question?

[coolfire]

I have search all over Google plus a 100 websites. When learning kanji do learn the onyomi and kunyomi with the kanji? or do you memorize the word for the kanji?

[videovillain]

The best thing I've found is to learn kanji in compounds. That means together with other kanji that form a word. Not only will you end up learning a few different readings (the most commonly used ones at that), but it is much more useful when it comes to reading, retaining vocabulary, as well as remembering meanings. You'll see kanji in compounds more often than you'll see kanji alone.

事 [ジ、ごと] - Matter, thing, fact, business, reason
That alone is pretty useless knowledge...

However:
用事 [ようじ] - Task, things to do, errand
Is commonly used in daily Japanese, like:
ヒマがありますか。いいえ、用事があります。(Are you free? No, I have things to do.)
用事があるので、先(さき)に帰(かえ)ってもいいですか。(Since I have an errand to run, is it okay if I leave early?)

事故 [じこ] - Accident, incident, trouble
Is also commonly used:
あそこ、事故を見(み)ました。(I saw and accident over there.)
先週(せんしゅう)、ここで大(おお)きな事故がありました。(Last week, there was a big accident here.)

仕事 [しごと] - Work, job, business, occupation, employment
Is definitely used daily in Japanese:
仕事は何(なん)ですか。(What do you do for work?)
今(いま)の仕事はたいへんなので、やめようと思(おも)う。(As my current job is troublesome, I think I'll quit.)

Now you've got a better understanding of the meaning of the kanji 事 because you've seen it used in context. This leaves you with a higher likelihood to retain that understanding, as well as the three vocabulary words used in the context, and don't forget the two main readings you learned in the process (ジ、ごと). Lastly, this way of learning will give you incite into the possible meanings and usages of the other kanji that you weren't even trying to learn!

In my experience, trying to learn the meaning/readings of individual kanji and then using that knowledge to understand compounds when i'm reading is too difficult. It seems backwards, but learning the compounds and using that knowledge to breakdown the meaning and reading of each individual kanji works much better!

Hope that helps!

[community.japanese]

coolfire-san, videovillain-san,
kon'nichiwa
That's a very good advice, videovillain-san! Thank you very much!

Just learning on&kun readings are very difficult and boring, so it'd be the best to learn them in words.

Hope our video lessons help you with that as well

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[videovillain]

なつこさん、こんにちはとありがとう。どうぞよろしく。いつでも、よろこんでアドバイスしますよ。
Natsuko, hello and thank you! Nice to meet you. It's my pleasure to help any time!

[Zelg]

Just thought I'd pop in to agree. I'm very much still a beginner but I also had the same question come up when trying to learn kanji. The two readings is really what through me off like you said and it wasnt just that there were "two" readings, it was that for many many many of the words (most that I've seen so far), there are more than just two readings. Yes they're all on-yomi and kun-yomi but sometimes theres like 5 ways to say even just the kun-yomi. A couple will be similar and a few will be different. It quickly became super frustrating in addition to boring. As stated above, learning them as parts of words is not only easier and you dont have to worry so much about the different readings but it feels a bit more natural to do so. You also will definitely pick up on the different kanji when used in words that may be part of a category.

(sorry I reinstalled windows recently and havent added my japanese keyboard yet) Words like dictionary, document, and I think library all contain one of the same kanji so in a way you immediately have an idea of what the word has to do with in a very general sense even if you dont know the word. You'll also notice that the kanji may have a more common reading and as you go along you may find it easier to sound out a word and if its part of your vocabulary you may pick up on it easier.

That said, I'm still pretty terrible at reading kanji but I dont expect to learn it very quickly. Just by coincidence I turned on the movie Battle Royale the other day and in the beginning theres a long paragraph written in kanji that sets up the story and I couldnt read one lick of it. I did however catch a few kanji that I recognized, so I at least felt like that was better than before I started with kanji

Neil.

[Zelg]

Just wanted to add one last bit as it just occurred to me as I was doing it myself. When you start to feel comfortable with kana and some kanji, change your font if you can. I realized this was an important thing to change up every now and then after I had gotten my tablet and came on here to do my flash cards. I realized that the font was not quite as bold and had a little more flare to the characters and I was getting of a lot of them wrong because of that. I just started today changing the font in my browser and I feel like it will help as I see various other fonts used either in pictures or in movies or what have you. Just a suggestion.

Neil.

[videovillain]

Just wanted to add one last bit as it just occurred to me as I was doing it myself. When you start to feel comfortable with kana and some kanji, change your font if you can. I realized this was an important thing to change up every now and then after I had gotten my tablet and came on here to do my flash cards. I realized that the font was not quite as bold and had a little more flare to the characters and I was getting of a lot of them wrong because of that.

That's great advice! Being in Japan, I've come across so many different handwritten kana and kanji as well as many different kana and kanji fonts and it i was so frustrated because I had learned so much only to barely be able to read anything! Watch out kana and kanji learners!!!

[community.japanese]

Neil-san, videovillain-san,
kon'nichiwa!

That's a brilliant advice, Neil-san, thank you very much!

As to 'not being able to read kanji', don't worry too much if you come across with kanji like that;
I do every day
Not all Japanese can read what (kanji) we see for sure, either. There're some kanjis we're not very sure
about it as well. It's just like spellings in English, perhaps. When we hear a word we don't actually use on
daily basis, we might not to know the spellings. It doesn't mean you can't speak English nor can write it at all.

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com