Could you rate my Kanji writing learning method?

Japanese
#1

I’ve recently thought of a method to integrate SRS into learning how to write Kanji using Anki and a notebook, I wanted to share it, receive feedback and maybe get resources to make the whole process easier and better:

Method:

  • Get/Make a kanji deck with readings and translation on the front, kanji and stroke order (GIF?) on the back.

  • Get a notebook to write the kanji in. Each new day: date the page, day of study, number of reviews and attempts (add stats)

  • When you learn a new kanji, use another colour, first copy the stroke order from the back of the card and set to hard.

  • Skip to a new line for a new card

  • For a review, write the kanji from scratch and mark the stroke order if not confident

  • Mistake on the shape: again, mistake on the stroke order: hard, recognizable and correct order: good, very well written: easy

  • Review per day should probably be set pretty low.

Other considerations:

  • Starting with JLPT order? Sticking to Jouyo first? Mining the kanji? Are there perhaps pre-made decks? Are there tools that can automatically find the stroke order (GIF?)?

  • Good notebook (genkouyoushi) and pen?

  • Find a way to write without a desk/table

  • Add some regular writing exercise

  • Could be good for the Kanken

  • Restart with kana

Resources:

From this thread [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/sxxlrc/best_site_for_animated_gifs_of_kanji/

I thought this up as SRS has been a godsend for learning consistently and I’ve been basically ignoring learning to write for the longest time as I already have a time-consuming routine. Which is why I will only start this method in the future, maybe even after I potentially take the JLPT N1.
My one priority is to avoid any kind of frustration to risk not giving up.

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#2

Hello!

Your method sounds really interesting. A bit time intensive, but if you’re okay with that, I’d say go for it!
In terms of where to start, I think it’s easier to start with JLPT method rather than Joyo order since learning as an adult is pretty different to learning as a child.
To be honest, I think the easiest way to learn kanji is rote practice, using worksheets like this Downloads | Maiko Japan
小学１年生～６年生までの漢字｜ちびむすドリル【小学生】
or kokugo drill books like this
小学生の漢字ドリル【すきるまドリル】　無料学習プリント | すきるまドリル｜幼児・小学生の無料学習プリント
The only downside of these is that they are joyo ordered, but I am sure JLPT ordered equivalents exist.
Drill books have the readings and will encourage you to write words using kanji you are learning.

I am interested in the role that using a deck plays in your routine. I think in this case, it potentially complicates the process rather than adds to it. If you pick up a book or use worksheets, you can decide to set a quota of one worksheet or page a day which might amount to the same thing. You can use a study tracker app to help you stay motivated to keep going. I use studyplus to track my own study time and find it very useful.

At the end of the day though, you know your own brain best. I think you should give the routine you’ve explained here a try and see how it works for you.

Also, regarding notebook and pen- I wouldn’t really worry about it that much, any squared paper (like a maths exercise book) should do, and while a brush pen can help you see the strokes better I don’t think its a must have.

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#3

Thanks for the feedback and resources!
The reason I opted for Anki is to come back to Kanji I might have forgotten, which is not something Kanji and Kana textbooks do I believe (at least from the Kana books I use to have).
Though Studyplus sounds interesting I’ll check that out!

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#4

At least with the drill books I have bought (the ones made for japanese kids) they have a matome (revision) section at the end to come back to but youre right that it’s not quite as good as SRS for finding your weak spots

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#5

Well, I rate your kanji learning method “unfun and tedious”, but that’s just me :sweat_smile: i do way better with fun and creative methods that I change up a lot. :sweat_smile: But you seem to be very different in that regards, so your methods are bound to be different :slight_smile:

But I can still give you a few pointers :slight_smile: You mentioned you want to learn to write the kanji? Does this mean you already know the meanings, readings and vocab or do you want/need to learn them at the same time?

Your method sounds solid for just learning to write them, but obviously they will stick way better, if you find the time to add some of the points in “consideration”. Especially the regular writing exercises. Just doing a few sentences a day or a few textbook exercises a day and writing them by hand will connect the kanji in use better than just drilling them. Personally I do all my handwriting on tablet on genkouyoushi and it’s been a blast :slight_smile: If you consider pen and paper, I highly suggest a brush pen, it just looks better (if you care about such things).

You mentioned kana. Did you not learn to write the, before you went on to learn how to write kanji? I guess you are able to read the kana without problem and just never bothered with stroke order for them. If so, take a day and just go over all of them a few times and then just dive right into handwriting full sentences with an open kana chart, you’ll be able to write kana fluidly in no time :slight_smile:

Kanji order is a difficult topic with jo right or wrong and really it just depends on what you want or what is easily available to you.

