I’m currently studying kanji using *Remembering the Kanji* by James Heisig. I bought the French version since it was the cheapest version from where I live (France) and I understand French even if it’s not my mother language. But I recently discovered that the French version has some differences compared to the original version. And these differences change a bit the way you study the kanji. Yves Maniette didn’t only translate the book, but made an adaptation in his own way. Since I didn’t see anybody on internet talking about this, I decided to do it myself. So I’m going to tell you all the differences I found.
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[Cover of the French version of RTK. Even the cover is very different](https://preview.redd.it/fyd8sjk4cvpc1.png?width=499&format=png&auto=webp&s=c346500336e7e7b2d0fd874e2f41a79601603419)
# Mnemonics
I saw some people complaining that RTK only gives you mnemonics in half of the kanji and that in the other half you have to invent your own mnemonics. Since my Anki deck doesn’t have any mnemonics on the cards and I always write my own, I don’t see a problem. But for those who don’t like this characteristic of the book, the French version doesn’t have it. They put a mnemonic on almost every kanji of the book, even if it’s only a sentence.
Some of the kanji that already had a mnemonic in the original version got their story changed to be more reliable to French people. For example, the mnemonic of the kanji 明 talks about the song *Soleil et la Lune* by Charles Trenet. Even kanji that didn’t have a mnemonic have mnemonics like this. For example the kanji 浜 that has 氵 (water radical) and 兵 (soldier) talks about the Operation Overlord (Battle of Normandy).
# Kanji order
A lot of kanji in the book are in a different place compared to the original version. For example the kanji 円 that is the number 1952 in the original version is the number 192 in the French version. By changing the order of some kanji, this makes it hard when I’m looking for a specific kanji on Kanji Koohi. The book also divides the kanji in 54 lessons instead of 56 in the original version (6th edition).
But this new order actually improved a little bit the book. For example, it makes more sense to put the kanji 且 before the kanji 組 since that kanji is being used as a radical, but for some reason James Heisig introduced it later, and the French version corrects that.
# New Kanji
The original version of RTK1 (6th edition) has 2200 kanji, but the French version has 2223 kanji. Those 23 new kanji are:
貰 爿 戌 戍 吊 夭 此 迄 於 或 舜 沓 肴 蘭 迂 癌 其 邑 垢 丞 朔 尤 偲
16 of them already appear on RTK3, but 7 of them are completely new (爿 戌 戍 夭 舜 沓 其).
I personally don’t think that adding these kanji is useless since a lot of them actually help memorizing the other kanji. For example the kanji 此 is introduced before the kanji 雌 and 紫 since it’s used here as a radical. Other kanji like 爿 or 邑 give more context about the origin of the radical since 爿 became 丬 and 邑 became 阝 (at the right side of the kanji).
# Conclusion
The French version has big differences that changes a bit the way we study kanji, but at the end the result will be the same. No matter if you use the original version or this version, you will end up being able to recognize the kanji you need for your Japanese studies.
For those who want to compare with the original RTK, I made a [Google Sheets document](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ofUvfaeOhn0H_uuSSIdfpSMi3U5zVtP7xiK8OKSGPZ8/edit?usp=sharing) with the kanji in the French version of RTK1 and also the kanji in RTK3 showing what kanji from the 23 additional kanji appear in that book.
What do you think about these differences?
by Timoteo_Machado