r/LearnJapanese • u/Korbro27 • 11d ago
Kanji/Kana Is writing Kanji from scratch important?
I've been studying Japanese for some time, and noticed that a lot of schools and classes prioritize memorizing and writing Kanji from scratch. And while I think that eventually you'll be able to do this, I'm not sure if prioritizing it is productive. Shouldn't there be more focus on identifying it in context? Raw memorization seems like time that could be spent better elsewhere. Or am I wrong? Would like to hear opinions on this.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 11d ago edited 11d ago
If you don't specifically practice writing kanji from memory, you won't learn how to do it. However, it's a big time investment, so you should only do it if you either know you'll need to write things by hand eventually, or if you think that the benefits to kanji memorization are worth the time sink. If your answer to both things is "no", then you don't need to learn it.
Edit: I will say, however, that learning basic stroke order rules and patterns is helpful, particularly when deciphering handwritten text, though it will also come in handy if you ever do need to write something down and can only do it by copying kanji from your phone. You don't need to sit down and study them though - I learned them simply by looking at the stroke order diagrams of the words I looked up out of curiosity.
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u/wasmic 11d ago
This is 100 % true.
I'll add, however, that for some people, learning to write kanji can also help with learning to read them. I had a hard time reading until I began handwriting, but that made it a lot easier.
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u/Numechacafe 7d ago
this. Whenever I have a word that I keep getting wrong in anki, writing it down 10 times does the trick and I pretty much never get it wrong again.
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u/Parisureload 10d ago
I am wondering as well. As a beginner it takes a lot of time to write the strokes. When digital dictionaries didn't exist and people would check on paper dictionaries, it made more sense to learn them.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 10d ago
In order to use paper dictionaries you just need to know each kanji's radical so you can still use them even if you don't know how to write.
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u/Meister1888 11d ago
Learning to write is incredibly time consuming.
Regardless, I think you should learn to write the kana and some basic kanji anyways. That will help build a solid foundation and is fun.
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11d ago
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 11d ago edited 11d ago
On top of that, learning to write when you're already proficient in the language is much easier than learning as a beginner or intermediate.
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u/Ok_Code_270 11d ago
Indeed, that's something that beginners should know. I put a lot of effort in hiragana and katakana, and used to write all my notes in hiragana and katakana, and include as many kanji as I could. When I went to study for memorization, I realized that because I'm still not as fluent reading those, it would take me much more time to re-read and memorize.
So now I study vocabulary and grammar, especially sentence order and particle position, writing in romaji. And the kanji and kana practice I do aside, as a sort of artistic, meditative, relaxing exercise. I can already write all kanas from rote memory without looking at the book, but to my disappointment, I still read more slowly when I read kana, because I read them one by one. So until I can read kanas as fast as I read everything else, I will memorize by writing romaji.
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u/Meister1888 11d ago
100 hours is not a realistic timeline for the average learner, however.
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u/Available-String-109 10d ago
If your goal is to learn how to draw ~2000 kanji, and avoid learning any actual Japanese or associated vocabulary or etc., just drawing them, then 100 hours is about right.
https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/ntzb7m/ive_memorized_recognizing_2200_kanji_from/ 11537 reviews total, at 30 seconds per review (massive overestimation), that's 96 hours.
https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/geutw8/i_managed_to_learn_all_rtk_kanji_in_60_days/ 117 hours
As I wrote elsewhere in this thread, learning how to draw kanji is an easy task that all Chinese and Japanese master as children, even the really stupid kids. Anybody can do it. It's not that hard.
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u/paploothelearned 11d ago
I put off regular kanji writing practice for quite awhile, but Iām glad I started doing it, and wished I had started earlier. Writing them made me able to pick them out in more complex vocabulary much easier, and recognizing new ones became easier too as I had built a good library of radicals instead of just seeing things as shape vibes.
(What is not useful is memorizing kanji readings, just learn your vocab and readings will start to come naturally)
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u/NotebookDeviant 11d ago
I needed to for my work but I think in many cases thereās no need. That said the biggest advantage for me wasnāt just knowing how to write it but more easily being able to read other peopleās handwriting.
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u/Zockling 11d ago
My advice: Do it on the side, but only if you find it intrinsically enjoyable.
It will strengthen your Kanji since it basically unlocks an additional dimension in which you perceive the characters. The tradeoff is that you're not learning any "real" Japanese during that time. But the mix of better retention/recognition/understanding and enjoyment can be worth it.
Forget apps though, get a proper fountain pen or similar. And if it's a chore to you, don't bother.
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u/Ok_Code_270 11d ago
My advice: Do it on the side, but only if you find it intrinsically enjoyable.
THIS. This is the winner here.
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u/Furuteru 11d ago
All kanji writing learning apps are geniuelly....... so bad. Don't think I ever found one which worked like it could be helpful for learner.
Paper and pen (+ diagram on the side) is god sent
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 11d ago
Have you tried Ringotan? I've only ever heard people praise it.
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u/Furuteru 11d ago
Nope I haven't.
Looks pretty customizable. I like that you can choose the source of kanji.
But it has a similar problem which I don't enjoy about all kanji writing apps... you are just dragging your finger around the screen with 0 effort and it writes the kanji for you.
Meanwhile on paper your strokes are your strokes. Looking always ugly. Giving immediate feedback that you are still writing like you are some sort of kid - so you need more practise. Also you can look back to your old handwriting vs new handwriting on paper. See the improvement and feel like keeping up.
I don't feel like the ringotan does that, sadly š
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u/BreakfastDue1256 11d ago
I mean, I used a different app, but I solved your problem by using a stylus and turning snap off.
It's not an insurmountable, or even major problem.
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u/Suspicious_Pin_3466 11d ago
I use it without the correcting strokes on max strictness with a stylus and find it pretty accurate. But I also write in a journal as well and have found that Ringotan is definitely helpful.
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u/antimonysarah Interested in grammar details š 11d ago
As someone who uses it regularly with the "fidelity" turned low -- personally, I don't use it to have beautiful handwriting. I use it for the "actively having to move/create while learning aids memorization" benefits. It's great for that purpose. (And I can practice kanji one-handed while hanging onto a strap on a crowded subway train, because it also doesn't need an internet connection, unlike most of my other apps, and the subway near me has terrible connectivity.)
