Learning Kanji
Kanji literally translates as kan - Chinese and ji - characters(cf. romaji - roman letters). There are 1945 kanji deisgnated for general use (the jouyou kanji) in Japan following reforms carried out in 1946 aimed at simplifying the kanji learning process and making it easier to read literature and newspapers. Despite these reforms, non-general use kanji are still in circulation although they are often given furigana (small hiragana above the kanji that denote pronunciation).
Learning kanji is probably the biggest hurdle in mastering Japanese and it is one that many fall at. Unlike Chinese people, who grow up using kanji, English speakers must learn all 1945 kanji from scratch. Kanji vary in complexity and can contain from one to twenty or more strokes(utsu, meaning depression, has a mammoth 29). Some kanji have several pronunciations depending on where and how they are used.Many books have been written on the subject of kanji learning, both for foreigners and for the Japanese themselves.
How many kanji do I need?
Learn about 1000 of the most common kanji and you will start to be able to make sense of real Japanese. Bear in mind that the kanji must not only be learnt individually but also together in compound words. Learn all the everyday use kanji and develop a vocabulary of about 10,000 words and you should be able to read newspaper articles and pass the highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency test.
Approaches to learning kanji
We know that learning kanji can be a daunting task. Japanese people grow up surrounded by kanji as well as studying them at school and even they will admit that kanji are difficult. The increasing use of computers means that many struggle to write kanji by hand.
So if the Japanese themselves find kanji difficult, what chance does an English speaker have of learning them? Well, you might be surprised. The key is adopting an efficient learning method. Traditionally, the Japanese have always learned kanji by writing them out again and again on pieces of paper. This, in my opinion, is an awful way to learn. One Japanese teacher recommended this to me once. I asked him if it was a good way to learn. He thought about it and replied that he often forgets kanji! If sheer, crushing boredom and poor results are your thing, this method will suit you down to the ground. Fortunately, as logical adults, we have other options.
The fast track aka component analysis
Kanji are composed of building block called radicals. These radicals can have meanings of their own or we can assign them arbitrary meanings to make them easier to remember. Highly complex kanji can be easily remembered by breaking them down into their constituent radicals and linking them together with a mnemonic phrase and image. Mary SIsk Noguchi, author of the Kanji Clinic column, calls this the component analysis method. Heisig's excellent Remembering the Kanji is based entirely on component analysis and mnemonics. The first part of his book is available for free download on line and is essential reading for anyone interested in kanji.
Let's look at an example of component analysis. Once you have learned the simple shapes that mean mother (母) and child (子) you will be able to join them together to form the more complicated kanji meaning like (好). Using the simple mnemonic “mothers like children” it should be no problem to remember this one.
I and my Japanese learning friends used the Kanji Study Cards that accompany James Heisig’s work and were quite successful using his method. You could make your own cards but I do not recommend it. There are better ways to spend your time. There are free cards available for download from the net here, obviously these will require a lot of printing and cutting (not to mention card). They are not quite as good as the boxed set which is still well worth the investment in my opinion. Once you have your cards, you will need to review the kanji daily. This is not difficult as 100 cards can easily be slipped into a pocket for study on the train or whenever you have a spare minute.
Using the internet
There are several websites offering flashcard programs to test your kanji. I personally don't think they are superior to hand held cards but the more computer literate among you might find them useful.
King Kanji is a neat little program available for the pocket pc to help you learn kanji. I did buy this and found it helpful although the majority of my kanji learning was done with flashcards.
Other flashcard programs:
Kanji Coffee is a site supporting those studying Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.
The Kanji Site has good printable lists for JLPT kanji. Stick them on your wall for hours of fun ;-).
Supermemo is a website devoted to memorisation.
Archived files on Jim Breen's site
Learning the pronunciations Kanji often have two (or more) different pronunciations: the on yomi, or Chinese reading, and the kun yomi, or Japanese reading. A single kanji can have more than one on yomi and/or kun yomi. Single kanji followed by hiragana (okurigana) are usually read as their kun yomi. Two kanji words are usually read “on on” but sometimes “kun kun” Knowing the radical of a kanji can often give you a clue as to the on yomi. The same word can often be expressed with more than one kanji, sometimes with subtle differences in meaning. The verb hakaru, to measure, can be written with six different kanji! James Heisig’s second book, Remembering the Kanji 2, offers short cuts to mastery of kanji pronunciation by organising thekanji into logical groups that can be quickly learned together. The book can be used with his first book or in conjunction with other methods. The Kanji Study Cards mentioned above can also be used to memorise kanji pronunciations. When learning to write the kanji, you will go from the English keyword that best describes the kanji to the writing. When learning to read and pronounce the kanji you will start on the other side of the card and go from a picture of the kanji to its reading. Kanji town Kanji town refers to a sophisticated method of learning kanji pronunciations. Students create for themselves an imaginary town comprised of different locations. Each location corresponds to a particular on-yomi. Each location will have its own story, dreamt up by the student, which includes all the kanji that share that particular on-yomi. Let's take the on-yomi“shuu”. Kanji that share this reading include collection, week, protect, hand, bad smell and many more. Say I select the shoe (shuu) store in my kanji town as the location for this reading my story might go something like this: Every week a large collection of shoes is brought to the store. The shoes replace the bad smelling shoes which must be kept under protection so that no-one touches them with their hands.
This is just a very brief example of the learning method. With different locations for characters with very similar pronunciation e.g. shuu and shu even these can be easily differentiated. Learning these via brute memory is difficult. Hopefully, you can see how kanji town makes learning kanji pronunciations a lot of fun. You are really only limited by your imagination. Kanji game A neat game to test your kanji knowledge with a friend or Japanese person is to choose a radical and write as many kanji as possible using that radical. Once you get good at this, you can start to hustle Japanese people (some of them will not be amused to lose to a foreigner). Buying a kanji dictionary A good kanji dictionary will help your study a great deal. I personally like Hadamitzky and Spahn’s The Learner's Kanji Dictionary which should last you throughout your kanji learning career. There are numerous electronic dictionaries available on the market in Japan; however, most are aimed at Japanese people and thus could be quite tricky for a beginner student to use. When looking up the Japanese for an English word, the explanations will be entirely in Japanese. Most dictionaries have a jump function which allows you to quickly find the meaning of any unknown kanji which helps somewhat. Once I bought an electronic dictionary I wondered how I’d ever managed without one. One great function most dictionaries have is a notebook that allows you to store and review interesting words. Mine holds up to 1,000 words and soon gets filled up. Prices for electronic dictionaries vary depending on the features. More expensive is not necessarily better. I have seen expensive dictionaries that give very strange and convoluted examples. It’s worth trying them out or at least reading online reviews before you buy one. One tip: don’t spill your drink on your dictionary, they work much better when kept dry. Home Prev. Next
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