I've just started whipping through heisig simplified hanzi 1, and I don't anticipate it taking long as I already know over 900 characters. I find heisig useful as a way of systematizing mnemonics (although it would have been better if the book included phonetic components), and so was hoping to get hold of number 2 only to discover that it wont be out till autumn at the earliest, according to
www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/30/ode-to-heisig-and-rtk

Could anyone recommend an alternative? I want something which breaks down the characters, and introduces them in sections according to similar components, so that I can continue using a systematic mnemonic approach.

Thanks skrittereers!

If you then know 1500 basic characters, I'd suggest just going ahead adding words and just added other characters when they arise.

Books 2 and 3 have been out for a while. Maybe a new version is going into print then. Those books go over more kanji but a lot of the books are spent listing the Japanese pronunciations to words introduced in book 1. Since you are studying Chinese books 2 and 3 probably won't be half as useful as book 1.

ddapore99: I think you're talking about the Kanji book, but bart was referring to the Hanzi book.

I don't see anything about a Simplified Hanzi Book 2 on Amazon, and the link bart sent had a quote from Heisig saying that he expected it to come out later this year.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_at_ep_srch/190-4603606-8574814?ie=UTF8&search-alias=books&field-author=James+W.+Heisig&sort=relevancerank

this is probably your best bet - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966075005/zipubooks

The dictionary is organised using character tables, there are 214, one for each radical. Each one starts with the radical and then lists all the characters derived from it, then the derivatives of those characters are shown and, so on. It's traditional which is a bit of a pain, but before the next Hesig comes out its the best you've got.

Its also online here - www.zhongwen.com

Also yellow bridge's advanced character search lets you search by character component, but it only searches the most common 500 if you haven't subscribed -

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/adv-character-dictionary.php

You might look at EZ Chinesey. Similar to Heisig but provides more stories and uses a different ordering system.

I took a look at EZ Chinesey and like it. Curious if anyone has made a list from that for Skritter? I poked around and didn't see one.

You can get a set of free flash cards with the entire list in a pdf from the publisher here: http://ezchinesey.com/stuff/ezflash.pdf I have not downloaded the flashcards but I have the book.

nice one folks, thanks for the ideas. think I might try out zhongwen.com and see how that goes after Heisig

We've got a list up for the EZChinesey Hoenig book now:

http://www.skritter.com/vocab/list?list=agVza3JpdHIWCxINVm9jYWJMaXN0SW5mbxiHhbUQDA