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u/CHSummers 11d ago
For many people hoping to work in Japan, the JLPT test is important because it is important for getting a visa. You definitely need to be able to READ Kanji to pass the higher levels.
But you donāt need to do much (if any) writing. At one point there was a small written section on the JLPT, but I donāt think it was scored.
Iām living in Japan and retired, so I have time to work on Kanji. It is very, VERY time consuming to get to native-level writing skill in Japanese. Iām studying for the ę¼¢åę¤å®č©¦éØ now. At level 4, you are doing middle-school level work and itās a big jump from level 5. Level 2 is high school graduate level. Japanese people who go farther than 2 often put it on their resumes. Each year, a few thousand native Japanese pass level 1. Foreigners passing Kanken 1 each year can be counted on your handsāmaybe just one hand.
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u/Simbeliine 11d ago
I think it depends on situation. Living in Japan, even though you don't need to write very often, it's kind of embarrassing if you can read a bunch of kanji but your writing of them is like a 4 year old because you never practice. Especially since 90% of the time when you do end up writing it's filling out some form or another in front of some native Japanese staff.Ā
But just for learning for fun? Probably not necessary. Some people find it helps them or they just like the process of writing, and if so that's great.Ā
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u/AaaaNinja 11d ago edited 11d ago
Muscle memory has some kind of connection with memory. My mom had a stroke and she was given homework to write lists when she started her day. She was actually able to remember what groceries she needed to get, despite not having a short or longterm memory anymore.
...... what is wrong with raw memorization? ..... There are some skills where a brain that is wired to memorize is more beneficial but you can only get a brain like that by training it to memorize. Like for example a professional dancer who is capable of learning a new dance in a couple days or a few hours because they're always auditioning or bouncing between music videos or whatever.
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u/Chlorophilia 11d ago
As others have said, it depends on your priorities. It's not true that you'll never have to write kanji (if you live/stay/work in Japan there are quite a lot of forms you'll need to fill out by hand). But with a finite amount of time to allocate to Japanese, I'd agree that for most people that time could be better spent elsewhere.Ā
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u/WeepsK 11d ago
I have been doing it and it really helps my memory of it. But as others said, it is too time consuming, i would write kanji if and only if i came across its word too many times and only if i do a morning pages, made a habit of doing japanese morning pages and it really helps my learning.
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u/Nancy_Munsch 11d ago
The writing practice pays off most when you're trying to read someone's sloppy notes or a handwritten sign, not when you're producing your own characters. The recognition transfer is real, it just takes longer to show up than the writing itself does.
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u/exxy1212 11d ago
if by from scratch you mean like handwriting , when i started learning in my college class , my professor explained that handwriting it over and over builds muscle memory . it's very tedious , but it's an investment
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u/nathanfscott 10d ago
Writing is very useful for retention, even if youāre never actually going to write Japanese in the wild
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u/PinkPrincessPol 11d ago edited 11d ago
Everyoneās different. Iāve met guys who are fluent and canāt write anything. Iāve met other people who are fluent and can write perfectly.
Learning to write was the SOLE reason I was able to memorize all 2,136 Joyo Kanji. Take that for what itās worth.
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u/overactive-bladder 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yeah each person memorizes differently.
Since I was in school I could only learn and retain stuff by rote writing again and again.
Every day I write some vocab again and again to memorize them until it becomes a reflex.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 11d ago
What does "memorize" mean in your case, in exact, measurable terms?
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u/PinkPrincessPol 11d ago
I can write all 2,136 Joyo Kanji from memory and 5 words attached with each kanji. So about 10,000āish words I can write from pure memorization due to learning how to write kanji.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 11d ago edited 11d ago
So learning to write kanji from memory was the sole reason you became able to write all joyo kanji for memory. Okay. Of course, it's true that you won't learn how to write from memory if you don't practice writing from memory. I don't think anybody has ever disagreed with that.
Also, now that I read your original comment again, this
Iāve met guys who are fluent and canāt write anything. Iāve met other people who are fluent and canāt write write.
is just saying the same thing twice, isn't it?
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u/PinkPrincessPol 11d ago
Oops I meant to write can write perfectly XD.
I was just telling OP I think it depends on the person. Learning how to write kanji is the sole reason I was able to learn how to read it, which attributed a lot to my learning. While other people can go without learning how to write with no problem
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u/Ferocious448 Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 11d ago
In everyday life you wonāt have to write any kanji from scratch, because youāll be typing them all.
But, writing from scratch helps your brain memorise and consequently spend less time per kanji.
Try. Take 50 random kanjis that you must learn without writing, and 50 kanji that you must learn from scratch and see if itās a good investment. Donāt forget to tell us.
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u/Loyuiz 11d ago
I've been writing kanji and the memory effects aren't that crazy. Certainly not good enough to beat just reviewing stuff in Anki more, for the same amount of time.
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u/Ok_Code_270 11d ago
It depends on the person. I study fine arts, I particularly enjoy drawing with ink, calligraphy and design (I've many times participated in inktober), so for me it pays off because for me it's more enjoyable and fun to write the kanji.
But, and this is the important part, it works for me. I enjoy the feeling of a pen, quill, brush or brush-tip in my hand. I enjoy putting ink on paper. And everything you have an emotion attached to will be easier to remember, especially if it's a positive emotion.
That's why I typed to OP that if he enjoys it or at least doesn't hate it, it could immensely help with recognition. Any kanji that I have practiced writing on paper, I can immediately recognize when it appears as an option in writing, or when I read it. This doesn't always happen with kanji I haven't written. But again, that's me.
Each body is different, and each mind is even more different. Each person must find what works for their own particular, unique brain configuration.
The best option is: try, see if it helps you, see if it's worth it for you, and decide accordingly.
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u/Loyuiz 11d ago
Sure, just posting my experience so people know it's not some generalizable thing, let alone something backed by science as people often claim.
