How to learn kanji with vocabulary?

10 comments

1. try out wanikani! i find it pretty fun

2. If you want to learn vocab related to a specific character, look up the most common words that use that character that have different readings of the character. Like if you are learning 人, then learn

   人々=ひとびと

   人気=にんき

   人口=じんこう

   Etc. That way you have usable vocab to learn in context, but also cover your bases with exposing yourself to different readings for a given character.

   Look up the character in a dictionary and look thru the words and find one’s that are common, there’s no one agreed upon list of best vocab for each character. It’s also a good exercise reading thru words to decide what you want to study, as sometimes you will accidentally pick up a few of those along the way. As for selecting “common” ones, some dictionaries mark common vocab, so you don’t end up learning thousand year old archaic words that no one ever uses any more. Always look up words in some sentence example sites anyways, and if there’s few example sentences, it’s probably not a common word. Google is not good for this, as it’s approximation of billions of hits or not is based on “close enough” mechanics that can be misleading. I use weblio.

3. My textbook introduces most vocab written in kanji when applicable. So I just study it that way. That and Anki for supplementary stuff. Then when reading I use furigana to help pick up the new words I see.

4. Think of it like this:

   You learn the word “chair”

   Chair = isu

   “isu” is spelled 椅子 in kanji.

   Or you learn the word “cat”

   Cat = neko

   “Neko” is spelled 猫 in kanji.

   Sometimes I’ll learn a word and I won’t remember the pronunciation.

   縫う for instance, I may remember it’s “sew” but maybe I don’t remember the reading.

   So I’ll search “sew” in the dictionary, go down to 縫う and see it’s pronounced “nuu”

   Maybe I’ll see 現代 and know it’s pronounced “gendai” but I forgot what it means. So I search 現代 in the dictionary to get the meaning.

   It’s all a process. And honestly the above is an intermediate to advanced method.

   As a beginner you should probably be using something like wanikani. Making mnemonics between kanji and their meaning until your brain is wrapped around the concept.

   By that I mean learning things like:

   馬 = horse (mnemonics: it looks like a horse running to the left with its main blowing back)

   With less focus on the reading.

5. I’ve been using the app Mochimochi and they teach Kanji alongside the vocabulary. So far, it’s been helping me recognize the kanji when I try to remember the vocab and I’ve only been studying with the app for about a couple weeks now. You do have to know kana though and although they have a free section, I’ve paid I think it was $30/year and you get every lesson.

   Could give it a check and see if it’s right for you or not :).

6. Wouldn’t the easiest way be getting a Core Vocabulary Deck or a Tango Deck?

7. I’m a tutor and I usually work with textbooks. They provide a set list of kanji and vocab and an order to go in.

   Taking Genki as an example, it provides the kanji 人 in chapter 4, with three readings, plus four example words. There are other words too. I’d concentrate on the example words while studying the chapter, with the chapter’s vocabulary. As I continue my studies, I’ll see 人 in other contexts and make a point of studying them too.

8. For me personally, I’ve figured out that it’s easier for me to remember a kanji meaning / reading if I can picture a geographic location that uses that kanji, and come up with a simple story about it. For example:

   * 丁 = chō because I remember walking around Daikanyamachō which is a really pretty *street*
   * Yamaguchi is an area of Japan that is near the base (mouth) of a mountain, that’s why it’s spelled 山口 (no idea if that’s actually true, it’s just a story I made up)
   * West = Nishi and East = Higashi – I just picture a map of Shinjuku in my head and think about where Nishi-Shinjuku and Higashi-Shinjuku subway stations are, then it’s easy to associate with the kanji as long as I know the meaning

   For someone else it could be anime characters or whatever, just something that is personal to you and helps you remember. But I found it easier than trying to use some completely arbitrary mnemonic that relies on only the kanji’s shape and its meaning (I think Wanikani tries to do something like “kuchi kuchi koo” to get you to memorize “street” for example).

9. You first get used to the shape of the kanjis so you can recognize them easily, then you learn vocabulary and you have to start relating them with the kanjis.

   You can try to remember their readings but don’t only focus on this. Kanjis are just a way to write a “word”.

10. Get a core anki deck, get a RTK-ish kanji deck with 2000ish kanjis, choose 10 kanjis a day then in the core deck choose 2 words per kanji you are learning. You better create another 2 decks one for kanji and one for vocabulary by moving cards from the other 2 decks. I would also give a tag per day, 001, 002, 003, etc so you can find kanjis or words easier.

    Try to choose words similar to the RTK meaning, or modify the RTK meaning if you think of a more suitable one.

    10 kanji cards 20 vocabulary cards a day, there you are.