Advice for learning kanji?

Japanese
#21

For there reason I came up with idea of just learning all radicals and then adding all components and kanji’s names to deck, and learning them which card (so you have to recall all kanji, then meaning if the word, then reading, only then you press “good”)

This can be frustrating because vocab will be slow, al lest like 3 or 5 times then nl/tl, but you’ll probably learn kanji as well.

Ok it’s absolutely not what you were talking about.

Also I’ve never done intentionally, I don’t have any plgins for this stuff yet, but I know around 1500 so picking some kanji while learning vocab and coming up with mnemonic is just a metter of doesns of seconds. Some times I’ll write them on my hand to reinforce while taking a bath.

#22

What I want to say is that I would like to see this on the back of my card for each kanji in the word

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#23

I do love that, I’ve always wanted to sit down and learn all the radicals and the Japanese names for them. I’ve personally found since Japanese hasn’t really made kanji or compounds it’s easier for me to just learn the vocabulary as there’s not really a trend one can stick to unlike in Chinese. I do enjoy noticing the same kanji being used the same way, but I have no real follow up to noticing that lol. All I know is I spent way too much time on kanji garden for very little to show for it, except my favorite 4 kanji 有耶無耶

#24

I understand you, i guess you just make yourself repete word (or see it) enough times that you recognize it, and after some time if you find the same word you just compare them and it becomes easy to differ, right?

I’ve personally loved learning kanji, and I still do! So I think I’m going to finish all 2200 in like 40 days if I won’t mess it up. It’s super enjoyable making those mnemonics, memory palaces)

And only yesterday I actually started using them. I switched furigana on and wow, I can see word a few times with furigana, and every time I see it I make my brain recall every kanji of this word (if it’s not learned yet) and some times it’s possible to guess meaning, and sometimes it’s not quite there but obviously that it’s very similar, so as long as furigana is there I can remember this word after a few encounters (so I’ll be able to read it and understand as long as furigana is in place, and it’s not something from like 5 kanji where I don’t even bother to recall them and just use popup dict)

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#25

Yep exactly, I just do enough SRS without furigana that I have to remember the kanji (pun potentially intended) or I’ll just keep failing the word. Probably doesn’t sound like the most intelligent way of going about it but it works for me!

I personally got really tired of just doing kanji and only really recognizing the kanji, it’s reading, and the potential meaning of the kanji in the compound but having no clue what everything together meant. To me it felt like if I knew all the prefixes and suffixes and word roots in Latin but didn’t know what they meant together

3 Likes
#26

I’ll chip in my 2 cents as well and say that rtk might have been an ok system 20 years ago but there has been a lot more research into learning languages and how to do it
I did rtk up to about 1600 kanji and in my opinion I think all it really does now is give you the illusion of progress but I would say if you just want the illusion of progress from a number going up duolingo would possibly teach you more Japanese lol

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#27

Man is doomed with answers)
I guess wanikani is the safest choice (also wk deck should be cool) ye

#28

Safest and kind of easiest? I just show up thrice a day, do my reviews and lessons and that’s it

#29

I personally hate Wanikani (we do exist). I’m a huge fan of just using a writing app and then doing writing and reading repetition.

4 Likes
#30

Can you elaborate why?

#31

I agree with this. The whole mnemonics idea doesn’t work with everyone, and while they teach it in a easy->complicated kanji manner, there’s a lot of artificial lengthening of the lessons (I figure to get more money out of faster paced people who choose to do monthly)

The reliance on clean humor also isn’t for everyone, either. (It’s kind of like the sanitized version of kanji damage, but without any actual humor and feels forced) and ultimately the particals slow you down and the seperation between the actual origin of the kani and partical is not good long term, in my opinion.

I have more to say about wanikani but I must go, duty calls.

2 Likes
#32

The interface is ugly, the mnemonics just overcomplicate an easy thing, I hate learning through radicals, it forces you to start at the beginning and you can’t skip levels, and the majority of people I know that have used WK have 0 writing ability (I’ve even seen people confusing the simplest kanji like 木 and 本).

I can acknowledge it’s useful for some people, but it completely clashes with how I like to study (and kanji is my favorite thing to study).