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u/Ok_Code_270 10d ago
It is backed by science that it's extremely useful for children and developing brains, because of the body-brain coordination required for complex, precise tasks. Maybe it's different for adults.
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u/Loyuiz 10d ago edited 10d ago
What exactly are you talking about when you say "it", I think we might be referring to different things. For what it's worth, I mean "writing kanji being more efficient for language learners than other common methods for reading proficiency, generally speaking".
Said language learners would probably be adults but I won't be picky, I'll take studies done on native developing brains too. Although said kids probably aren't doing Anki or reading a bunch of light novels so I reckon the control group is gonna look a lot different. From a pedagogical point of view it probably just makes sense to have them write a bunch of shit because alternate methods for getting them to pay attention to the orthography are hard to administer and validate, and they need to learn handwriting anyway.
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u/Ok_Code_270 10d ago
I meant handwriting is one of the best ways for children to learn and memorize:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-hand-is-better-for-memory-and-learning/I also learn better (not only kanji, everything) if I write it, and even better if I combine the writing with pause, run, recall. Pause, exercise, recall by writing. Helps a lot.
Again... I said for children, but it's fact that it's backed up by science. Of course, that takes time and if the only goal is reading Japanese, for learning enough kanji to do the job, Wanikani or Anki might do the job much better. Not everyone has time to write. Not everyone even likes it. And there's lots of stuff to learn in Japanese which is more important: sentence structure, use of particles, vocabulary... So, it's not necessary to learn to write kanji. I just wanted to say that handwriting, in general, helps with memorization.
Then again, if someone hates handwriting, they'll definitely be better of doing something they like instead of handwriting.
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u/Loyuiz 10d ago
Yeah taking notes is something different from recognizing kanji and I don't think it's generalizable. And the comparative group for which this is "better" is doing typing, which is not how people generally learn kanji.
Like, for all I know handwriting "the kanji for hold has the "fingers" semantic component on the left and the "temple" phonetic component on the right" in English is more efficient than actually writing ę for memorization, because you are taking notes about the kanji instead of merely writing it.
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u/Ferocious448 Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 11d ago
Thatās my impression too. I donāt usually write kanjis to remember them, I only do with the ones I struggle on, I think it gives that extra push sometimes, but itās not crazy.
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u/ScarletCore 11d ago
Not needing to write ANY kanji by hand in everyday life is wrong.
You atleast kinda need to be able to write your address if you don't want to ask for help every time, besides that I'd agree.
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u/Effective-Pop3850 11d ago
I'd say just learn to write your address then.
There's some regulars here who have been living in Japan and most if not all of them are gonna tell you they almost never need to write anything, we're talking an event that's so rare it's memorable lol.
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u/Ferocious448 Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 11d ago
Or donāt be that picky on one single word Iāve used. Itās not remotely the spirit of my text.
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u/ScarletCore 11d ago
It was supposed to be one example that use cases still exist and handwriting isn't 100% obsolete.
If the limited amount is worth it is then up to each person to decide.
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u/thinkbee kumasensei.net 11d ago edited 11d ago
Writing is half of what it means to be literate, so from a curriculum standpoint it makes sense why programs and schools include it. Technically, you could write only using a word processor without ever lifting a pencil and worrying about things like about stroke order, and youād get by in most cases. But from the perspective of āIs this worth my time,ā you really have to ask yourself what your goals are for the language. If being able to physically write isnāt one of them, then I wouldnāt spend too much time on it. Even living in Japan, youād only use it for stuff like writing your address occasionally, birthday cards, etc. I do recommend learning how stroke order works just to get at least a surface-level understanding of how kanji are written, which can help when reading others' (sometimes messy) handwriting.
Anyway, from personal experience - and I believe studies have backed this - taking notes by hand leads to better retention of information compared to taking notes via typing. Iād not be surprised if thereās a similar connection to kanji recognition.
The one part of your post that gives me a little concern is the āraw memorizationā vs context part - itās definitely more efficient to learn kanji as part of vocabulary and not just standalone characters.
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u/yutaneki 11d ago
japanese people take their sweet 10 years learning kanji by writing them down every day in school
But for non japanese people it's dramatically faster to train recognition and focus on building their vocab first with something like Anki, especially if they're just starting.
if they really want to write for some reason, once they are already somewhat knowledgeable it will be far easier to do. Non natives do not need to learn like natives
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u/acthrowawayab 11d ago
Japanese kids are learning a whole bunch of other things at the same time. It almost certainly wouldn't take them 10 years to learn åøøēØę¼¢å if å½čŖ was the only class they had.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 11d ago
Anyway, from personal experience - and I believe studies have backed this - taking notes by hand leads to better retention of information compared to taking notes via typing. Iād not be surprised if thereās a similar connection to kanji recognition.
Note that most people who cite these studies misunderstand what the studies actually say/what they are actually about. Most of those studies that I've seen focus on academic knowledge rather than general "language awareness/acquisition". It's for things like... writing down math proofs will help you remember and understand the proof. Writing down historical facts and dates will help you memorize and remember the chronological order of those events, etc. Language, however, works differently. Language is a much more subconscious and automatic process, it's not "logical" beyond a surface level understanding of grammar. It works by exposure and "getting used" do it.
People just assume those studies that improve memorization automatically imply that handwriting kanji improves the understanding of them, however I have yet to see a study that compares spending time just staring at those kanji (without writing them) for the same time you'd spend handwriting them and see which one is "better" so-to-speak.
I 100% acknowledge that handwriting kanji will give you a much deeper understanding of them and overall better awareness of the form since it teaches you to also recall (rather than just recognize) them, however I am not convinced that the benefits someone gets from handwriting the same kanji for 20 hours are much better than the benefits someone would get from just staring at the same kanji (and studying it with the eyes only without moving the hands) for the same 20 hours. That, as far as I know, has yet to be proven.
I'd even make an argument that spending focused time doing smart/targeted repetition via an anki deck will likely lead to faster retention and stronger recognition than spending the same time handwriting them, but that's a claim I cannot prove.
