I studied kanji for 2.5 hours every single day for one year

Japanese
#34

Asher, I just want to say thanks for posting about this. I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks now—writing out the kanji and speaking the readings for each card I study in Anki—and according to my stats, I miss MUCH fewer cards than I used to when I wasn’t writing the kanji.

I’ve noticed that the act of writing makes me much more aware of the different radicals in each kanji. It has helped me with kanji that were similar, which I kept making mistakes on. I’m still using mnemonics to help me remember the kanji, but writing the radicals seems to help solidify the mnemonics better in my head so I don’t forget them as easily.

Because writing takes more time, I’m reviewing fewer cards per day than I used to—I’m doing only 50 cards per day—but since I miss fewer cards, I’m able to add about 5-10 new kanji per day and still keep it under 50 reviews a day.

I think the method has been working for me because I spend more time on each kanji, since I’m writing it out. I’m only taking about a minute per card, so 50 cards is about an hour, which is a little more doable for me.

I also like the fact that, like you said, there’s an ending. I likely won’t bother to learn any kanji past junior high level unless I come across it in a light novel, which means that if I can remain consistent, I’ll be able to finish all the kanji I want to learn in about a year. Knowing this is only for a certain amount of time makes it easier to remain consistent because I know I won’t always need to spend so much time on this.

Anyway, thanks again. This has been a really good learning method that’s worked better than my old method of just brute force memorization.

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#35

Awesome! Glad to hear that. My recommendation is drop new kanji to 3 a day if your reviews get too high. 3 was the number I found that total reviews ever so slowly went down, rather than up. You might be different and have a bit better memory than me, but that was my experience.

For the first few hundred at least, over 5 a day should be no problem :+1::+1:.

I am glad to hear it’s working for you in addition to your mnemonics!

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#36

So sorry! I never got the notification for this reply… Or I got it and just glazed over it somehow 🙇🏼‍♂️.

For my thinking while writing, I usually think about the radicals used, and if they have some kind of deep meaning, or about the yomikata, and whether it has some kind of deep meaning.

I’m not actively searching for anything when I say that. You just see so many radicals and read so many readings that finding patterns becomes inevitable… and sometimes actually kinda fun! Like just today I noticed that both 若 and 如 have the kun yomi ごとし, and can mean ‘to bear resemblance’. (Used to think it was only 如く). So maybe if you make a game out of finding patterns, it could become easier to focus? Making a game out of finding nuance in radicals is fun too. Obviously it doesn’t work all the time, but you can often strike a common theme eventually.

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#37

I am now at level 43 on WaniKani (again…) and I am (again) having difficulties to remembering new kanjis (and a few old ones). So I want to try and supplement reviews on WaniKani with your method and see how it turns out (maybe by just focusing on difficult ones). However I can’t find an anki deck corresponding to your card: the most similar one seems to be All in One Kanji Deck - AnkiWeb but it lacks stroke order (which I want to learn) although the description claims it has stroke order. Do you confirm this is the deck you tweaked? It would be great if you could share your own version (I could add stroke orders myself but this would be really time consuming with not many added value I think).

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#38

I am also using that Anki deck, and for stroke order, download and install the stroke order font from: http://www.nihilist.org.uk/. You just need to download the font file, which is KanjiStrokeOrders_v4.004.ttf, then install it.
I did that on both my computer and my iPhone (downloaded iFont free app) and suddenly the stroke order kanji font appeared.
However, to be honest, I prefer the stroke order as shown on jisho.org. They do it stroke by stroke and it’s easier to follow than the stroke order font. The Anki deck has a direct link to Jisho on the back of the card.

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#39

Thanks for posting this @camytang ! I sent MZa a message with where to get it, but your instructions are much clearer! haha.

Are you still going well with your writing?

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#40

Yes! I am still writing all my kanji out while using my Anki deck and my “relearning” or missed kanji has gone way down.

It occurred to me that the process of writing the kanji and speaking the readings aloud actually hits all 3 methods of learning, visual, audio, and tactile. Most people naturally favor one out of the three, but in using all three, that probably enables a person to learn it a bit better than only using 1 of the 3 methods.

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#41

Couldn’t have said it better myself! Plus if you’re doing them all at the same time, it’s 3 for the price of 1! Do you still use mnemonics?

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#42

Yes, I still use my mnemonics stories. Using those in conjunction with writing the kanji makes me more aware of the radicals and solidifies the mnemonics in my head. I have such a bad memory, I haven’t been able to remember kanji that doesn’t have mnemonics stories, even when writing them out.

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#43

I wonder if I would have learned them quicker if I had used mnemonics as well. :thinking: Too late to find out now.

I tended to get new kanji wrong (forget one or two of the readings) about 3 or 4 times before it actually ‘stuck’ with only writing/reciting. Some of the harder ones I would forget again when the interval was around 30 days, but then once it dropped down and then went back over 30 days they were usually ok.

Naturally there were a handful that I forgot more times than I would like to admit, but thankfully not heaps :rofl:

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#44

I read somewhere that if you can remember kanji past the 30 day mark, it’s entered into long-term memory storage. I’ve found that for kanji past the 30 day mark, I typically remember them pretty well. I’ve only been writing my kanji out for about 6 weeks now, though, so I don’t know how well my memory is going to be in the long term.

Adding the mnemonics is an extra step since they’re not included in the Anki deck, although there’s a field so you can input your own. I used mnemonics mostly from WaniKani (I have a subscription but I don’t do my kanji or vocabulary on WK and mostly use Anki because I want to review them in the order I learn them in my Genki textbooks) but I also found some good mnemonics on Kanji Koohii.

I’m still really grateful you posted about your writing method. I feel like I’m really learning the kanji and I haven’t been missing many at all, so it feels like I’m learning them a lot faster than before.

