i don’t know what possessed me in the past 5 and a half years of on-and-off self study to help me persist on this journey, but I sure am glad I did. There is still a lot to learn in terms of vocabulary ( 名のり in particular still kicks my ass sometimes) and I have no speaking or writing fluency, but being able to read whatever I want online feels great!
The more comfortable i get with kanji, the more I appreciate them and I feel like i finally got to the point where any new character i come across falls straight into the “most native speakers would have trouble identifying it and it’s basically irrelevant” category.
If your struggling with kanji right, try to be patient, they will eventually turn from worst enemies to your best friends in this journey 🙂
8 comments
I have so many questions. What are you reading that requires 5k unique kanji? How did you study all of these if they are just for reading? I assume many of these have not come up naturally and you have had to seek them out? How long have you been studying?
I know you said you have only learnt how to read them but I think even kanken level 1 tops out at like 6.3k kanji. Are you planning on sitting the kanken?
Edit: I guess I am also wondering *why* did you decide to learn so many?
Arthur Wallet translated the Analects of Confucius (Chinese) and couldn’t speak a word of Chinese, according to legend. Keep going.
5k! That’s very impressive! That means you can easily read literature from I guess Meiji if not earlier?
That’s extremely inspiring! 5000+ is an incredible achievement, and you’ve learned that in quite a short amount of time! I’d love to be able to read Japanese novels one day, and I’ve heard after around 2000 or so that becomes quite possible.
The still weird aspect of Kanji to me, is that Japanese people can somehow tell if a character is a rare Japanese character they don’t know how to read, or if it is Chinese only character (and not a simplified one) pretty accurately.
On the other end of that spectrum it is still a surprise that they get nowhere with recognizing the mainland simplified characters.
Thanks for the inspiration 😊! Will go back to learning kanji soon.
Kanji are my favorite part of the japanese language and I aspire to know that many one day! I’m at roughly 800 now and going strong!
Really cool, reading Japanese novels and games, especially the pleathora of untranslated ones, is my main goal so this is super inspiring to hear. What study method did you use which put more of an emphasis on reading, and how did you structure your Anki cards?