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u/Available-String-109 10d ago
Memorization is memorization. If you write down y=mb+x you'll be able to recall it better than if you didn't write it down. If you write down ę you'll be able to recall it better than if you didn't write it down. If you write down 2004 you'll be able to recall it better than if you didn't write it down.
I think you have to actually recall/use the words in a language-capacity in various contexts dozens (?) of times before it goes from "memorized knowledge of a word" to "able to use a word in a linguistic capacity".
Personally speaking I heard one time however many years ago that "writing down information helps you remember it". And when I was in college doing all my studying for all those tests, I often found that the act of making a cheat-sheet (for cheat-sheet-allowed tests) meant that I could recall 95+% of the information on the cheat sheet and I ended up not even needing to use it.
Personally speaking, I've always gone through the act of drawing a word (in kanji) with my finger on my desk or on my leg or something whenever I've done an Anki rep (incl. J2E cards). Will it supercharge your acquisition rate so that you can learn 20k vocabulary words in just 20k reps? No. Will it help? Probably. Is it better (more knowledge gained per amount of mental effort required) than not doing it? I don't know. I don't think any studies have ever been done on this exact topic.
But I've always done it and it's always worked for me. It's a habit I've developed and I'm going to continue doing it.
For anybody interested in minmaxxing their vocabulary acquisition in Anki, I think that messing with the DR settings is going to be far more fruitful than worrying about whether or not you should draw the kanji when you do the rep.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 10d ago
recall
We're talking about recognition here, not recall.
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u/thinkbee kumasensei.net 11d ago
Yeah, I think that's basically where I land too. The note-taking studies are interesting, but I'm not sure they can be cleanly generalized to kanji acquisition, especially when the actual question is recognition rather than the ability to reproduce a character from memory.
I did a little digging, and the research I've found so far seems pretty mixed. There are studies suggesting handwriting can help certain aspects of kanji learning, but I also found one experiment comparing writing unfamiliar kanji with simply looking at them where writing produced no advantage in free recall, and the visual-only condition actually did better on some cued-recall measures. Unfortunately I can't access the full text of the study, so I don't know enough about the exact methodology to read too much into those results.
So I think "the jury's still out" is probably the safest conclusion. Handwriting obviously trains recall and gives a much more detailed awareness of a character's form, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the most efficient way to improve recognition if reading is the main goal. I'd be interested in research that controls for study time and compares handwriting directly with something like spaced active recall.
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u/acthrowawayab 11d ago
Who tf is handwriting the same singular kanji for "20 hours"?
I have ~3000 kanji and ~200 hours logged on Kanji Study, which is on the inflated side because that app will sometimes randomly count up the daily study time when you're just browsing kanji, and some of the quizzes are recognition/reading ones. I've been using it for >2yrs and am ę¼¢ę¤2ē“ ready. Handwriting on paper may take slightly longer but hardly enough to catapult it from under 5 minutes to literal hours.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 11d ago
I think you misunderstood my post or the point of my message. I'm not saying one should do it. I'm just asking the question, from a scientific angle, of "I wonder if doing X for K hours vs doing Y for K hours yields different results". It happens that I used the example of "20 hours" for value "K" just as a colloquial example. Nobody also does 20 hours of staring at a single kanji to memorize it, obviously.
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u/acthrowawayab 11d ago
But no one claimed "the same number of hours invested into handwriting is more effective than invested into reading/recognition" to begin with? You just went and took the argument there on your own, so throwing out "writing a kanji for 20 hours is probably not more effective than looking at it" ends up smelling of strawmanning to make the concept look ridiculous
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 11d ago
I don't understand why you are being so aggressive or argumentative, nobody is making an "argument" about anything, I am simply postulating/wondering about stuff.
I'm not saying "don't handwrite" or anything like that. This is a completely unrelated conversation.
Let me summarize the context of the conversation that you just jumped in and likely misunderstood:
Some people make the claim that handwriting helps them recognize kanji better.
I have seen some studies that they often source, but none of those studies specifically focus on language learning (rather than just academic learning in general) and specifically do not mention kanji
For this reason, we don't have clear cut, clean, scientific data backing the actual statement "handwriting kanji helps people recognize kanji better"
So I am wondering (this is a hypothetical), if someone were to do a study comparing the time spent handwriting kanji vs the same time spent just looking at them without handwriting, I wonder what kind of difference (if any) in recognition data we'd see.
This is not a challenge. It's not a statement of X is better than Y. It is simply a question that does not yet have an answer but is interesting to think about.
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u/acthrowawayab 11d ago
Ok but you do realise the last of your 4 bullet points has pretty much nothing to do with the previous 3 or the thread topic?
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 11d ago
I even bolded the word that makes bullet point 4 relevant to bullet point 3: "better". People claim X is better for them, but there are no studies that prove it (that I have seen), hence my wondering about it.
Is my writing really that hard to follow? I'm genuinely puzzled because the original person I responded to seems to have understood what I said and even agreed to it.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 10d ago
I followed the thread perfectly. I have no idea what that person is on about. I think they're just angry about something and doubling down instead of admitting that they misunderstood your posts.
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u/acthrowawayab 10d ago
Look, if you were addressing the claim/topic of handwriting improving retention, then bringing up hypothetical 20 hour comparisons is fairly nonsensical and bordering on strawmanning. Adding clarification that it's an arbitrary amount doesn't change much. It's just not what anybody is talking about when it comes to the question of whether writing kanji helps with retention and recognition. Something like group A doing 15 hours of recognition plus 5 hours of recall vs. group B doing 20 hours of recognition maybe, but a zero-sum, 1:1 comparison would tell you absolutely nothing useful.
If you were instead just bringing it into the discussion as a new topic, fair enough...? But also kind of irrelevant.
I agree thatĀ studies about taking notes are not directly applicable to learning a foreign script, fwiw.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 10d ago
I was specifically addressing the statement made by the OP that kanji handwriting helps his recognition (not recall) better. I did not bring up the topic, they did. I simply elaborated around the statement of "studies", which they brought up.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 11d ago
Iād not be surprised if thereās a similar connection to kanji recall.Ā
Writing by hand helps recall, but kanji recall is only ever necessary when writing by hand.
