Meaning of the kanji in Japanese

Japanese
#1

I am looking for nice dictionary that lists kanji with theirs proper Japanese meaning. What I mean is that for Japanese person 本 clearly has to mean ほん, and 池 mean いけ. And some short definition (easy Japanese or english) would be much welcome. I would like to slowly start the process eliminating english from my understanding of Kanji (at some point I will have to do the same with vocab, then grammar).

If that dictionary would give sample words with readings respecting how important given reading is so I can make decision if it is time to learn it already it would be nice bonus. I think I could spend my time better than learning 天王 to get the reading のうfor 王… I am still to find another word with that reading without looking into dictionary (another one I know is 四天王… but し for 四 at least looks more useful). And it was one of the first readings I was learning…

What is tricky that many kanji share the meaning as well as pronunciation (見る vs 観る) where the difference in meaning is small but still existing. I don’t know how to solve this problem.

I will be very happy with any input :hugs:
Thank you in advance. :blush:

Edit:
My reason to going for this is the fact that 2 worrying things happened: yesterday I wrote down kanji in a second from the english word without remembering what that english word meant… And today I got this kanji 為 only by looking how long entry is without stoping to understand it. My brain clearly is doing some unproductive trickery here.

I am pretty sure that this kanji has an elegant meaning or two to Japanese people. It can’t be that elaborated…

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#2

I looked up the different みる and found this website which produces artlicles on the difference between words https://chigai-allguide.com/見ると観ると視ると診ると看る/

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#3

Thank you. In that case I know the difference from Cure Dolly. But how many kanji I don’t know I don’t know?

But it looks like nice reading material so I will read it today any way xD

#4

Assuming I understand “But how many kanji I don’t know I don’t know?” correctly. I wouldn’t worry too much about the ones you’re not aware of yet. A lot of these nuances become clear through reading and vocabulary which uses the different versions e.g. 診断 or 看護師.

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#5

I mean that if I would not know the difference in advance I could easy assume they mean the same without definition, and it would be down right impossible to make clear Anki entry testing if I got it.

I need to put a little bit of stress at the fact it would help me make Anki entries which important to me since my memory is very motivated to not accept anything not essential for my survival and reproductive functions, and Anki has been tested as best way to break that resistance xD

Edit:
I know Japanese people say things like “為 as for い in 行為” but I wonder if there is better way

#6

I wouldn’t even bother memorizing all these meanings, I just know “for -> do” and there are multiple applications for verbs and nouns that fit very nicely. Then you can see how aux meanings like ‘advantage/practice/cost’ fit in well with certain kanji combinations.

Sort of narrows down what WK is good for (at least for me), despite not have a full range of vocab like 10k forcing and uncommon vocab, you get 6k+ of most common On/Kun readings as a foundation. At least this gives priority and the rest can picked up in the wild or other decks so you can focus on necessity. Something 為に you can recognize as the most useful entry just for meaning and grammar frequency alone. Many words may not even the use the kanji regularly so you don’t even want to waste your time.

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#7

There are buttloads of kanji that have similar meanings. In regard to what you are searching for, short of buying a Japanese dictionary, simply try to break down kanji into their most simplistic movements… This sounds weird, so I will give an example 書く、描く、欠く、掻く。 These are all かく、and their meanings are wildly different (write, paint, scratch, crack, sweat, rake) … However… That’s not how the Japanese see them. They all simply mean to ‘run across a surface’. A pen runs across the surface of paper, a crack or scratch runs across the surface of floor etc, sweat runs across the surface of skin, a rake runs across the surface of the ground.

However this only works for kun-yomi, and it might take a while to get into the habit of finding the ‘base meaning’, like with the previous example. It works for any verb though, so very helpful.

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#8

I do agree. It is important to point that out.

I keep all meaning for 3 reason:

  1. It is fast, and that important for me since remembering kanji is just short introduction to kanji and it is subject to much improvement over time.
  2. I keeps me aware that there is more meaning.
  3. It help to make a difference between other “do” kanji without pretending it is bigger difference than it is. 過 - overdo, 致, 為, 据, 解 - undo, 押- do in spite of; that are the ones I already have in anki and could confused them or even worse: not confused them at all and assume no link between then in anyway shape or form.