Following the order in which japanese school kids learn has the perks of lots of free practice material online for school kids. Additionally, you will know all the kanji in books geared towards elementary school children first, so you will have easy access to graded readers for natives.

Following a different premade order (like wanikani or heising) has the perks of having lots of ressources online, supportive communities and exercises. You will also not have to think about ordering themselves, just following a premade order is easy.

Just learning kanji you find during immersion will probably make them stick really well, but it’s highly dependent on finding good source material or otherwise you might learn a bunch of rare kanji instead on focusing on useful kanji first. Some might dislike this approach others don’t care. Most people suggest having a bit of foundation in japanese before switching to immersion based vocab/kanji mining.

Overall, using SRS for learning to write kanji is quite efficient, but it’s even better to add practice in context, like writing sentences.

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#6

Yes I’m already quite familiar with Kanji as I’m approaching N3, learning them individually and mining regularly. I’m thinking I will be learning to write all the Kanji after I’ve learned their meanings.
In terms of writing, I learned to write kana which helped me become comfortable with them and I haven’t written them since.
Tablet could be a good idea, I’m not familiar with it but I could look into buying one. Do you feel writing on tablet makes for good handwriting after?
Concerning being unfun and tedious, yeah I can’t really imagine it being otherwise. However it can be satisfying and if I keep a low new Kanji count, I should be able to avoid spending 45 minutes per day just on Kanji.
Thanks for all the feedback, I hadn’t considered WaniKani yet as I don’t work with mnemonics but I’ll check it out!

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#7

If you dislike mnemonics, than wanikani doesn’t offer much you can’t get anywhere else for cheaper. The ordering is partly based on their mnemonics and how easy the kanji is to write, it’s neither ordered by JLPT level, nor by school grade. If you like the order but dislike it being centered around mnemonics, you can still just look at their order and make your own anki cards :slight_smile:

That’s really hard to answer I think. I already have a nice handwriting in my original writing system, I draw a lot, both paper and digital, so I’m very used to differences between pen and digital… it also depends on what you expect a good handwriting to be :sweat_smile:

Personally I write on tablet cause it’s easiest for me: I can have unlimited notebooks for whatever purpose, if my handwriting looks sloppy, I can just erase it, if I want to restructure a sentence I can just move parts somewhere else, I can doodle with as many colors I want and when I feel like it I can add funny stickers or reference pictures or add a page of kanji drills or other ressources. So those where the reasons I decided on tablet vs paper.

On the few occasions where I write on paper with a brush pen, I think it looks better than digital, but using a pencil, it looks kinda awkward. If all you care is muscle memory though, it wouldn’t matter at all.

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#8

I plan to live in Japan so that’s why I want to learn writing (on top of improving my Kanji retention). I imagine when I’ll need to write It’ll be on paper probably so I might start with that and move on to a tablet if it’s more convenient. I can always scan all my notebook for a record.
However tablet could be great to write without a desk (in transports for example) which was one of my concerns, so yeah seems like a good option.

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#9

In generel I would always opt to learn what you’ll need. Like if you want to learn to read, read more. So if you think you’ll more likely be in a situation to need to write on paper I would focus on that :slight_smile:

I’m not really up to date about living in japan, though. Is handwriting kanji even a necessary thing anymore? Or would it be enough to just look the kanji up on the rare occasions you actually need to write one. If wanting to live in japan is your only reason, it might come in handy to look into it, if it’s neccessary. If you have more reasons to learn handwriting kanji than of course, go for it :slight_smile: Would just be a shame to invest all that time for something that’s

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#10

I’m also questioning that, I was thinking about when you need administrative papers, like opening up a bank account, getting a number, getting driving license as mine is only temporarily valid there.
Also if it ever comes up at work, better to know than not.
Might not be a lot and I could get by with looking up Kanji, but I’m pretty sure I want to learn and won’t regret doing it but I need to start to know.

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#11

Not sure what you level is, but I’ve been using this deck (plus the part 2) designed for people who already have a fairly extensive vocabulary that want to learn to write, that just shows you the word in kana in a context sentence on the front and you have to write the word in kanji: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/759825185

I think past a certain level, this kind of thing is probably the way to go so that you’re learning to write kanji in words instead of writing them in isolation based on keywords, but you do whatever you think would work best for you.

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#12

This might be what I was looking for and sorting by Kanken seems good, thanks!