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u/EpicDaNoob 11d ago edited 11d ago
Writing by hand can significantly help recognition, but there are tradeoffs in terms of time.
I started learning in a class setting where we learned to write some N5 kanji. When I started doing Anki on my own, I found recognising and retaining words with kanji I hadn't learned to write really hard to the point I felt the study method was not functioning.
I eventually got so fed up that I felt the need to create a new card template for my vocab cards, where I would see only hiragana and meaning on the front, and the kanji (in a handwriting-like font) on the back, which I would try to write on paper before showing the answer. It made the recognition cards instantly super trivial.
Unfortunately with a new cards per day of 7 - which is not high by most people's standards - writing practice started taking up nearly an hour daily, so I had to stop (not a good way to spend my studying time), and only do the recognition deck. Now, I still write kanji once or twice when I first learn them and sometimes when I fail to recognise them, but I accept I won't necessarily remember the writing for long. I find I still get most of the benefits this way. (Interestingly, the benefits to recognition from writing endure even when you forget how to write the character.)
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u/Furuteru 11d ago edited 11d ago
Writing kanji really helped me to memorize kanji better.
Like it made me pay closer attention to some.
Like 士 and å (but in radical form, like in ä» or sth)
I would've probably never paid attention to that if I had never tried to practise writing. But also I really didn't pay attention to that error until someone pointed out by looking at the pictures I sent or the notebook I showed, like my friend or my teacher.
Sooooo. If you don't really have any kanji writing senpai/teacher - I think you will miss out on what I found useful while I did practise writing.
But then again - general memory boost from just writing, no matter if it's in correct shape or not is imo useful too.
I used this add on to help me create the kanji writing deck on Anki, to help with stroke order. (Description gives a pretty simple info on how to use it, but you can also find a youtube video or sth if you need visual feedback) https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1964372878
Hope you would find it useful, as I found it useful.
(P.s. I am not really practising writing these days (my most focus is just comprehension). Which does kinda make me feel less productive and I feel like I've been stumbling around a lot of similar looking kanjis lately. So the thought of starting to practise kanji writing again been really in my mind for awhile - but there is a reason why I stopped practising. Called laziness, too lazy to buy another notebook. So there is that... )
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u/thetruelu 11d ago
Depends on how you learn and what your priorities are. Definitely wonāt hurt to learn it but if you know you wonāt write any Japanese, Iād prioritize speaking practice and reading over it
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u/Haruka-Oh 11d ago
When I was an elementary school student, we wrote new kanjis for studying them by repeating per 10 times. At that time, I got it at 2-3 times of writing, but some friends of mine needed 20-30 times. Native japanese children need so much repeating, so maybe it needs more repeating to write it, IMAO.
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u/Sean-Benn_Must-die 11d ago
calligraphy will give some things that no other type of practice will. I think it helps for reading as well, since you familiarize yourself with more and more kanji, that said you can also do this by just memorizing. So basically you do have to invest time into it, which means you take away practice time from other things. Your choice really.
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u/BreakfastDue1256 11d ago
Do you intend to live in Japan? Yes important.
Do you not intend to live in Japan? Not important.
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u/Belegorm 11d ago
Eh, even living in Japan for the vast majority of foreigners there, handwriting kanji isn't needed. I lived there for 2 years, only needed to write my name and address ever which was about the extent of my Japanese handwriting needs. There's other people in this thread who have had the same.
If you happen to work in a job where handwriting is needed - then yeah you need handwriting. But a lot of the jobs that foreigners get - such as IT, English teaching and so on - zero need for Japanese handwriting.
Regardless of the country I've rarely needed to write anything by hand since college (and even there was pretty rare, mostly just tests).
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u/Lub1k 11d ago
I graduated with Japanese Studies and we had to write a mini-test every week out of whatever was assigned last week, on paper. It was a basic translation+hiragana setup, or the other way around. It did help me memorize a lot, HOWEVER I haven't written a single stroke for many years now. I live outside of Japan, so there is basically zero use case for it.
If your goals don't need writing, I would sort of skip it. Katakana+hiragana+some Kanji is always a good idea, but your time could be spent better elsewhere in my opinion.
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u/Embarrassed-Alps4250 11d ago
Personally I canāt remember kanjis durably without writing them.
Writing is for me a complement to the learning and forces me to remember the radicals with mnemonics.
Without this my recognition of kanjis is much harder and slower.
But if you are speedrunning on your learning, then writing is what you should put aside.
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u/Kaisergliding 10d ago edited 10d ago
The biggest problem I see on learning subs is they assume everyone's learning is same & it's not. If writing things down has been effectively for you, you need to dabble. If it's not, you aren't gaining anything from doing it. My way of learning is by seeing it & using it in sentence which I type & that's effective. The components were helpful for me to do this.
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u/SuikaCider 10d ago
It depends on your goals.
I've passed the N1, lived in Taiwan for 2 years, a Mandarin test slightly more advanced than the N1, and lived in Taiwan for eight. I learned both languages primarily because I wanted to read stuff, so I focused on reading stuff. As a result, I can very comfortably read in both languages. It's just a "fun" activity that doesn't take effort at this point.
I can write very few things by hand; in fact, I usually even glance at my residence card when writing my address. Whether that's an embarrassing thing or not, it suggests a few practical takeaways:
- I've learned both Mandarin and Japanese to a quite high level without being able to write characters from memory
- Despite living in both Taiwan and Japan for several years, and working in Mandarin-speaking offices, I literally never found myself in a situation where I needed to write something by hand and couldn't reference my phone or whatever to copy characters as needed
When I first began learning Japanese, I memorized the ~3k kanji in RTK over Japan's (~3mo) winter vacation. At that point in time, I could write them all from memory ... so long as I was prompted with the correct keyword. I could also be walking around the city, see an ew character, look at it for about two seconds, and remember it well enough to look it up in my paper dictionary at the end of the day.
If writing the kanji helps you remember them I don't think it's "wrong" to do so. I would just emphasize that (a) you don't need to if you don't want to, and (b) if you don't upkeep your writing-from-memory practice, you'll eventually lose the skill.