I think of it more like “do and something not clear about welfare - keep looking for more hints” xD

Thank you for suggestions. I will think them over for sure.

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#9

Do you know any online easy to use resource for looking it up? Japanese kids learn kanji as well, there has to be something on the web xD

I know you have been a teacher so maybe you know something about it.

#10

Is https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/kanji/ what you are searching for?

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#11

It may be it! Thank you. I will try to learn to use it, and will see how it works for me. If you got any suggestion regarding how to go about learning to use it (np. Japanese linguistic terms necessary to not misunderstand anything or something like that) then it would be great.

Thanks a lot :hugs:

#12

I don’t teach Japanese, just English. The website that @MZa mentioned looks good to me though. I’d go with that. I have a kanji dictionary that I use, but it is not website haha.

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#13

I do remember, but you are in that environment so for sure you have much knowledge hidden to us mere mortals : P

Sorry, for making it past tense. I misremember it :sweat_smile:

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#14

I am trying to wrap my head around this and how to apply it without knowing those kanji in advance (assuming I would be smart enough to figure out there is a link)? If there are resources to help with that they would be much needed :hugs:

I will start with changing some of kanji I know the best to try to figure out how to go about it. It will probably take month or two before I will be able to add new kanji this way, but it look like huuuge level up, which is great.

One thing is that I don’t see indicator of how common readings are, but that least of my concerns. Maybe I will figure it out when I will get use to that website. It is above my level but it is a good thing I believe.

Once again thanks for help. You can feel free to go around the main subject and give your opinions on related matter. Maybe it will be helpful to me or other people with similar problem in the future. :hugs:

#15

辞書の名前を教えていただきますか？

Tap for English

Can you please share the name of your dictionary that shows this (I’ve been intuitively figuring these out, but a dictionary approach world be nice.)

よろしくお願いします。

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#16

One more follow up question about kanji learning:

Having in my goals in mind (I want to read asap, and will never have to write without assistance of mobile or computer) and stage I am at (about N4 + I have got 900 kanji as “mature” and another few hundred on the way, so I am already accustom to how kanji works from “hand writing perspective” - radicals and so on) would it be reasonable to start cutting some corners now to get more time for reading?

I mean flipping methodology and starting testing if recognise kanji not if I can write them from theirs meaning. So front card would be kanji itself and I would have to get at least one meaning right, one reading and one sample word with it.

That would make it like 10 time faster.

I don’t know if it is smart, or lazy xD That’s why I bother you with that question.

Edit:
I got kanji like 婚, that I am quite sure I would always recognise but my brain struggle find it when ask to write it. I written it down easily over 100-200 times already… It is start to feel more and more useless…

#17

Woah, that’s so cool! I never realized that about かく. Did you learn that from the kanji dictionary you were talking about? I would love to learn about stuff like that

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#18

I actually did the opposite when learning kanji. My cards would show the kanji from which I would test if I knew a general meaning, and maybe a couple of vocab it was used in.

I am only now slowly going through my kanji deck ‘flipped’. Front side is the meaning and a few vocab in hiragana from which I need to at least be able to write the specific kanji I was testing. Only doing about 3 new ones a day.

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#19

Unfortunately I had to deduce that myself, but reading the descriptions in Japanese certainly helps to arrive at those more literal meanings. 新明解国語辞典 is probably the best vocab/kanji dictionary. You can get it as an app but it is about $10. Defs worth it imo

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#20

I wonder if it might be more helpful for you to take a vocabulary based approach to kanji learning rather than learning kanji and their multiple meanings and readings all at once.

That way you can see how the “meanings” and the “readings” fit in with each other in actual words. Because even though kanji have meanings they’re useless outside of vocabulary.

From what I gather from your posts, you’re using Remember the Kanji to learn Kanji? I think that’s great if it works for you but maybe you’re getting too caught up with kanji in isolation.

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