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

[s1212z]

@jrmr50, glad you found a method that works for you

I guess I’ll give an update myself, in my writing deck I’m at around 1300 or ~59% of the Jouyou kanji. Definitely noticing more kick back failures on the later SRS levels at this point. Last few weeks the review piles have been getting higher but trying to keep 3 lessons a day to finish the deck this year if possible, if not I may need to slow down. On a brighter note, reading hand written holiday cards felt easier than years prior, some nice real life progress. And I think reading speed has improved as well, I think the writing exercises has been the credit to that. Most everything in the first 1000 ~N2 realm seem relatively straight forward using meanings along with readings as the front to write out the kanji, probably because of pure frequency in reading of most frequent, but after a 1000 it feel more challenging.

Like everything else I’ve encountered w/ language learning, the methods have to evolve to suit the content and phase. Particularly content and context need to have more relevance. For instance, testing a kanji like 弥 with meaning alone has very little relevance unless you have a vocab like 弥生 that has some reading frequency to make useful. Nanori readings is another example. And many times even vocab has very relevance alone in SRS too unless having exercising it in context, a prime example of SRS leech building. So I’ve supplementing my writing deck with the Jouyou Kanji Writing deck and converted it so use the Mazec keyboard for writing output. It’s a different testing method, instead of a full meaning/reading, it’s just using the reading/audio in a particular sentence to populate the vocab word via writing; I think this will provide a bit more rounded writing testing method and helps with some boredom burn out and provide context to the writing as I do both in tandem. Also my readings have been getting sloppy on some kanji, so I will run another supplementary reading/mean deck just a brush up a bit on certain kanji as well…will see how it goes.

[simias]

Personally I just print out the worksheet, it saves on shipping cost!

For instance https://happylilac.net/kanzi-200-a4.pdf

[simias]

In my Kanji drawing Anki deck I display all associated vocabulary (taken from WaniKani currently) specifically in order to make the process more organic than just remembering the English meaning for Kanji in isolation.

It also makes practicing the kunyomi more enjoyable, because otherwise without the okurigana you’re just memorizing meaningless word fragments:

[thomas1985]

This page has the best kanji grid PDFs I’ve ever seen:

https://www.risugakusei.com/copy-of-resources

The PDFs are US 8.5" x 11" size (!), the variety of grid sizes is super convenient, and the lines turn out nice and clear on my laser printer.

That site hasn’t been updated in 5 years, so I saved the PDFs to my cloud accounts just in case. Big thanks to Risu Gakusei, whoever you were…

[s1212z]

Interesting idea for a card front on having a partial vocab list half hidden. I think this will be helpful for those that want that kind of practice and a WK companion to help their reviews.

From my own experience, extracting Japanese from English clues almost always bottlenecks. While I still use it as a way to build output independently, it is selectively and keep in mind its limitations.

I got to about 1400 kanji on my original deck I had for myself and I think I’ve reached that aforementioned bottleneck and time to reassess why I’m doing this…plus life is getting in the way recently to attack it like I did before so I’m enjoying it less.

I’ve been using the Jouyou Writing deck converted for input w/ Mazec more lately it at least keeps the entire exercise in Japanese and provides a contextual sentence w/ audio for the vocab kana. I also got an Apple Pencil recently and I enjoy the muscle memory process of not only kanji but build up useful vocab writing practice as well (instead just my finger to draw on screen).

Sample: Jouyou Writing deck converted for input w/ Mazec

[simias]

Yeah using pure jp-jp practice is of course ideal. I’m not there yet unfortunately…

[s1212z]

There are sorts of levels and approaches, which is great; it makes writing practice far more accessible to everyone. Wish I had your deck while doing WK, it would have helped sort various issues I had which I’m still sorting out. ‘Best approach’ is always relative to the individual and what they need at any given moment plus whatever motivates them best.

