A game involving beads
As explained in my previous post, the method I am following to learn Japanese requires that you learn at least 2,042 Kanji before you even start to learn any actual Japanese. I’m working at a rate of 40 Kanji per day at present, at which rate I should have finished RTK1 by the end of February. I had thought, then, that because of this all the Japanese I am surrounding myself with would remain pretty much a mystery until then.
Well, today, an exciting thing happened! I was browsing the internet looking for a client to play Go (囲碁), whose Kanji I haven’t learned, but which I can vaguely recognise if I see them. I used the IME to type it into Japanese Google and thus began my search. At only 292 Kanji learned, I wasn’t expecting to recognise anything much, but could find my way around using mostly pictures and happy in the knowledge that most download links seem to be written in katakana (ダウンロード).
連珠
It was with great surprise, then, that I saw a word composed entirely of Kanji that I had already encountered in Heisig! I immediately activated rikaichan and found out that the word is pronounced 「れんじゅ」, and is a board game which involves moving around differently-coloured beads. Coming from Heisig’s keywords of take along and pearl, of course, this makes perfect sense.
So, there you have it! My first actual word, which I can now read and write in Kanji. And just imagine – when I’ve completed the Jōyō Kanji, this will happen all the time!
Posted: 1月 8th, 2009 under Heisig.