I don’t necessarily agree with you on this one.
Learning the meanings and components of individual kanji first, including their radicals, provides a solid foundation for understanding how kanji are constructed. Many kanji share similar radicals that convey hints about meaning or pronunciation (e.g., 言 for speech-related words or 木 for tree-related concepts). By focusing on individual kanji, learners develop a systematic way of identifying and guessing meanings and/or pronunciations for unfamiliar kanji, even in new contexts.
For example, if you know that 生 relates to life or growth, you can more easily remember 生きる (to live) as “to grow/continue life.” This approach is particularly effective for beginners who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of vocabulary they must learn.
Also, relying on vocabulary to learn kanji might make learners overly dependent on memorizing whole words, which can greatly hinder their ability to recognize kanji in unfamiliar combinations. By familiarizing yourself with the individual kanji first, learners are better equipped to infer the meanings of new words. For instance, if you know that 言 is related to “speech”, or “to say” and 葉 means “leaf,” you might deduce that 言葉 has something to do with “spoken words” or “expression” even without prior exposure.
Obviously, things are not as simple as 言葉 = 言+葉, but it is undeniable that for over 90% of the vocabulary, the meaning does in fact derive from the kanji found within the words. Sure, you might have to use your brain to figure out the etymology behind 先生, but rather than actively discouraging people to learn individual kanji, I’d say you should put everything in context, such as:
Radicals > Kanji > Vocab (using on’yomi) + Vocab (using kun’yomi) > Expressions (for example: vocab + particles) > Example Sentences
Radicals: 言 (say) + 舌 (tongue) > Kanji: 話 (talk)
Kanji: 話 (talk) > 話す - はなす (to talk, Vocab using kun’yomi) and 電話 - でんわ (telephone, Vocab using on’yomi)
Then you put every vocab in context, such as:
電話番号 - phone number
電話をする - to make a phone call
電話を切る - to hang up the phone
… etc. (Don’t put this thing in the Anki deck, just look up a couple of expressions.)
Then after looking up how the specific word is used, you can look up for example sentences:
それ、正しい電話番号ではないよ。 - That is not the right phone number
Fortunately, next time you want to learn a vocab, that has the very same kanji, you don’t have to bother with the radicals, nor the on/kun readings, because you already did that!
Yes, I get it, this seems super old-fashioned and also it is a lot… . I get that, you generally don’t have that much time to do this every time you learn a new word, which is honestly more than understandable. However, I do hope that you understand why this method is foolproof. Also, things like WaniKani are accessible which takes a bit more modern approach on these things (using SRS and mnemonics), and it pretty much does the hard work for you! (You don’t have to subscribe to access the radicals, kanji, and example sentences.)
I really hope this helped, and wishing you luck on your Japanese journey!
Many of the features, especially for beginners, are free. The version also has no ads, which I find pretty incredible these days. I’ve had the paid version for an extremely long time so I don’t know quite which features are paid or not, but I recall the price is about $30 if you don’t include the super advanced package on kanji-pictogram history.
