みんなさん、今日は。I recently started learning Japanese and I got Hiragana, Katakana and the first 35 N5 Kanji (Elementary 1 Jouyou Kanji) down. What I am doing to study kanji is using the Kanji Study app and learning the 80 elementary 1 kanji. I write the kanji on a notebook six times and each time I write it I also write its 音読み (in カタカナ) and 訓読み (in ひらがな). Then I move on to the next kanji. I study around 5 kanji a day this way. Once I’m done with the 5 kanji I write them all one time again (with 音 and 訓 included). The next day I write the 5 kanji I learned the day before and then I continue with writing 6 times the next 5 new kanji, following with writing all of them in a sequence one time with the readings and everything. I got 35 kanji down this way. I intend to continue until I finish kanji number 80. Once I’ve the first 80 kanji down, I would begin to write and learn vocabulary from the sample vocabulary given by Kanji Study for each kanji. Once I’m done with the vocabulary with each kanji I would continue to study elementary 2 kanji and so forth. Is this method any good? What would you recomend to add to this method and what resources should I get for kanji study)
I intend to get Genki, for grammar and vocabulary but I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Would you recommend Genki for grammar and vocabulary?
What other resources would you recomend?
I’m going step by step little by little trying to master N5 at the moment.
Thank you for all your responses in advance. I would really appreciate your input.
2 comments
I have been using the free Benkyō app on iPad; it cycles between asking you for the on- and kunyomi, the meaning, and then vice versa. It’s SRS based so learning and improving feels intuitive. I recommend!
Since I don’t see myself writing out a lot of Kanji, and because I already know the convention of how these characters are written, I have not practised writing, except if I am trying to memories how the Kanji looks.
Well it’ll work, but it’s a bit too intensive on the kanji front IMO. How do you know which kanji readings to learn? Only some of them are used frequently – but which ones? With no vocabulary to fall back on, how can you decide which readings to learn. Also, why the emphasis on writing the kanji so much? Do you want to hand write Japanese in the future (most people are content to type – and kanji is simple on a keyboard)?
My advice would be to not bother with studying kanji in isolation, but just focus on learning words. Japanese uses words, so learn words. When that word contains kanji (as they often do) then you’ll learn the necessary readings from the pronunciation of the word. All the readings you’ll ever need can be learned this way as you’ll (eventually) learn all the words you need. Of course, you can still look up the individual kanji in new words, but there’s no need to try to commit every nuance of each kanji to memory.
Here’s some [simple guidance and resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/s5mtva/comment/ht1lo0x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that may help.