There is this Kanji Kentei deck that is JP/JP as well that just has a ony/kuny front and nothing else. That’s way too brutal for my purposes, really just for test preppers I think, which I am not. When you have card fronts like こう, ぐ(ony) ひろ.い (kuny) and don’t know if it is 弘, 宏, 広 or 滉 (and probably others?) and that’s just one example. I think I’ll stick with context sentences with a kana vocab clue for the level I’m at.

Honestly, my best writing practice comes from real world scenarios…which is not much given not living in Japan. Mostly it’s just hand written letters for birthdays and new years and that’s about it.

[jrmr50]

@ThousandJP

A pen recommendation that is fun to write with, not necessarily just for kanji
Pentel Brush Sign Pen Pack of 10

Got some of these arriving today. Not going to lie, really looking forward to using them. Feel like such a but loving it

[jrmr50]

Love the new pen! @ThousandJP

Struggling a bit to know which strokes should be thick and thin. Though when I do, I think, “I bet in feudal Japan if you wrote someone’s name with the wrong thickness on a particular stroke, it would be seen as a mortal insult” and chuckle a bit.

Also I watched a video (which is in Japanese) on the amazon link where the guy said to hold the pen in the middle. So I’m using more of a flicky brush action than a drawing one.

The new pen is so forgiving on those longer straight strokes that I struggle with - on the right in the 関 you can see the thinness of the other pen, especially when used on a reverse side of a page, is a bit bumpy.

Still can’t remember Kanji lol, but a new bucket list item is to go and do a kanji workshop in Japan.

Sorry for nerding out with all my pen chat.

Yeah was supposed to be doing my quartet writing homework but I was having too much fun.

Thought I’d try a bit of hiragana/katakana as well as I’ve never really tired that other than one of my earliest genki homework class assignments. Definitely needs some work.

[ThousandJP]

@jrmr50

Struggling a bit to know which strokes should be thick and thin.

Screen shot from the video below showing how to do the 8 different strokes with a brush pen in detail. I think there are English names for them too but knowing the Japanese names help since pretty much any Kanji book/resource for Japanese kids will have information like whether there is should be a はね or not.

書の基本！永字八法（えいじはっぽう）のコツ

@jrmr50

a kanji workshop in Japan

Practicing some 永 every day will get you more than ready

[Sidgr]

This is not directly related but I think this thread would appreciate this:

Coolest Kanji Video I have ever seen

[jrmr50]

Next level stuff!

[jrmr50]

New favourite you-tuber unlocked!

Oh dear just lost 45 minutes of trying to write the perfect え after looking at her video on perfect hirgana.

Pile of Kitsun reviews is looking at me like, wtf you doing? enjoying yourself, get over here and stop that.

Just one more go, I’m almost there…

[Tanc98]

I’ve been using Kanji study’s SRS for a while, pretty nice feature. Honestly finding it way more enjoyable to use than reading sets.

[simias]

After a bit over a year of daily writing practice I went through all 2000-odd kanji in WaniKani (side-by-side with the main site):

Almost 23 thousand reviews, and since I would write each character a bunch of times for every review I’m probably nearing 100k kanji written:

Anki also tells me that it took me over 10 days or 240 hours of study just for this deck, so that’s a pretty significant chunk of my total study time over the past year. I don’t regret doing it though and I’ve started adding my own kanji I find through reading.

[Asher]

Epic. Great job! Did you find that the writing helped you as much as it did me?

[simias]

I started doing it when I felt like I was confusing similar kanji too often and that basically never happens anymore (or extremely rarely, and generally it has more to do with similar meaning than similar shape I think).

Whether it was worth the time commitment instead of just working more on pure recognition, I’m not sure. But I think that being able to write kanji is cool for its own sake, so I don’t regret it at all.

[Asher]

Noice. Sounds like it was well worth it in any case!

[simias]

Do you continue practicing yourself or just write “casually”?

[Asher]

I just write whenever they come up for review, which is only like 5 a day these days, and only add new kanji from books, which is like 1 a month with maybe a few more sprinkled here and there if I start reading a book if a genre a bit different to what I usually do.