tl;dr But again thanks for your comments, they meant a lot when i finally found them and read them and i’m back at learning! (a few words of encouragment at the right time can be worth all the gold in the world)

It’s the same with this. The small things make a difference if you’re persistent with them. As long as you keep doing even the tiniest of things in Japanese, you will eventually learn it. Depending on your frequency and your persistence it may take you two years or twenty, but it will be done.

“A habit, good or bad, will wipe the floor with any plan. A habit, good or bad, will trump any resolution.”

I’ve fallen off this Japanese boat probably around ten times now, but I keep going back to it. Every time I do I learn more; my general knowledge of Japanese increases. If I had been persistent with small things I would probably be a lot farther in my ‘studies’ at this point, but I am persistent with one thing: I always pick it back up.

Even if you can do just that, you will succeed.

I also found that really practicing the technique of memorization that Heisig gives is vital. In the “remembering the Hanzi”‘ book he tells you what to do if you run into various problems. Lesson 11. I found that if I tried to go too fast (as I first did), I didn’t “get” the characters. They didn’t stick. I would suggest you memorize a few characters very precisely, taking as much time as you need. If you can do it well with 25 slowly, you WILL be able to do it with all of the characters, faster and faster. Forget about the 2000+. Learn one at a time. Take it slow.

If you are a kinesthetic (feeling) learner you have to feel the story in your body, imagine it while feeling it. Move around, move your arms, act it out physically. It is slower than making pictures, but the characters will stick. Be the Taskmaster killing the Snake ,burn the corpse or whatever.

Get in the trenches with EACH individual Kanji.Do it with pictures, sounds and feelings. Forget the goal. Master ONE as you master the technique and it will unfold for you.

Maybe Heisig is not the right method for you. Experiment a bit, brainstorm, see if you can think of something that might work. How have you learned new information in the past? I kind of arrived at the Heisig method only after realizing that visualization worked for me.

I’ll go through exactly what I do, in case Heisig is for you and you just don’t know it yet. I stuck pretty closely to the Heisig method because I found it was almost exactly what I needed, just a little bit of tweaking. Heisig’s explanation that kanji are built out of consistent smaller components was a huge breakthrough for me. Prior, I knew there were similar ‘parts’ cropping up in the kanji, but didn’t break them down in order to learn the kanji. Since you’ve been using the book, you know that he introduces a few of these components at a time. I tend to learn these components and their meanings as components simply by rote, though more complicated ones I might use a story. I write them on flashcards with the meaning on the back and review until I know them solidly. .

Don’t get to hung up on trying to ‘see’ a story in the kanji, or ‘see’ where the story came from. I got stuck on that at first, but the truth is there isn’t really a story hiding in there. Also, I found Heisig’s stories too long-winded, and didn’t ‘stick’, probably because they weren’t something that came from my own head. I find condensing things into one simple sentence is much more effective for me. I just break the kanji down into it’s components, and then create a sentence which uses the meaning of the components and the keyword in it. So, for example the kanji ‘unique’ is built of the components ‘mouth’ and ‘paws’. My sentence is simply ‘Somewhere there is a very UNIQUE creature made of only a MOUTH and two tiny PAWS.” Or, Ren’s example of ‘exquisite’, made of the components few and woman– ‘There are FEW truly EXQUISITE WOMEN in the world’. Sometimes it helps for me to picture something– I have a very vivid cartoon image of a mouth on a pair of legs with a tongue lolling about for ‘unique’ that comes up everytime I review the card. I didn’t actively work on creating that image, it is just something I immediately pictured on learning the kanji and its components. I think the key is to use what YOUR mind automatically associates with it, rather than what Heisig tells you to.

To actually review, I use three-sided cards in my SRS. First, I get the keyword. Usually I can remember my sentence and the kanji just from that. If I can’t remember the sentence, then I bring that up, and then it becomes quite apparent that the kanji is built from such and such components, and then I can write the kanji. Eventually, I don’t even remember my sentence anymore, b/c I’ve reviewed that card so many times that I don’t need to use it to write the kanji, and the memory of the sentence kind of just fades away.

The whole idea for me is that, there aren’t as many basic components as there are kanji that you can make with them. By remembering the fewer components, you open the doors to remembering the much more vast number of kanji. The sentences/stories help you to connect which components make up which kanji.

Anyway, that was much longer than what I thought it would be, and its not anything you probably didn’t get out of the book already, so I’m not sure it will really help at all. Good luck with your learning!

If Heisig and the stories he uses are the problem, I think many other people have similar issues. So, you are not alone. I would try the site “Reviewing the Kanji”, link posted above by @Peeled Cucumber. There are a wide variety of stories for each kanji, and many helpful hints there. Check out some of the forums on that site.

For the connotations issue, look at the keyword and think of three different situations in which you have heard the word used in your own experience. Then try integrating the primitives into one of those situations. That then becomes your story. I then write the story in the book after I come up with it, sometimes crossing out Heisig’s story entirely. I have found it is easier to work from my own particular experiences of a word back to the primitives rather than the other way around. Or to put it another way, when you hear the keyword, what is the first image/thought that pops into your mind? Try to relate that image/thought to the primitives used in the kanji.

Lastly, people are different. Some people are more visual learners, others are more audible learners. The former learn faster when they can see a picture of a new concept or picture a visual image in their mind. The latter learn faster by hearing new information. The Heisig method works well for so-called visual learners. It is possible that you are more of an audible learner. If that is indeed the case, you may have more luck switching to some other system, or just focusing your energies on listening to Japanese materials.

Instead focus all of your efforts at building a rock solid immersion environment. Watch Japanese variety shows, dramas, and anime, listen to Japanese podcasts, radio shows, and music. Take everything you do in English now and turn as much of it into Japanese as you can. If there is a moment of silence, fill it with Japanese.

Most health experts say it takes 3 months to really know whether or not one is able to realistically continue a particular diet. Treat this new environment like a new source of food. It will feel strange at first, but slowly you’ll come to like it, you’ll come to love it. Once you are accustomed to your immersion environment then start looking at learning the kanji.

Remember, this journey to awesomeness takes _at least_ 18 months. Taking a short three months to get comfortable with the language, to cool off a bit, is not going to make the journey take any longer.

When you’re ready, try giving these guys a visit:

kanji.koohii.com/

They’ll provide you with lots of invaluable help, and provide a clear blueprint on how to get from A to B. For now though, don’t worry about the kanji. Have some fun =D!

The only thing about your comment I can make note of is two things: one, when he says “connotation”, he means of the keywords and how you combine them. Ex: “Exquisite” is ‘woman’ + ‘few’. It’s pretty easy to see how those two words interact and make the new keyword; two, you’re having problems focusing. Turn off the TV. Close the door. Turn on white noise. If you’re too bouncy, get exercise. If you’re too low, eat something. Never try to learn with a brain that’s foggy. Never try to learn too many kanji at once. If you can only hold on to one or two at a time before your brain starts “slipping”, then stop with those and move. Better to remember something than nothing at all.

Good luck!

TL;DR
see, my problem is that in theory i can understand it (i can understand how “imaginitive” memory would help learning the kanji) but i can’t seem to understand the practice of it.
so what i really need from people, are really the steps on how they did this. everything you can think of, if humming and counting bellybutton lent helped you then by all means tell me about it.
Sorry about the longness of this, it somehow turned into a large rant with a simple whateverit’scalled at the end.
If for what ever reason you don’t want to post the ways and hows on this then please email me at ineedhelpwithkanji@gmail.com i truly do want to learn japanese but this… this seems to be a rather large stumbling block. thanks before hand for any help that you give.