Kanji Training, whats the best Method + extra question

[Chronitsch]

Heya

Well I know some might think the obvious answer is "Keep on writing them" but the problem is, while I can read my Kanji, my professors often × on mistakes on do not understand at all, like a wrong angle of the ´in sumu or in iu

When I am at home and have enough time, no problem, but in stress situation like exams my handwriting REALLY is terrible.

I've seen to some of the Lections Kanji Close ups with those nice Sheets were you the opacity (sp?) gets lesser so you can write the characters over the "forms" is there something like this for all Youjou kanji available?

I keep on rewriting them atm on blank sheets, but for weird reasons I do not remember them how to write, but mostly all of the time I can figure out what is meant

Another thing concerning Kanji, how do I figure out which is the radical I have to use when I want to look in my Sign dictonary. I know abit of where radicals can be found and also know some of them, but which is the right .... only in easy kanji were the left one means water or human

+ extra question
Why is for a bad tooth/bad teeth the kanji order 虫歯　and not something with 悪い A friend of mine jokingly sad "maybe because mosquitos are something bad and they also punch hole into your skin" but there surely is a more logical way to that

[Yamanchu]

Hi Chronitsch, what I find works for me is: first, study the stroke order of the kanji, then close your eyes and 'write' the kanji in your mind. Then, open eyes and write the kanji on paper. Cover the kanji you've just written on paper, close eyes and repeat. Write in your mind, then on paper, each time covering over what you've just written on paper so that you can't cheat.

This method was suggested to me by the Japanese language supervisor of the Griffith University on the Gold Coast, and I for me it's fantastic.

Cheers,
Yamanchu

[Belton]

Heya

Well I know some might think the obvious answer is "Keep on writing them" but the problem is, while I can read my Kanji, my professors often × on mistakes on do not understand at all, like a wrong angle of the ´in sumu or in iu :?

When I am at home and have enough time, no problem, but in stress situation like exams my handwriting REALLY is terrible.

I'm assuming you can remember and read individual kanji but handwriting is your issue.

Pay attention to the small shapes, their stroke order, direction and endings, then build up more complex kanji from these small shapes. Use squared paper pay attention to balance and proportion. Try shuji classes. Get feedback from a native with good handwriting, a shodo teacher. The details might seem trivial but are important for good clear handwriting.
Then maybe rather than draw individual characters, Write words, sentences, paragraphs etc by hand carefully, the more you practice using writing the faster you can become and still keep proper shapes.
It might be worth looking at alternative forms. if you can't remember the top stroke in 言　use the more rigid straight horizontal line.

It's not enough that you can read them. Others have to be able to as well. Usually Japanese who are used to seeing very particular shapes.

It might also be useful to look at ways of reducing your exam stress and increasing the time available to write more carefully.

I've seen to some of the Lections Kanji Close ups with those nice Sheets were you the opacity (sp?) gets lesser so you can write the characters over the "forms" is there something like this for all Youjou kanji available?

You see practice books in 100 yen shops in Japan. And more expensive ones in book stores. Often they concentrate on model characters. If you can write these properly you can transfer that knowledge to other characters.

If you have a Nintendo DS
DS美文字トレーニング
is well worth a look.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/avmj/index.html
(English tutorial)
http://xn--wgv71a119e.heilling.net/dsbi-moji-toreningu
This trains you to draw proper characters and gives fairly detailed feedback and scoring on the characters you produce.
This is good because when writing you may not be aware of the mistakes you might be making.

Kakitorikun has a similar system built in with an added benefit of teaching you the readings and compounds as well.
http://100mas.jp/kakitori2/index.html
I prefer the original grade school edition myself.
http://100mas.jp/kakitorikun/

this site is also worth a look. There aren't characters to trace but there are pointers for good handwriting.
http://www.geocities.jp/ki07ji/kireinaji/kireinaji.html

You'll have to search through the kokugo pdfs yourself but there are sheets with characters to trace on this site. Only the 1006 grade school kanji but it's a start.
http://www.geocities.jp/mutasanjp/index.html

Another thing concerning Kanji, how do I figure out which is the radical I have to use when I want to look in my Sign dictonary. I know abit of where radicals can be found and also know some of them, but which is the right .... only in easy kanji were the left one means water or human

It can be difficult to decide. When you become more familiar with the 214 traditional radicals it gets a bit easier you tend to see the patterns I think.
The problem is when you identify two or more radicals, which one do you use?
That's why I prefer computer dictionaries. They're quicker. With multi-radical lookup it doesn't matter which is the traditional bushu. Throw in handwriting recognition and cross referencing as well and paper dictionaries start to look very dated and cumbersome.

+ extra question
Why is for a bad tooth/bad teeth the kanji order 虫歯　and not something with 悪い A friend of mine jokingly sad "maybe because mosquitos are something bad and they also punch hole into your skin" but there surely is a more logical way to that

Well you need to think about it as rotten rather than bad. Then it makes more sense.
虫 here probably has a sense of maggots.
虫食い歯 [むしくいば] (n) a decayed tooth
There is also a possibility it is a simplification of the more complex 齲

[Javizy]

Check out this site http://forum.koohii.com/index.php. It'll save you a lot of bother.

