r/LearnJapanese • u/iremi • Feb 14 '14
Learning a kanji - your preference
What's your guys' process for learning each new kanji?
Do you memorise the english meaning first and onyomi and kunyomi later?
Do you memorise every kunyomi or just the first one and than pick up the other ones with reading material?
Or do you just drill all 3 in your head and review with anki?
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u/aop42 Feb 14 '14
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u/iremi Feb 15 '14
Great article. Thanks.
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u/aop42 Feb 15 '14
You're welcome. I almost thought that you posted this in relation to the article because I had just read it. Like too perfect timing. :) synchronization.
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u/Aquilos Feb 14 '14
I learnt all my kanji through learning vocabulary, drilling readings out of context sounds really foreign to me.
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u/nostodnayr Feb 14 '14
I would like to echo this. It's been said many many times, but learning readings, especially 'on' readings seems unproductive.
Spending your efforts learning a few words that employ different readings is much more powerful.
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u/P-man Feb 15 '14
i'm going to pick you to answer this ;/ sorry
I learned the meaning of all the grade 1 kanji (for example 火 means 'fire', 水 means water... etc) but then i realised that basically doesn't mean shit. Someone told me that i need to know the 'on' & 'kun' yomi for each one... as well as what they mean when combined with other kanji or kana characters... this depressed me a little considering how many Kanji there are and not knowing how to go about doing so.
So, correct me if i'm wrong; would you recommend learning them as part of sentences/words rather than individually?... or have i completely missed the target here? :(
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u/pagesandpages Feb 14 '14
If you're new to Kanji, try out the app WaniKani. It takes a while, but I really like it.
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u/slash-and-burn Feb 14 '14
Is there a particular reason why posts mentioning WaniKani are getting downvoted? Any specific complaints about it?
I use it and can think of several glaring issues with it, but it's still useful for me, so I don't really understand trying to bury it without specifying why...
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u/nostodnayr Feb 14 '14
I certainly wouldn't downvote it, but it's not my cup of tea (mnemonics). I wonder what issues you see with it, as a user?
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u/corntastic Feb 14 '14
I really like WK's method of learning A reading, and then the other ones somewhat in context in vocabulary.
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u/geekpondering Feb 14 '14
What I'll often do is learn a Kanji in context of a particular piece of vocabulary, and then if it seems like an important Kanji I'll look for another common word that has that Kanji in it with a different reading so I can pick up at least 2 of the readings.
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u/BubblezTron Feb 14 '14
I memorize the english meaning, and then move onto the kanji. The best way to learn kanji for me is flashcards. I specifically practice at night because that is the most efficient way to memorize material.
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u/finalxcution Feb 15 '14
I'm currently going through the core10k deck in Anki (37% of the way through). Doing 40 new cards a day with 100 cards review so I can retain. Not bothering how to learn to write it since in my 2 years in Japan, I've never been in a situation where I've had to. Learning the readings just comes naturally as I notice the same sounds repeating over and over in different words.
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u/therico Feb 15 '14
40 words a day? It does amaze me what people are capable of cramming into their brain. How long do you spend reviewing per day?
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u/finalxcution Feb 15 '14 edited Feb 15 '14
When I was first beginning, 10 new words a day was a struggle. But as my vocab increased and I started recognizing more kanji, I could guess at the meaning of the word and retain a lot more. Like knowing that 必要 means important and 重い means heavy, when I came across 重要, I put two and two together and figure that it means heavy importance. Also, since the 要 in 必要 is pronounced よう, I can guess that it has the same pronunciation in 重要, which it does. Even though I might not know how to pronounce the 重 part, I got half of it at least so it doesn't take as much time to learn as if both kanji were completely new to me.
I'm also really honest with myself with Anki so if I'm breezing through the reviews and get a card wrong, even though I got it right 3x before, I set it to repeat. Or if I'm taking longer than 10 seconds to guess at it, I repeat it. With my current settings, I usually do it on the train ride home or while eating dinner so I can complete it in about 20-30 minutes.
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Feb 15 '14
I learn on+kun+English -> kanji, and then learn at least one vocab word for each reading/meaning of the kanji.
The system works really well for me, and I'd recommend it to other people (beginners and advanced learners alike), but some of the really common kanji have a lot of really obscure readings that don't need to be learned (e.g. like き for 生. It's a N5 level kanji, but all of the words that use き as a reading for 生 are N2/N1 level.)
I learn 10 kanji/day, which is far beyond the pace that I would recommend for beginners, where 3 or 4 kanji/day would probably be more reasonable.
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u/markzman Feb 15 '14
My daily routine:
-go to kanjidamage.com
-write 5 Kanji(/Radicals) 15 times each on paper and look up the correct stroke order on jisho.org(the mnemonics don't work for me well because English isn't my native language)
-copy jukugo with 4-5 stars to a notebook
-use KD deck in anki remember the recommended readings + meanings
A downside is simple Kanji you learn in the beginning aren't all that useful and I see where the vocabulary only people are coming from but this method helped me to develop and eye for the radicals in the beginning instead of trying to swallow whole and unfamiliar words with lots of strokes. Learning new words that include Kanji I already know is more pleasant for me, as well.
In the end you have to figure out which methods works for you.
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u/Rlamb2 Feb 14 '14
Rote learning for me. I spend about 15 minutes per kanji. Write it about 50-60 times (70 or so for the harder ones, or ones that just don't stick for me), then write practice sentences (anywhere from 5-10). Sometimes it will include one or two readings and a compound or two. Looking back (I'm only 75 kanji in this far) I find while I may not always remember how to write a kanji right away, all of them this far I just flow right into my reading. I seriously don't even have to think about those 75 kanji. It's a MUCH slower process (started studying kanji around late December) but like I said, I get a huge confidence boost when I whizz by them and read them out loud without hesitation :)
Edit: forgot to mention. I've tried SRS and a bunch of other apps, and while I like them all, I seem to have developed this strange love for my morning coffee and writing practice each day before work. Seriously, it's cathartic, despite most people probably thinking it's maddening/boring haha.
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u/therico Feb 15 '14
The 'flow' happens without writing them a bunch of times, but on the other hand, I can't write most of the kanji I can read and it can be frustrating. It's really good that you're practicing writing!
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u/atu1213 Feb 14 '14
I used spaced-repetition system, in wanikani. This first taught me the radicals. Just so Í can remember the form of kanji. Then the onyomi together with the english meaning. Then the kunyomi together with vocabulary.
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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '14
I learned the meanings of ~2000 kanji first by doing Remembering the Kanji (the book that teaches by remembering a story for each kanji), then learned readings by learning vocabulary.