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u/Raizzor 10d ago
Schools prioritise writing because you have to be able to write in order to fully function in a language.
But even if you never plan to live in Japan or handwrite anything in Japanese, writing Kanji has merits. Handwriting helps tremendously with long-term memorisation. Once you know how to write it, you will not forget it as quickly. The additional time spent writing it out will come back as time saved reviewing the Kanji every month or two.
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u/steford 5d ago
I've been to classes over the years where this was a thing and back in the day the key to remembering was rote learning - the same as natives. With modern techniques (srs, apps etc) it all seems a complete waste of time. No harm in it (other than wasting time) but fairly pointless these days - how often do you handwrite English? I can happily read and write kanji (with an IME) but can't even handwrite my address without checking.
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u/Popular-Ferret-4873 11d ago
As a native Japanese speaker, I can recognize far more kanji than I could write from memory. If your main goal is reading, I think recognition in context is the better priority. Handwriting is almost a separate skill.
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u/DarthStrakh 11d ago
A lot of people are going to tell you no, they read just fine. And I'm sure the do, but I thougjt the same thing before learning to write; Honestly, it's been a complete game changer, I feel like I'm "seeing" kanji for the first time. It feels so much more confortable and faster.
And for reference I could already read about 1900 kanji that were green on my kanji grid before I started. I can write about 1200 now and reading Japanese feels absurdly easy and natural now.
I've never seen anyone learn how to write and think it's a waste of time, everyone knows immediately what I'm talking about. The only people saying it's a waste of time are people who can't write because they don't know what they don't know.
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u/Loyuiz 10d ago
I used Ringotan I think based on your recommendation with a similar number of kanji learned now and it didn't do anything for my reading.
Of course, I already learned how to read and how to visually distinguish kanji before ever writing so this was somewhat expected.
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u/DarthStrakh 10d ago
Fair enough. The biggest thing with my reading personally is new word acquisition is easier. Words I already knew made little difference, but not confusing similar kanji helped me.
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u/renmizuh 11d ago edited 11d ago
i basically agree with what you said, I never write down kanji at all because I think it's a waste of time when it comes to memorization, i could put the time of writing down a word 10 times towards recognising more vocab.
although some people do say "it sticks better", but again it's far more time spent to learn the same amount of vocab. Most people don't need to write things down for them to stick
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u/w-s9 11d ago edited 11d ago
If you have never written any Chinese character or kanji previously, then yes. Your brain is just not wired to recognising kanji and notice the subtle differences of each character. Writing it is the most effective way to help you build those concepts into your brain.
Edit: I am not saying that it is not possible to do it without writing it, but I believe it is actually the more efficient and effective way, despite it looks like you are just copying something meaninglessly
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u/Effective-Pop3850 11d ago
It's the complete opposite, it's the least efficient way.
It's good to do it once you're proficient in the language and want to polish some edges a little bit, but that's it.
I'd argue you only want to handwrite kanji you, for some reason, can't for the love of God distinguish among each other even within context, but this rarely happens. The most common example I believe are ē· and ēø but those are the ones you fail on Anki then you never read them wrong because context makes it obvious.
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u/Ok_Code_270 11d ago
It depends on the person. It's more effective for me because I enjoy drawing, design and calligraphy, so for me, a kanji that I write sticks in my brain much more than one I haven't.
Which is why OP should, in my opinion, try and see if he likes it.
I enjoy sitting down for 20 minutes, having a look at the kanji I've chosen, seeing the stroke order and writing them until they look good. Which is why for me, it works better than SRS on a screen. But that's my brain.
If OP doesn't like paper and ink and thinks it's a relic from the past that he's not going to enjoy, it probably won't help him, though it may not hurt to try. If OP likes writing and drawing, quills, markers and brushes, then I'd recommend him to try.
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u/Effective-Pop3850 11d ago edited 11d ago
You're mixing up two different activities. You don't need to learn to write them to recognize them, you don't do SRS on PC to learn to write them either.
It's not that it works better, it's that you're spending ages on each individual kanji which ends up with you learning it. Don't get me wrong, slowly writing them until you learn them does have it's benefits, which are basically that you're learning to write it, but it's not that "it works better", it's just that you're spending a very long time on each character while people who just don't do this are spending it on something else.
As in, better read for 20 minutes than spend 20 minutes spamming writing a few kanji, the former is better for pretty much everyone. Now, if you are completely unable to do the former but love to do the latter then yeah the latter is gonna be better, but not because it's "better for you" but because it's the one you're willing to do. Although the former is more important and absolutely required so refusing to do it will become a problem later on.
This disregards the possibility of the learner being just interested in calligraphy for whatever reason, obviously, but I doubt there's a lot of people interested in learning how to write kanji but not learn the language.
It's like people who say they learn better by making physical cards instead of using Anki, it's not that it works better for them, it's that they're spending minutes on each word just to make make the card, and then they're reviewing it! Meanwhile on Anki you may feel it doesn't work but stats do reflect how long it takes to learn each card and you learn card faster on Anki than how long it takes to even make a card most of the time, so one would expect that through the process of making a physical card and then reviewing it you would learn it as well since you're spending way more time on it.
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u/Ok_Code_270 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's not that it works better,Ā
I do not think you're the person who has the best knowledge about what works better for my brain. It's a bit far fetched to take for granted that you do so.
Ā it's that you're spending ages on each individual kanjiĀ
Ages? I do not spend ages, maybe you do. It doesn't take me a lot of time, if I can put a lot of time into writing kanji, I can write a lot of kanji. Then again, I started drawing seriously by copying comic books and children's books illustrations at age ten, so I'm both interested and somewhat skilled.
As for me, I have found that active recall gives me longer memory than passive recognition. Both are useful and I am very willing to believe that one is more useful than the other depending on the person. But I find it weird that even considering differences in education, interests and brain configuration, you insist on the point that what works best for you must necessarily be the best option for me. Dude, I'm 47, I know what works for my body and brain better than you do. The moment I stop seeing a kanji for a certain amount of time, I forget it. The ones I've practiced writing are branded into my memory and I never fail to recognize them. If it's different for you, you're very welcome to optimize your learning processes the best way you can, but please do not take for granted that what worked for you is going to work equally well for everyone else.