[gerald_ford]

I am of the firm belief that practice makes perfect. The goal of any language is to learn the words (written and spoken) so well that you don't even have to think about it. That's how it works with our native langauges, but that takes 20+ years of reinforcement.

So although there are maybe some fast-track methods, your best bet is to expect it to take a while, and just keep practicing until it becomes rote. As with reading kanji, if you see a certain kanji 200 times, chances are you will know it pretty well. If you write the kanji hundreds of times across many days, chances are it will become automatic. These kinds of things are best done a little bit each day. If you cram a lot at once, it tends to fall out pretty soon after, but long-term gradual training tends to stick better.

Hope that helps.

[Javizy]

I am of the firm belief that practice makes perfect. The goal of any language is to learn the words (written and spoken) so well that you don't even have to think about it. That's how it works with our native langauges, but that takes 20+ years of reinforcement.

So although there are maybe some fast-track methods, your best bet is to expect it to take a while, and just keep practicing until it becomes rote. As with reading kanji, if you see a certain kanji 200 times, chances are you will know it pretty well. If you write the kanji hundreds of times across many days, chances are it will become automatic. These kinds of things are best done a little bit each day. If you cram a lot at once, it tends to fall out pretty soon after, but long-term gradual training tends to stick better.

Hope that helps.

I'm just wondering if this is actually possible. I hear lots of people talk about these sorts of techniques, but none of them seem to have seen it through to the end, i.e. to literacy. What may seem to work well for a few hundred simple characters at the start, becomes harder and harder to manage when you're working up to 2000 and dealing with 15+ stroke ones.

I was thinking about this today, because I wrote a character incorrectly. It was one of the few that I never made a proper mnemonic for, since it seemed easy and I've managed to write it correctly so many times. Without my mnemonic, though, it's just a series of strokes, so I write it the way that "feels" right, which happened to be wrong.

You can't possibly write out all 2000 every day, or even every month, so you need to be able to remember them correctly for months at a time. Without any mnemonic, you have nothing to "check" them against. The character I got wrong was missing two little strokes that barely changed the way it looked at all. It seems like a minefield to me.

It's also worth bearing in mind with traditional classroom approaches that Japanese people themselves can't write a shocking number of characters. You don't have the luxury of 10 years of classroom practice and constant exposure/chances to use written Japanese either, so it's really not an ideal model to follow.

Just my take on it though. Kanji practice for me nowadays is just reviewing 10 cards a day

[gerald_ford]

I was thinking about this today, because I wrote a character incorrectly. It was one of the few that I never made a proper mnemonic for, since it seemed easy and I've managed to write it correctly so many times. Without my mnemonic, though, it's just a series of strokes, so I write it the way that "feels" right, which happened to be wrong.

You can't possibly write out all 2000 every day, or even every month, so you need to be able to remember them correctly for months at a time. Without any mnemonic, you have nothing to "check" them against. The character I got wrong was missing two little strokes that barely changed the way it looked at all. It seems like a minefield to me.

I think the mnemonics are a critical part of learning kanji, but I personally don't advocate one method over another. I think with practice, people develop their own system over time. It helps to study other techniques, and I think folks here have provided excellent input on the subject, but I just want to remind the original poster that regardless of what mnemonic or technique used, it still has to be practiced to fruition. No shortcuts there.

But I admit I don't practice writing kanji much, as I tend to use the keyboard a lot more (I do some real limited Japanese email correspondences at work among other things). When I learn kanji or type it out, I do find that I develop my own little mnemonics that make sense to me, not others. Liek such-and-such kanji looks like this to me, and coupled with lots of Anki memorization, helps it sink in a lot better.

I wouldn't advocate a particular method myself, nor discourage one that works for others. Just whatever technique is used must be fully internalized, and only long-term practice, with a little bit each day (read: not cramming) is the best.

[Chronitsch]

thank you for all the links and tipps, atm I try to figure out what the Japanese pages are saying (but np with the ff plugin and the japanese I know)

some new questions after reading those posts:
What is Anki?

What kind of mnemonics do you use? In some I "see" the on- and kun-yomi,in others I see what it means (for example the hatsu, shoot of) but with Kanji like tama I always forget certain things when I have to write them ... again others I don't get at all (espacially ones with ALOT of strokes)

Till Wednesday I need to memorize some (140) Kanji, more or less easy ones and I also "just" need to be able to transcribe them into hiragana and other way round (with some of those I just dont know how to translate them properly)


Another Question:
In our University our Kanji Professor (derp) wants us to learn on and kun yomi with fitting translation and asks us to prepare around 600 for a tests were 20 are asked. is this a normal way of memorizing ? I feel like memorizing more when I use them in words or kanji constellations and just get headaches when learning them completely seperate from eachother to many Koo or Shin labled ones.

[melitu]

What is Anki?