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#33

I think it makes sense @Rukifellth and @lunchbox1. I barely use the mnemonics and there are a lot of moments that I just create my own. I also don’t use the official website either. What writing app do you use @lunchbox1? I don’t usually do writing because it’s not my thing, but I want to try

#34

On the opposite side, I’ll say that UI is not ugly but rather a nice bootstrap template.
Learning with radicals is fun.
I don’t know about pre-created mnemonics, as I used them just to understand the concept and then for 10-15 hard kanji I couldn’t come up with nice mnemonic myself.
But I guess it depends on whether the person likes it or not

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#35

I personally just use one called “Kanji!” but there are a lot of kanji apps that do the exact same thing (as in, has you write kanji with the correct stroke order). After that, I just make sure I’m writing out the full words on my own (the app doesn’t do this).

2 Likes
#36

And how much time do you spend doing it?
I may start writing them after getting my 2200 to make recall faster :thinking:

#37

It really depends on the day. I probably spend about 30-60 minutes daily on kanji (on average). I finished N3 so I am taking a bit of a break to catch up on grammar and vocab while just doing kanji reviews now.

#38

Hello,

I have around ~2900 Young+Mature cards in my Anki decks, so not really an expert, but what I started to notice is that with Kanjis, sometimes you have to “re-learn” previous one when you meet new one that are very lookalike or have different readings in differents words.

But the first thing to point out is that how I learnt vocabulary was by the “path of least resistance”. If I encounter 駅 and I see that big R shape on the right, if it’s the only word I know with it, I just remember it as it is. In this example “Big R = station”. If I encounter something else later, let’s say 訳, only then I start to look at the left part.

So it means I’m completely at the opposite of RTK, I create my decision branch on the minimal amount of information necessary, then only I add up things.

So it means, when I see new cards or I confuse 2 cards, for example those two 駅 and 訳, then only I wrote those 2 side by side in Jisho (Lorenzi’s Jisho) and only then I check what can I use to differentiate them.

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I do the same for readings. I remember 生命 that 命 is めい、so if there is another reading like いのち only then I check the list of readings.

However, what I changed in my way of doing things, is how I add words in my deck. Let say I encounter 生命倫理 (bio ethics). Before I would just add it. Now I add 生，命、理、生命、倫理、生命倫理. It takes a minimal amount of time with Yomitan because you just have to over different part of the word and scroll a bit for each.

but the really good thing is that it groups forme the learning of the different readings. In that case for example, I’d have the いのち and めい of 命 covered right away, which helps a lot because if you only know one very well, starting to learn the other one down the line might be more difficult.

Also helps a lot to learn how some compound work. 人物、動物、植物、生物 will really help you remember ぶつ, will help your retention because every word is not 100% different, you can re-use your learning of some easy one like じん for 人、せい for 生, and it helps adding more new words per day :slight_smile:

Also, I now Gather the new cards by descending order, which means I’m not doing old words added 6 months ago, I review fresh one, which mean my retention will be better for those, and for those that are 6 months old, I don’t have any benefit doing them now or in 3 months.

But still, it means more paperwork (hypertts, deepl translation …) to generate metadata for the new one every day, but it really helped me going from 7-8 new words per day to 20 without dropping retention.

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#39

Here are some other recommendations:

I think this was mentioned above with a video link. It’s probably the most well rounded way to study because it involves reading and writing in the context of short paragraphs with common vocabulary. It’s a lot like Bunpro but for kanji.
The Nintendo ds emulator with this rom:
Zaidan Houjin Nippon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyoukai Koushiki Soft - 250-Mannin no KanKen

Jitaku adds a vocabulary flash card system for words, you can add a list of words or kanji to study first, and you practice writing kanji by looking at vocabulary.

writing really helps with distinguishing between characters that are almost the same and have similar readings
徹 撤

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#40

Now that you mention it, I think it happens with memory a lot, whether one wants it or not. The brain tries to optimize away what it didn’t need to recognize a word on this specific occasion. If there was too much context, and it only needed a vague shape of the last kanji of the word, now conscious memory of that kanji fades.

For example… mm, let’s take 試験 (test). To figure out that the second kanji is ケン and to guess the word you only need to glance at the right-hand side, phonetic 㑒. And so since you didn’t need to think about the left-hand side, the mental image of 験 starts to blur together with other kens like 検 or 険.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, it was just a thought.
Both quick intuition and slow deliberate memory for kanji are useful at times.

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