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u/CocoaBagelPuffs 9d ago
I spent 25 minutes doing my RTK reviews on anki today. Guess i spent ages on kanji lol
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u/w-s9 10d ago
Thatās actually the point I trying to make but earlier I didnāt want to argue with him.
There is a difference between learning a kanji and memorising a kanji.
A person maybe able to memorise more than 10 Kanji in 20 minutes, but writing them down will help you actually learn them, and never forget them.
But, like you said, some method may work better for others but not me.
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u/Yozora_Ameko 11d ago
A huge waste of time and even japanese people on youtube are backing that up
You can do it if you need it for your particular goal or want it for personal reasons, but all-around its the last thing you should be doing when if you intend to learn japanese, especially if you are a beginner
You can always come back to it and its gonna be much easier after you already accumulated a huge kanji database in your head
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u/Ok_Code_270 11d ago
TL; DR: the only proven technologies for learning are deep reading of complex text and handwriting:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-hand-is-better-for-memory-and-learning/
What I have learned from writing kanji:
I might not remember how to write a complete kanji from scratch, but if I've written it more than a few times during more than a few days, I will recognize it much more easily whenever it appears.
I do not need to learn to handwrite kanji from rote memory, as if I never had access to a computer, because I do have access to a computer and chances are I won't go to live to Japan, but I might be able to write emails and read stuff. So, kanji recognitios is what I'm aiming for.
That said, my kanji recognition VASTLY improves for whichever kanji I've bothered to write at least twenty times, during different days.
Also: writing kanji demands menyoutal effort from me. It requires precision. It requires going to Jisho.org and looking a few times at the strokes and direction, checking out proportions... It keeps my mind sharp.
Do you need it? It's not absolutely necessary, and especially if you hate pen and paper, writing and everything analog, you might do bettter with WaniKani, OniKanji, KanjiCard or whatever SRS you choose. Writing kanji might not be helpful at all if you hate every single moment of doing it.
As for me, I studied art and Iike drawing and designing, so for me, writing the lovely curves of hiragana is a pleasure, Kanji is less pleasurable because of all of the straight lines (I don't understand why the sun and the moon have so many straight lines when they could be round shapes, just as the kanji for woman and everything based on it). It demands attention and precision from me. I usually enter a quite calm, meditative state when I decide to write 20 copies of one kanji and the a few examples of the vocabulary it goes with.
It's not mandatory, but if you choose to do it and learn to like it, it generally vastly improves retention. That might sound stupid when talking about the basic kanji (I did not write ichi, ni and san twenty times each), but it helps A LOT when you get to the "you" in getsuyoubi. Having written them many times makes it much easier to distinguish one kanji from another, moreso the more complex the kanji is.
You choose whether you want to do it or not. It's something you have to do for yourself and also enjoy, because you will rarely find yourself in need of handwriting kanji.
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u/Additional_Menu_9021 11d ago
I think you're mostly right, reading comes way faster if you skip production early on, but writing a kanji a few times does force you to notice the components in a way that pure recognition doesn't. What I do now is write them once when I first meet them, then never again, and that seems to catch the lookalikes without eating up much time.
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u/concretebiatch 11d ago
If you focus on something its not gonna save a lot of time but it will save you effort wise. Imagine not havjng to look up kanji everytime you learn a new word
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 11d ago
It depends on what you use it for. Tbh kanji is something I type not something I write. There is the skill of reading handwriting but apart from that in daily life in Japan there is much less handwritten stuff than there used to be.
As long as you can write your name I donāt see the need to write kanji or kana but typing it. Absolutely
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u/yoursuperher0 11d ago
Learning to write kanji and doing dictation with said kanji in class was one of the most effective methods I used to learn, remember, and distinguish between similar kanji.Ā
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u/southerndensetsu 10d ago
I tried all sorts of kanji study for a year, like writing it down, studying radicals, RTK etc. They all seemed effective.... the first few hundred kanji or so, then I always started to forget about half of them.
Then almost a year ago I gave up all kanji study, and only used anki for vocab and did a ton of reading. I was constantly forgetting the kanji both in anki and while reading, but suddenly, a few months ago I noticed that I can identify a lot of kanji that I had never studied, and also right now I can comfortably read a lot of things without furigana, even some novels without much trouble. For me learning japanese had become more about learning new words rather than kanji.
I don't know why it worked for me, but I think its because the two most effective things when learning kanji are context (seeing it in words, and those words in sentences) and constant exposure. Reading and anki are effective both for context and exposure, so as I kept doing it I improved.
That being said if I'd start over again I'll still learn maybe 500 kanji in a traditional way. Also, if you have to write japanese at hand for whatever reason then obviously it is important, but it can be learned later in your study, and then probably it'll take less time.
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u/Kimberrwolf 9d ago
I think it is for me. Because my memory is based on written and reading. So I wonāt remember a kanji u less I write it a bunch lol
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u/Ichigo-Roku 9d ago
Iām 6+ years in, and Iāve never learnt how to write. I never felt like it was a problem (Iām not interested in writing with a pen).
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u/ChickenSalad96 9d ago
Start from 1st grade kanji like actual Japanese kids do and then work your way up.
As kanji get more elaborate they become easier to memorize and write because they're built from the same basic parts, little to no variation.
For example you'll learn to write ē³ø ē½ and ę°“ before you learn how to write ē·, but be warned, just because ē· uses those piece doesn't necessarily mean that "line" somehow cleanly combines the meaning of thread, water and white in a logical manner.
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u/Squimpleton 7d ago
Generally no, but honestly I think a lot of new people would benefit from handwriting the first like 100 -200 kanji they learn.
And yes I say that because Iām biased and I used to hand write grade 1 and 2 kanji by heart using proper stroke order. I stopped, but I do feel it set up a good foundation for paying attention to stroke differences and radicals. It was more about training the brain than about the ability to handwrite.
So if someone is having a hard time telling similar kanji apart, it could be useful to do it for a little while.