It's a spaced repetition system (SRS), aka basically a super-enhanced flashcard system, that will test you on the cards at optimal intervals (a bit before you're expected to start forgetting them). There's a graph somewhere of how long it takes us to forget what we learn, but I forget where I saw it =/ Anyways, anki can be downloaded from here:
http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html

Incidentally, if you decide to use anki in your kanji-learning, you don't have to create the cards yourself, there's a couple of heisig decks already made by others that you can download. Just "suspend" the kanji you don't want to be tested on yet.

What kind of mnemonics do you use?

A mix. It really depends on the kanji. Javizy mentioned
http://forum.koohii.com/index.php
before. I'd definitely give it a look even if you're not learning with Heisig. There's lots of stories and mnemonics posted by other users for each of kanji, so if you're having trouble figuring out a mnemonic for yourself, it might help to see what others have come up with.

[Belton]

I'm just wondering if this is actually possible. I hear lots of people talk about these sorts of techniques, but none of them seem to have seen it through to the end, i.e. to literacy.

everybody who became literate prior to 1977 perhaps

The best method is the one that works for you and your situation and aspirations.

Here we go again....

Look up Heisig on these forums (jPod) or Google. Give it a try.
here's a concise decscription of Heisig.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji

I will give Heisig this, he is one of the only people to give a systematic method of learning to write a character. Often a course just leaves the method of learning individual characters up to the student. not ideal.
Which is not to say that other courses aren't systematic and have a methodology behind them. For a more traditional approach Chieko Kano's books are the best I've seen and fit quite well within a conventional course.

RTK1 covers putting English to a character.
To put Japanese to a character requires vocabulary. Most people find it easiest to remember words that use particular kanji than a listing of on and kun readings for a given kanji. Faced with a compound word you'll only know which particular readings to use if you know the word. Anything else would at best be an educated guess. very catch 22.

It sounds like what your Professor has done is set you a syllabus. Here's 600 kanji - learn them. Rather than any methods for learning them. Her viewpoint is that in 3 years the students need to learn 2000 odd kanji, because that's the level promised by the level of qualification. Therefore by a particular date 600 have to be learnt. But unfortunately there is no allowance for individuals learning speeds or much thought to the methodology it seems. But what a university is selling you is not so much knowledge as a qualification.

[Chronitsch]

OK I looked through some of the links (some of them confused me more than they were helping ^^; ) and now I have some new Questions

first for this page http://www.geocities.jp/ki07ji/kireinaji/kireinaji.html
the part were it says how to hold the pencil, what exactly is it saying should be hold between 2nd and 3rd joint? the thumb? I thought I figured it out, but not completely .. and since I am getting a cramp in my hand when writing for some time i think I got it wrong ^^

second:
a kanji I do not know how the stroke order is , I know what is the radical and also it has 16 strokes but which strokes comes first on the right side, no idea the kanji is　機 is the hook like thing the first or do I begin with the right 糸　 looking thing

What is the "typical" writing instrument to use by Kanji learning students? I think our teachers would growl at us, if we'd use those brush-pens (and where I am from one such thing costs ~8USD (~5EUR) )

Thank you all for the answers, helped me out a lot ^^

[melitu]

Are you getting a cramp holding the pencil pretty much the same way you'd hold it normally? I don't think I hold my pencil/pen any differently... curious about others out there...

For the kanji you mentioned, 機, after the 木, it's the top two 幺 first, then the horizontal, then the bottom left, etc. This diagram is probably a clearer explanation:
http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/kanji ... enDocument

Personally, I just use a regular pen/pencil to practice kanji.

[Chronitsch]

well my pencils are thinner than my ball pen's so I hold them a bit awkwardly, and I espacially bought that one (kind of sharp pencil just with a full... is it mine? .. like a regular pencil, which can be replaced, with no wood to be chopped of the pencil making it shorter)

thanks for the link, right that what I needed, had the url once but forgot all about it ^^

[Belton]

I'd advise against using a brush pen for the moment. They are very hard to write with properly and it is best to start with using a large brush when learning how to use one. (one character per A4 sheet large!)
Pencil is best as you can erase it but it still allows for variation of stroke thickness. I like mechanical pencils with a soft-ish (B or 2B) 0.7mm lead. Fibre tipped pens give a nice line as well. I also suggest using largish squared paper. 10 to 15mm. Practice the characters larger than your normal english handwriting.

Holding the pencil. It's exactly the same as suggested for children learning to write English. You could even get one of those rubber pencil holders that put your fingers in the correct place.
http://www.drawyourworld.com/grip.html
The pencil rests on the first part of your middle finger above the joint. the pencil is then held between index finger and thumb. Your other two fingers rest on the writing surface. the pencil is held at 45 degrees. (which is very different from how a brush is held) The important thing is you have control and are comfortable.

Do you know the stroke order rules?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order

[Sumiko]

My current favorite site is kanjikuma.com even though there are still a number of mistakes here and there.(some of which really made me laugh!) I really enjoy all of the example sentences. And the author, Joseph, is very responsive to suggested corrections. It seems like he makes the corrections by the next day usually. The other site that I was enjoying before was speedanki.com until I ran out of example sentences. Most of their JLPT1 kanji are missing sentences and so far, I don't think they have a way to input any. It gets too boring for me that way.

Sorry, I just read the headline instead of all of the posts, so this submission is way off topic. S.