So how are we supposed to use the Kanji Close-Up?

[peachrules]

I was wondering how we were intended to use the kanji close-up. Are we just supposed to use it to learn those specific compounds only, because the readings change when apart and switched around.

Do you look up other readings and stroke order for the kanji when you learn it? Do you even use the close-up? What do you do?

[bogart96]

Do you look up other readings and stroke order for the kanji when you learn it? Do you even use the close-up? What do you do?

I don't use the kanji close-up at all.

What I look up or don't depends on whether my curiosity to find out is stronger than my laziness to look up.
In January I started "reading" one of my all-time favourite novels in Japanese: Alexandre Dumas' "Three Musketeers" :
三銃士 上 (角川文庫) アレクサンドル・デュマ 竹村 猛 (文庫 - 2009/10/24)
三銃士 中 (角川文庫) アレクサンドル・デュマ 竹村 猛 (文庫 - 2009/10/24) and
三銃士 下 (角川文庫) アレクサンドル・デュマ 竹村 猛 (文庫 - 2009/10/24)
My curiosity to find out how this novel (read it +-20 times so far) sounds in Japanese is really very, very strong So I bought the Japanese paperback (3 volumes), got Dumas' original text on the internet, and started copying the book line by line (I am almost done with Chapter 1; most kanji have furigana), looking up and writing down all the vocab, so I can read my text and notes as PDF on the iPhone.
On the iPhone I also have Kotoba!, KanjiLS and wishoTouch. Whenever I meet an unfamiliar kanji, I look it up on one of these 3 apps, spending also some time with the various kanji compounds and their meanings. This helps me memorize meanings, readings and stroke order. Also, in a novel, vocabulary and kanji tend to show up repeatedly, so I get to review while actually progressing with the text. With KanjiLS I can practice writing and even do quizzes.
Kanji I have learned this way seem to stick longer in my memory than otherwise.

By the way, I had tried this procedure before with other books and stories I was also curious about but felt less stronger connected with. The results in these cases were less positive.

Happy Easter !

[Javizy]

Check out my post in this thread.

The thing that both the kanji close-up and looking them up yourself lack is structure. There's just too many of them to go about it like that. You'll end up spending a lot of time learning characters you don't need, learning more difficult ones before simple ones, you're much more likely to make mistakes (wrong stroke order or not noticing the difference between similar radicals (礻or 衤?)), and how are you going to remember any of it long-term?

Learning writing, meaning, and readings all at the same time is a nightmare. When you start seeing kanji in context, you'll begin to understand how pointless learning readings individually are: learn them through vocabulary. So you know all the readings for 書, how do you read 書留, 読書, and 書付？

Let's just say you see the word 綺麗 (きれい). Do you learn these kanji? The first one isn't even jouyou, and the second one is used extremely sparingly. If you do decide to learn 綺, then you've got to remember a sequence of 14 strokes. If you'd been learning kanji systematically, you'd already know how to write 糸 and 奇 (you would have learnt 大 and 可 before that), and you could just put them together. This is extremely common, which is why I strongly recommend something like Heisig. Give your brain a chance to remember these things!

Whatever you do, make good use of Anki. An iPhone/iTouch is a great tool for learning the language as well. An electronic dictionary is essential, so you can justify a lot of the price through that. The other things you can do with it should justify the rest

[reverser]

What is that flash card app that you have there? I believe it's the 4th one down. The jailbroken ANKI?

[Javizy]

What is that flash card app that you have there? I believe it's the 4th one down. The jailbroken ANKI?

Yeah, AnkiMini. It's much more convenient to have entire decks instead of messing around with syncing a few hundred cards with iAnki every couple of days. I did it for the audio mainly though. It already seems to be making a difference. You can change the CSS too

[prometheus2003]

I have iKanji on my iPhone and it's invaluable. The app makes kanji recognition seriously easy. It tests you on stroke order, meaning and also has an exercise where you're given incomplete kanji compounds with the definition, and you pick the missing character from multiple choice. I decided not to mess around with the readings, because no way could I retain them in a vacuum. I know the meanings of maybe 300 so far, which is reinforced as I learn vocab. As Javizy says, I learn the readings automatically that way.

Actually it's funny because, knowing the kanji for a lot of beginner vocab, I have to quiz myself without the characters so it doesn't give away the meaning of the words. I feel spoiled, seeing other beginners so intimidated by kanji. I think they make learning much easier.