Basic Rundown on Kanji ( from the Lessons ).

[Instance56]

Hi,

Ive just recently started my way through the beginner Lessons and ive decided that my method for learning kanji will just learn them in the order of the context of the lessons + ( Genki Book 1 , w/e kanji i come across in the lessons thier ) .

But it brings me to the question of when getting the list of the kanji in each lesson plan i want to use on flashcards to remember them. Should i be learning only the 1 Kanji character on each flash card ? Or should a word that comes up in a lesson that consists of 2-3 Kanji characters still be placed on the 1 card ?

So i guess my main question thier is should i limit each flashcard to 1 Kanji character or can i have 2 or 3 kanji's that make up a complete word.

My last question is when it comes to multiple readings for the 1 Character should i choose to just learn them all for each character as it comes up or wait till i actually see them used down the track ?.

Thankyou so much.

[Javizy]

It's much more effective to learn the characters first, and then learn words that contain them to learn their readings. There are many cases where it can be difficult to guess even if you know all the character's readings, so you cut out a lot of pitfalls by learning through words in the first place.

I imagine your approach will start to become difficult as well. You'll only find an insignificant number of kanji in Genki, and you will have to look through a lot of lessons to find all 2000 or so jouyou characters, assuming they are all actually contained somewhere.

I'd recommend Remembering the Kanji, and using SRS (especially Anki) for your flashcards, since it's much more efficient and effective than paper ones. Check out this forum for lots of information and advice http://forum.koohii.com/viewforum.php?id=1

[Instance56]

Thanks alot for the info and link.

Btw i forgot to mention that because im not moving to japan just going to visit thier a few times a year i wasnt going to bother how to Write kanji as i'd have few applications to do so rather just learn to read them.

Is that a bad idea ? would it make the Hesig's series books a waste of time ?

[Javizy]

Firstly, I wouldn't go through the whole series. The first book is more than enough for most people. As for usefulness, it's the fastest way to remember all of the characters, and when you have them "stored" in your mind, you can begin learning to read much quicker than people who try to do everything at once. It's really up to you how fast you do it, since you can set attainable goals if you're using flashcards, i.e. X per day means you can read Y number of words after a year.

If you're serious about learning Japanese, then writing is going to be somewhat important, and it'll really only cost you a few extra seconds every time you review kanji. All you do with Heisig is write out the character once, even if it's just with your finger on your hand or something.