Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1: Book 1: How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters

I bought this book maybe three or four years ago. The technique is interesting, and they have built a good structure to the book, but on pretty much every character I just wanted to reach through the page and punch the writer. It's got an incredibly cocksure, very American and (most strangely) an overtly Christian tone to it. Example for 江:"China's equivalent to the Mighty Mississip' is the Yangtze. In fact, the character in this frame... can be used as an abbreviation for the Yangtze, much the same as the "River" of "Old Man River" is for those who live on the banks os the Mississippi. The elements that make it up show water and an I-beam. Actually, the heavy metal I-beam is being launched as a raft by some mentally challenged Huck Finn hoping to cruise on the Yangtze."I mean please, just stop. It's like this throughout and it feels throughout like the authors are convinced by their own genius. I've used loads of other textbooks and I can now speak and write Chinese at a fairly advanced level, but I could not get on with this book at all.

This book introduces an really excellent method of learning Chinese characters. They are much easier to remember using Heisig's stories rather than the traditional method of just drumming them into your head with hours of practice, writing and studying them.I only have two problems with this book. One is that because it is paperback, quite small and thick, it is difficult to use. You must keep one hand on it at all times to keep it open on the page that you are using. A hardback or larger format thinner paperback would be better.The other is that there are a few hundred characters with no story. You must make your own story for them. It would be better if a story was provided for all characters saving me time making up one. Also while most of the stories are good and easy to remember there are a few that are very hard to relate to the character and I had to replace those stories with more relevant ones that are easier to remember. So the book needs some more editing and finishing but overall this book is a great help when starting to learn characters and has given me the tool that I need to learn at least 1500 characters. Maybe 3000 if I move onto Heisig's second book later.

I already have Tuttle's  Learning Chinese Characters: v. 1  which I thoroughly recommend, but thought I'd give this book a go as it seems to promise a different approach.I have to admit when I first got it there was something very obvious about it that made me think "what on earth??" But then after trying the first few chapters I realised that what I thought was a fundamental flaw is actually a clever approach.Here's what's missing: you are presented with several hundred of the most common Chinese characters. You are told their meaning. But not how to say them.There. Told you. Doesn't that sound bizarre? Well that's because it is and yet...I gave the book a go and let me tell you, the trick works. By the end of the first couple of chapters I knew many more characters than I did using other methods because I was focusing on recognising them, not pronouncing them. The idea is that once you have the characters stored in your brain you can start to focus on how to actually say them later, and it's an approach that really seems to work.I came back from Singapore at the weekend and while I was there I found I was able to recognise the characters I'd seen in this book, and figure out what they meant on signs, far more reliably than characters I'd encountered through, say, the Tuttle book where I was simultaneously learning the character, it's meaning and its pronunciation.This book encourages you to work quickly, and I'd say it's a good approach. Read the character, write it a couple of times, move on. That's all it needs.The book is organised intelligently. it's not by word frequency but by radical, so you're introduced to the character for "sun", and "mouth" and "eye", all of which are similar, and written similarly. You're then introduced to characters that use those ones - e.g. "goods" (which you'll see a lot on shop signs).That means you'll be learning the character for "reckless" before the character for "me", but that's not a problem as the point of the book is to help you quickly recognise characters, not to teach you to speak Chinese.It's a difficult concept to get across in a review and you really need to try it with an open mind.One other thing - I've found my writing of Chinese characters has improved immensely with this book - before I couldn't really write very well at all. With this book, I'm scribbling tiny characters all over the place. My Chinese friends were very impressed!So to sum up - clever approach, completely at odds with what you expect and probably think you want, but it really is worth a go. Highly recommended.

This is an essential purchase if you are teaching yourself Chinese. It is nearly a year since I bought this book. Since then I have used the method it teaches as the basis for remembering characters, both to read and to write. It certainly has worked for me, and I would see no reason why that would not be true for most readers. As described elsewhere, it provides simple stories to help you remember each character. You could make these up for yourself, but the book has a logical approach you are unlikely to better, based on a sensible mix of traditional meanings and imaginative diversions.Of course the book by itself will not make you fluent. You will also need Flashcards, online websites, and hundreds of hours of application. Nevertheless it should give you a solid base to your studies. Volume 2 is also good, but you do not need to buy it at the same time.