Kanji problem

[Spiderwick]

I've just started to learn Kanji and I'm already falling at the first hurdle. I started with the Hesig book but I'm due to start a distance learning course in March that recommended the 'Basic Kanji Book'. All was going well when I came up against this problem

山川さん - Mr. Yakawasan

Now I know what the answer is because it tells me. But why isn't the answer Mr. Yamagawasan? It give me かわ　-がわ as the くんよみ　reading, so I assumed as 川 was the second kanji is should follow as -がわ. But it doesn't Incidentally, I've still not got it clear in my mind when I should use the くんよみ　or the オヨミ reading. Should I just carry on and hope that things will become clearer later?

Anne

[Javizy]

When to use かわ instead of がわ is quite a difficult concept to understand, but try googling 'rendaku' (sequential voicing), because that's what this phenomenon is called.

In short, on-yomi are used for Sino-Japanese words (Chinese words imported into Japanese), and kun-yomi are used for Japanese words. Generally, SJ words are compounds, e.g. yojijukugo, and Japanese ones are single character words or contain okurigana (hiragana after kanji). This isn't nearly as important to understand as you seem to think, because you should absorb readings through words that you learn, rather than trying to guess them yourself after learning them on a character-by-character basis.

There's a lot more stuff in this thread about Heisig and approaches to reading. Try giving it a read, but for the meantime don't worry too much, because it will become much clearer as you go along.

[QuackingShoe]

Plus there's a zillion 名乗り, and just oodles of blatant exceptions anyway. Consider the readings a 'rule of thumb' anyway...

[Psy]

A lot of common family names can be predicted using kun'yomi, however there are so many exceptions that you'll have to take a great deal of them on a case-by-case basis. However, in addition to my own Anki decks, I have been working my way through the 1,000 most-common surnames deck available on the Anki site. Once you are comfortable enough with kanji I recommend trying it, as I'm approaching halfway and already feeling the results. I plan on adding my yoji-jukugo deck to their site once I'm done writing it, however it, as with surnames, requires a certain comfort level with kanji.

And don't worry-- you aren't falling. Yamakawa and yamagawa are both perfectly accurate readings for those characters, so you weren't at all wrong-- kanji is just so wrought with inconsistencies that there's no way to know until it's been clarified. There's a reason it has the reputation that it does-- even Japanese people wrestle with it.

[Javizy]

However, in addition to my own Anki decks, I have been working my way through the 1,000 most-common surnames deck available on the Anki site. Once you are comfortable enough with kanji I recommend trying it, as I'm approaching halfway and already feeling the results. I plan on adding my yoji-jukugo deck to their site once I'm done writing it, however it, as with surnames, requires a certain comfort level with kanji.

Have you been doing the yoji-jukugo with example sentences? If so, let me know when it's available I never knew about the decks online, although there doesn't seem to be a great selection. I'm downloading the 10,000 sentences one at a painfully slow pace at the moment, but if it's any good, it'll really help me out. I only have one deck with just over 300 sentences because it takes me to long to add them with voice recognition, that I don't bother half the time

[Spiderwick]

Thank ou so much everyone for all of your support I feel more confident now in continuing my studies. I'm glad I wasn't as stupid as I felt; my mind is always a bit muddled when I'm tackling kanji but I really want to improve my Japanese. I'll continue with the books and also consult the web pages (Anki) you've mentioned - thank you so much for this. Now that I know that there will be many more days where my brow will be furrowed, I feel a lot better about continuing my study. I'll certainly get away from simply translating and and more towards becoming familiar. It's really tough doing Japanese by self-study alone but, hey, onwards and upwards. Thank you once again for the explanations and the advice
Anne