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#45

That sounds about right to me for the long-term memory. I am looking forward to hearing about your progress again in another few months! Hopefully you’re a kanji master!

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#46

@camytang and @Asher Thank you for pointing me to the font. To complete your information, in order to install the font (on Windows) the zip file must be unzipped then the KanjiStrokeOrders_v4.004 file must be put in C:\Windows\Fonts (most probably).

I decided to use the Kodansha kanji learner's course with vocabulary - AnkiWeb deck since it uses an ordering that I think I will more benefit from: kanji with similar shapes are grouped, which may help differentiate them (for instance a group containing the 貝 radical I have tremendous difficulties to remember). This grouping order can also sometimes help to become aware of similar on-yomi for 形声文字 (but after a quick look this will not be systematic and would probably require a deck for studying this specific point).

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#47

Sorry to drag this back up again, but since you mentioned readings specifically, I was wondering how exactly you learned the readings? Did you memorise all the many variations after the . and all the positions of the ~? Or just the 9 (?) readings, regardless of context?
Eg for 上：うえ、～うえ、うわ～、かみ、あ.げる、～あ.げる、あ.がる、～あ.がる、あ.がり、～あ.がり、のぼ.る、のぼ.り、のぼ.せる、のぼ.す、よ.す
ジョウ、ショウ、シャン
Or just うえ、うわ、かみ、あ.、のぼ.、よ.、ジョウ、ショウ、シャン？
(And I’m just noticing that Jisho lists たてまつ.る but not よ.す as one of the readings… )
Does anybody know how readings are taught/quizzed in Japanese schools, or in Kantei? I feel like I probably don’t need to learn kanji more detailed than Japanese people do lol.

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#48

I considered doing this at first, but then I ended up just memorizing the entire reading, including before, and after the dot. (that way at least you are remembering a whole word). Once you get used to the patterns, it gets much easier to remember where the dot goes.

I learned them within the context of the target word, only seeing them again later in books and things to get further context. I always looked up all forms of the word the first time I saw it as one of the listed readings though. (They didn’t require review after this, apart from the kanji review itself. I assume this is because the meaning of the kanji was enough to jog my memory on the nuance of the individual readings).

To be honest some of the readings may or may not be used that often, if at all. よす is regulalry written with the kanji 止す, and たてまつる is usually written as 奉る or 献る.

They usually only learn one 音読み (the most common), and a few of the 訓読み (if they are common words). I can’t give you exactly which readings they learn in school, and would think that it may vary very slightly per school/per teacher.

That is true, but it won’t take you any more time to memorize one reading than it will to memorise a couple (if you are reciting them out loud as you write). It will also help you to guess the nuances far more accurately later on if you know quite a few readings (certain kanji have the same pairings/groups of 2 or3 readings, rather than 200 or something which might have the same 1 reading). Knowing the pairs will help you narrow down what the potential base meaning will be 100x more effectively. Japanese people don’t need to do this because they have been exposed to the language since they were born, so have a far better ‘sense’ of what words could mean.

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#49

Hopefully, adding to few/many kana after a kanji is something I been struggeling with XD

Good to know! I should probably look up each kanji and somehow figure out how common each reading is in the future and then prioritise.

Right, so same as ‘traditional’ textbooks teach them then. I did feel like just learning one or two common ones is a bit sparse, seeing there’s so many exceptions. (Then again, I’m currently not looking at Nanori at all, and those seem to also get used…)

Not sure if I can see the stats for individual cards on Anki, but I BET that my time spent on 上 and 下 is at least four times that of other kanji lol. But you’re probably right, it’s probably time well spent. (Although I’m also currently not writing out each kanji 10 times, my focus, at least for these lower level kanji, is more readings and meanings.)

Thanks for your insight! :slight_smile:

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#50

Thought I’d give a bit of a better reply to this, as you mentioned a lot of things that I honestly really was uncertain about myself in the beginning.

I really do recommend memorizing the whole word, as the part that comes after the dot will also often be a big indicator of the meaning. For example やか、らか、える、れる、まる、める、む、ける、く、かる、しい. With almost any of the words ending in one of these sounds, the part before it will be the kanji itself. Also, for らか and やか, lots of the sounds that are in the kanji that comes before them will be omamatopoeia themselves. 爽やか（さわやか） = さわさわ, for example.

I didn’t learn the nanori either, as some of them simply have too many. Also, seeing as though the first time you are exposed to one of those readings will be an actual name, you have a far better chance of remembering it than just a regular word.

Some of the kanji do take longer than others, for sure, but they are very few and far between. Most kanji have between 1 and 3 onyomi, and 2 and 4 (related) kunyomi maximum.

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#51

Ohhhhhhhhh!!! That is definitely new information! Thank you!!! :smiley:

Yeah, I suppose I shouldn’t bother with Nanori, as names are all over the place anyway. Makes more sense to remember for each individual person eh.
But true, most kanji/their readings aren’t as bad as I had imagined haha.
Thanks again! :smiley:

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#52

I think I should confess that I’m doing this the lazy way. When doing each kanji, I only memorize one reading, the most common on-yomi (as well as the meaning of the kanji). I learn the other on-yomi and kun-yomi readings when I learn the vocabulary words that use them. I’m getting through the kanji very quickly this way, although it takes me a little longer (and I miss words more often) when I learn my vocabulary words.

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#53

Then the Anki deck made out of the 1000 the most frequent kanji from the Heisig’s “Remembering the Kanji” book that doesn’t teach you any reading, only kanji recognition, is the super-mega lazy way :joy:
It was only one thing I did to study kanji (except Wanikani that I dropped on 20 lvl).

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