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#13

In terms of living in Japan the main things you need are to be able to write your address in kanji and name in katakana, but it’s still good to know how to write imo

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#14

My handwriting in English looks like a crackhead fly fell into some ink and had a seizure on the page. My Kanji is even worse. Most of the time there is no way I can fit it into the alloted space on contracts and the like. To this day, whenever I am asked to write my address, I unashamedly look them dead in the eye with my best puppydog impression and tell them I can’t write kanji and then proceed to ask if they can help me :rofl:

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#15

I used this anki deck one https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/748570187
It has all of the things you like.

I bought a graph paper note book to practice kanji. Each 1cm square is one kanji. I use a regular ball point

You don’t need to keep track of those stats by hand, anki collects enough stats automaticlly.

Your review method looks great!

Anki phone app has a “white board” that lets you write in the app.

Yeah, ヌ shows up so rarely I forgot it.

After N1 is too late. I practiced kanji for two months after I finnished n5 before I started n4. Kanji is helpful to learn vocab, the benifits of doing a kanji anki deck are reduced if you already know thousands of words.

Yeah!

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#16

Thank you for the feedback and the deck.
It could be quite long to practice it daily, I was thinking of at least finishing Bunpro grammar to at least open up time progressively, then starting. I should have time to start before N1.
It is annoying to just learn the kanji visually but it works for retention, the problems I have is usually with new Kanji or Kanji combinations I don’t know the meanings of.
I’ll adjust a few things, thanks again!

#17

What if you add to your kanji deck only kanji for words you know, and put word in hiragana on the front?
This way you’ll be working with their meanings as well as readings, and what is more important they will have their place.
Also, if you could start with kanji you know exist in words you know, but you can not read them.

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#18

Was about to post this myself.
I’ve been doing it for just 40-50 cards but learned quite a few new words and sentence structures from there, so it’s really a cool thing.

Another thing is that taking your own words for specific kanji you want to train might work much better for the whole purpose of learning kanji

#19

I’m quite far in vocabulary so I’m catching up with Kanji meanings, there are very few Kanji up to N3 I haven’t seen at least a few times.
And to train for N3 exam. In the event I didn’t know a word, knowing the individual Kanji helps me put together a meaning sometimes, I do add the word to flashcards right after though.
Doing the opposite with Kanji in the back, I’m not sure I could evaluate myself fairly, I’d need to confirm it and writing seems to be the best for that.

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#20

I’m talking just from my experience here, and while I think I’ve found an optimal strategy in general I admit my opinion still have margin to change.

I’ve been learning meanings for kanji using rtk, and have spent around 100 hours on it, and much later then I was trying to learn on readings my brutforcing them into my memory. Basically I was experimenting.

The meanings left my brain almost in an instant I stoped doing my anki, and while one could say I should do them for almost forever, I would disagree saying it is not a productive learning if you stop and loose everything, good learning is reinforced by forgetting/remembering cycle but for that one need good connection between subjects learner learns.

With readings it wasn’t successful as well, I couldn’t remember them all, or I mean I forgot them in an instant I my anki.

Right now, after a 4 month period of slow learning, I’m starting to discover a new world, where not numbers but connections and their quality make the difference, when everything is connected and one thing leads to another, and those strong connections stay for a very long time, even if you forget them, one look at one piece of the puzzle should reinforce everything else.

From this hypothesis I started looking for methods that connect everything I know and everything that exists in Japanese language and word in general.

One of the methods I came up with I’m trying right now, it’s not fully developed and I need to work more with it, but I believe it’s better them the those I were using before. What I wanted to address in my new method for this try was:

Decided to learn kanji not in isolation or with words I just have met, but use for that words I know really well (can recall and use in 会話) to learn kanji from them. This way I don’t have to memorise the reading, but just the word I already know and placement of that kanji in word. Even without anything else this is already was a success.
Not only the reading, usually the word that contains kanji with give a really heavy hint to the meaning of the kanji itself.

Another this is mnemonics and radicals, they are powerful instrument, but the problem is they exist by themself in a world of each person, and don’t have any interconnections. On the other hand if look into etymology and how kanji is build, you see patters, you see which components give which give sound, which are corrupted, understanding their original form and meaning gives quite a long term memories even without anything else little to no srs, which will be reinforced by forgetting and remembering really well.

While learning kanji it I always go and at least watch other words with it, it might feel useless but it actually exposes me to very familiar types of words that make sense for me at that particular moment, making some kind of snapshot that is really wage, but as a bonus to that I usually find a lot of words that I didn’t even know where connected with this kanji and word, some antonyms, that can stuck with just one glaze.

So ye, something like that.
I don’t want to discourage you from your methods, I’m fully for people trying new methods, just though it could be the place I can share my experience with this thing and might give some thought, or hear some suggestions as well.

Anyhow good luck!