practical this is just non-sense.
You just don’t live in japan, you don’t read, write kanjis in your everyday life.
So i think foreigners should learn kanjis with other methods.
Maybe they should learn them indivdually first!
That may be non-sense for a native, but hey! wait a sec…i’m not japanese! woohoo
(btw how do college students learn kanjis at school? don’t they have kanjis tables to learn each year before starting reading shinbun?)

Some have say that learning individual kanji is useless, that’s true when you start to learn their readings (what the book does not do), since reading depends on compounds and context.
But at the time you start reading japanese texts full of kanjis, your brain will thank you for knowing how to recognize and write them and to have some clues about their meanings.
This is just a great relief when you start learning readings and compounds so you can focus more on it instead of having to try to write, read, make compounds, learn meanings and remember them all at the same time.
That is just an anarchic method and there are way too much informations to remember.

In reply to Tae Kim:
sure it’s easy to deduct pattern from 剣、険、検、験, but how many years do you have to spend reading japanese stuffs, writing mails before bumping on all of these kanjis? This is just randomness.
Do you really have all that time to read japanese stuffs?
I don’t. I’m not even taking japanese class.
Plus Heisig’s book do it for you.
That’s the case when taking a “learning kanji in a silly way”’s book and start eating those kanjis like a dumbass sounds good.
At the end, it is worthwhile.
Anyway that thread is useless ;)
Write something more usefull like …all the meanings and use of the verb つける. :p

In reply to Alex:
Reading english and kanjis is not the same.
When you know Western alphabet, you can mostly read anything, even if you don’t understand a thing.
Japanese alphabet is hiragana and katakana, not kanji.
You can’t guess about their reading. If you don’t know them, you just don’t know them. :)
So it’s really difficult to learn something new by reading text full of kanjis :)