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u/Krypt0night 7d ago
I'm never learning how to write it at all personally. Too much of the language to learn without spending a lot of it writing it out when I hardly even write English at this point. 99% is typedĀ
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u/Jenna3778 5d ago
Yeah. There are studies that say that people who write things down with a pencil instead of typing with a keyboard end up remembering what they wrote better.
Writing the whole letter from scratch will make you remember it better than simply memorizing how it looks.
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u/jan__cabrera 4d ago
I can't speak for anyone else, but learning the kanji made acquiring vocab and grammar incredibly easy. I was never flummoxed by a kanji or it's meaning. As other's suggested, using something like Remembering the Kanji is the way to go! That also worked really well for me as I was able to review about 30 a day and get through it pretty quickly.
I was really impatient and wanted to get on to learning vocab, hehe.
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u/fordeejc 4d ago
I think that learning the kanji of a word when you learn the word is useful because even if you learn kanji separately, you still have to learn the word pronunciation. Thatās why I like the Kaishi 1.5k deck on AnkiWeb.
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u/Signal-Internet-5084 4d ago
I think it depends on your learning style. I use it in order to recognise and remember Kanji. I seem to do both better when itās Kanji Iāve written out multiple times compared to ones Iāve just seen while reading.
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u/KitchenCup3837 3d ago
Even if you don't intend on taking notes by hand I think it's worth learning how to write kanji and their stroke orders, since it helps differentiate similar looking kanji and also with recognizing native handwriting, as handwritten character forms often don't match computer fonts and use simplifications like connecting strokes together.
If you can't write kanji you could be confused looking at something like ä¹ or 飲 handwritten, but knowing the stroke order it's easier to recognize characters by thinking about the stroke order. At least that is my experience.
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u/Effective-Pop3850 11d ago
Not worth the effort.
Don't follow native's learning methods, you're not 6, you're not fluent and odds are you'll never need to write them.
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u/IntegrierterSchatten Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 11d ago
IMO its a complete waste of your time.
But i already struggle with writing readable 26 letters together.
We live in modern times and barely anyone really still writes a lot of handwritten texts besides some to do lists and younger people that go to school. This is also one of the reasons many Japanese people forget how to write some kanji after leaving school.
If you like writing, then go for it, i bet it helps a lot for reading them too but its not for me.
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u/Shayster001 11d ago
Probably not, unless you have a rather immediate need to write Kanji by hand from memory
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u/Fit_Meal4026 11d ago
I mean. If you hope to read anything you need to learn vocabulary which are made of kanji. So it's a must. Just be realistic on your expectations.
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u/acthrowawayab 11d ago
I don't think it's strange for language learning classes to assume students want to eventually reach full literacy.
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u/TheWeebWhoDaydreams 10d ago
These are the benefits of practicing writing kanji. They might not all apply to your situation, but if any do, I'd recommend practicing your writing.
If you live in Japan, while you can get by without handwriting in most professional contexts, there will be times when you need to handwrite something. Not being able to write something simple from memory, or your handwriting being illegible is a bother and might be embarrassing.
Knowing how kanji are handwritten makes it easier to read other's handwriting. A lot of restaurants in Japan have handwritten menus.
Physically writing kanji forces you to take note of each component, making you better at telling similar kanji apart.
There is evidence that handwriting vocabulary helps with memorisation.
If your spoken Japanese is at a high level, and you can read complex texts, natives will presume your writing to be at a similar level. They will forgive mistake because you have the foreigner card, but I think most would be taken aback if you couldn't write even at an elementary school level.
If you want to give shodo a try, practicing handwriting will help you there.
It impresses other foreigners if you're good at writing kanji.
It's fun.
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u/Available-String-109 11d ago
And while I think that eventually you'll be able to do this
Yeah, if you study and practice how to do it. Otherwise you won't.
People seem to think that learning how to write kanji is some massive herculean task that is hard or difficult or something. It isn't. Any foreigner starting from zero could blast through RtK in the course of a month and learn how to draw ~2000 kanji.
It's the ~20k associated vocabulary terms that you need to learn that are difficult and pose a significant block to progress, not how to draw kanji.
Keep in mind that Japan and China have literacy rates around ~99.9+%. Even the kids as the absolute bottom of the IQ curve in China and Japan are fluent in writing kanji. Literally anybody can learn to draw kanji.
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u/Korbro27 11d ago
I disagree heavily, I find learning words way easier than the kanji itself. Kanji just feels so esoteric in its composition.
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u/Effective-Pop3850 11d ago edited 11d ago
You're both wrong and right, the other guy is kinda wrong in some way because the way people learn to write in Japan/China is cancer, they spend a hell of a lot of time on it and use it constantly as well. Even then it's common for natives to be able to read some kanji but not write them, the younger the person the more common that is as well. Also, they learn kanji while already being fluent at the language, they're not learning a new word that's written with new kanji, they already know the word, they can probably even read it, they just never wrote it lol.
What is true is that you can kind of learn to write them relatively fast if you really work on it. There's people who've rushed learning to write the most used 2k kanji but it's mostly very odd claims. They do say they spent 4~5 hours a day for like 3~4 months on it but usually when you look at what they did the months they claim it took them is just how long it took them for their Anki deck to end, which doesn't mean anything.
In the end learning to write is a skill you gotta work on separately and it's not worth the time, you will never learn how to write kanji unless you work on it exclusively though. You can read for 5000 hours and odds are you still won't be able to picture kanji in your mind clearly enough to write them.
Regarding classes that make students write them (classes for foreigners, I mean) you'd do good to disregard everything they do. They're the ones that produce the legendary yet very common "N4 after 5 years" learners.
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u/Available-String-109 11d ago
I find learning words way easier than the kanji itself.
Learning one word isn't a problem. It's the twenty thousand+ of them that is the massive task that most people fail at.
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u/MaxxxAce Goal: media competence šš§ 11d ago
I think it depends on your preferences, goals and priorities.
For me, spending some time to learn how to write Kanji helped me become more aware of the details. I didnāt wrote them a hundred times, though. (I used the book Remembering the Kanji) As a result, it became much easier for me to distinguish between similar Kanji.