Recently I started learning Japan and it was quite enjoyable,I liked learning Hiragana and Katakana and it was easy too.
But now that I’m getting to Kanji’s I don’t know which is the best method?
Not only they can be read multiple ways like Onyomi and Kunyomi ,they also change based on where they are located in the word ,what are they next to it etc.
Should I learn the kanji like “人“ this one and memorise every possible way it could be read then also memorise the words its used in.
Its so confusing how do Japanese people learn new word.
Like there is this ” 一人 “ word and then this ” 三人 “ .In both word its beside a Kanji and still read differently why? Why should I learn how to read them in every way if its so confusing anyway.Should I just approach like a normal word and memorise how they write that word?
Sorry if my question is long and confusing I hope someone can direct me in a way
ありざとう!
8 comments
Learn vocabulary, not kanji. It’s way easier/more helpful to just learn the various pronunciations within the vocabulary term that you find them in, rather than trying to memorize each and every pronunciation on its own. That’ll quickly overwhelm you and you won’t learn much from it.
EDIT: Yeah, learn with vocab like everyone says. This has more details on where to get the vocab and which kanji to learn from them.
* First I did learn them in Genki with the Genki vocab (first 315 kanji). There’s not many so I used rote memorization and/or Anki
* Then I started reading books and got vocab from those (next 800 or so kanji). I used anki to remember them, and I use kanji.koohii.com if I need a story to help me recognize it in the first place
* I imagine I’ll keep learning from reading books or game scripts, or whatever, magazine articles etc
Just words. I see 一人 I think ひとり, I see 人生 I think じんせい, I see 咎人 I think とがにん, I see 玄人 I thinkくろうと, I see 落人 I think おちうど and their relavent meanings. Nothing more nothing less.
kanji aren’t words, learn words
kanji are just part of how some words happen to be spelled. when you learn a word, learn it’s pronunciation, meaning, and spelling, just like english
ひと is the kunyomi of 一, and り is a kunyomi of 人. 一人 and 二人 just happen to use the kunyomi, while every other number uses the onyomi. You’ll just have to memorize stuff like that.
used to learn only vocab with example sentences and wrote them a lot, read them aloud.
tried to related kanji compounds with each other like if i know 建 in 建設 is ” ken ” , and that 築 in 構築 is ” chiku ” , so when i see a new word like 建築 I’ll strive in my brain to read that myself instead of looking it up, kenchiku. all of these words have something to do with “construction”
a lot of kanji appear similar and tend to have same On-yomi , which really helps and it isn’t that hard to learn kanji, just a lot of practice and reading
Try WaniKani, I personally think it’s amazing and even keeps my adhd brain going. They even have recommendations for how to learn grammar
The nice thing to know about stuff like 一人 is that there are only a small percentage of words with special readings, and they usually happen to include some of the most common kanji (so it’s not *as* bad as you think)
Once you study for a bit, you can memorize all of the useful special readings through just experience