When should I start learning Kanji?

2 comments

1. You will need these alphabets to know how the kanji are pronounced in the words you learn, so after learning hiragana and katakana.

2. I have ADHD, a developmental disorder, so memorizing anything, particularly letters and numbers (and pictorials!) is nearly impossible for me. If I can start learning this language, anyone can. This is the advice I’ve gathered to share that worked best even for me:

   If English is your first language (or really any Romance language), Japanese is literally one of the most difficult languages to learn. So don’t let any difficult hurdles discourage you to stop!

   Conventional teaching suggests the order of study to be:
   Hiragana->Katakana->Grammar->Kanji.

   These days, even Japanese don’t practice Kanji outside of school because of things like autocorrect showing kanji.

   I would personally recommend learning Radicals (the parts that create a Kanji) before learning the Kanji. Radicals however have the least amount of educational materials. I’m literally making my own Radical study material at the moment.

   For self-study, the “Genki” textbooks and workbooks are the most often recommended for beginners. After memorizing Hiragana and Katakana, Genki books will be your next step.

   Kanji is almost always the hardest part of the language for people to learn and is the point where people most often give up. I find mnemonics to be the most helpful with learning them.
   Hiesig’s “Remembering the Kanji” is a really good book for learning the Kanji.

   After you get a decent grasp of how the language works and begin to understand some vocabulary and grammar, you may then want to begin transitioning into more impactful and natural language acquisition, like immersing yourself in the Japanese language by watching your movies and shows in Japanese, reading books in Japanese, playing games in Japanese, etc. basically, you have to start challenging yourself to start picking up the language more via context and passive correlation.

   Practice a little bit each day. Even a few minutes daily will slowly build to familiarity with the language. While not typically recommended, I personally use DuoLingo to remind me to maintain consistent study.

   I’m still learning myself, so please feel free to reach out to me directly in a DM if you have any more questions!