How I study Heisig

Preparation

  1. Buy the book. There is a free sample of the first few chapters, useful if wanting to check more into this method before spending cold hard cash
  2. Buy some kanji writing practice paper / print some off etc
  3. Create an account at kanji.koohii.com for SRS style reviews
  4. Read through the introduction of the book to fully understand the method, get excited etc

Every day routine

I usually aim to study about 10 kanji a day – more and the reviews get overwhelming – less is fine, but at least try to keep up with the reviews each day.

1. Study each of today's new kanji in turn

  1. Read the story for the kanji, try to form a good picture in your head, the more outlandish the better. If Heisig's story doesn't make sense or you're past the section which has stories and can't think of anything suitable, check kanji.koohii.com for inspiration
  2. Write the kanji two or three times in the notebook / on some paper thinking about the keyword and the story.
    • Pay attention to the stroke order, direction, all those good things
    • The strokes are broken down in order, the direction is usually obvious, but if in doubt check an animated gif
    • Play with the story and make sure the order of writing the different elements / order they are in the kanji matches the order in the narrative and that the story is as crazy and unforgettable as possible
    • When starting a new page in the notebook, write the date and the current number of kanji studied at the top to track progress

2. Initial review of today's new kanji in order

  1. Having gone through the day's kanji once, go back, look at each keyword in order and try to write each kanji, stories should naturally build on each other.
  2. Adjust or embellish any stories which aren't vivid enough
  3. Repeat until you can write all the kanji in order without any errors (usually takes me 2,3,4 times through depending how much time I spent carefully creating good stories)

3. Final review of today's new kanji randomly using kanji.koohii.com

  1. Go to kanji.koohii and add the kanji just studied to your list. They will appear on your Spaced Repetition page in the “new” pile.
  2. Click to study and write down in your notebook as the keywords are presented. Fail any you don't get exactly right (but hopefully nothing at this stage)

4. Complete outstanding due reviews

Back on the Spaced Repetition page, do the same with any due cards in the “review” pile, writing each one down as you go and failing any not exactly right (you have to be strict). There will most likely be at least a couple you don't remember. These will be added to your “study” pile.

5. Study any failed cards

  1. Finally go through any failed cards and relearn them. For these ones, I usually take time to write up the story into kanji.koohii. The reason I usually forget is that the story wasn't strong enough. If I forget the initial story, I'm liable to make up a slightly different one, so this time I want to pin point it (too time consuming to do this for all kanji).
  2. Having done, this I usually go through a final time from the “restudy” pile to get into the usual SRS flow.

Resources