Kunyomi or Onyomi?!?!?

[rpgherogaz]

I have become vary aware that kanji has many many differnt readings!

Kunyomi being the japanese reading, and the latter being the Chinese.

However how are you ment to know which to use when reading dialog for example?

I notice for example, that Genki using the Onyomi reading of gen and ki for its characters.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Jaa ne!


EDIT:

Would i be wrong in saying, that the onyomi reading, is only used for the sound? so you can phonetically put togther japanese words, such as Zekkouchou? However the yunyomi reading atualty stands for a complete japanese word, such as the kanji for receive? (itadaku)

[QuackingShoe]

Your observation is correct as a very general rule of thumb, yes. In practice it varies pretty widely. But to answer the question simply, you know what reading to use when you're reading by memorizing the vocabulary, and not by some form of reasoning/divination. Particularly as many kanji have multiple on readings as well, you can not accurately guess at it, though you do get pretty good at guessing over time. You should always look it up though.

[rpgherogaz]

I see, Thank you very much!

So it all comes down to memorising when Kanji is used with others and combinations?

I remember reading months ago that kanji is commonly used as verb roots??

Any other examples of when they are used? Im guessing Names and Titles possibly.

[QuackingShoe]

I'm not sure what you're asking in the second line, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "no." It's about learning vocabulary, just like it is in any other language. 'shigoto' is written 仕事and read しごと, that's that, and that's how you memorize it(note that this particular word is made up of an on + kun). You don't need to divine it through the kanji. The kanji are helpful in remembering, and can help you guess, because they do have readings that are more frequent than others. But you need to remember words as words. Remember that 仕事 = しごと and しごと = 仕事 the same way that you remember the word 'work' in English. work = w o r k, w o r k = work. It's not as different as people like to make it out to be, especially from English, which is honestly made up of phonograms that are only about as phonetic as the kanji are. How do you know to read 'ow'? Well, in cow, it's this way, and in row, it's this other way. Unless you mean a British 'row,' as in a fight, in which case it's that first 'ow' again, apparently. Right? Right. The Kanji just make it harder because there's so many of them and they're unique, but also easier because they're unique (!) and actually have meaning inherent to them.

As for when you use kanji, as opposed to kana, you use them all the time. They form the core of the writing system. The only parts of speech that aren't written with kanji as a rule are particles and the inflecting portion of inflecting words (verbs, adjectives). Also many foreign words are in katakana, but that's not really a part of speech. Other individual words may or may not be written using kanji, but it doesn't have to do with their role as words, it's largely arbitrary - many words have kanji, but are often written without them, and some words have no kanji at all. So, yes, names, titles, as well as all other nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, everything that isn't a particle or a conjugation may be written with kanji. But they may also not.

More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system

[rpgherogaz]

I'm not sure what you're asking in the second line, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "no." It's about learning vocabulary, just like it is in any other language. 'shigoto' is written 仕事and read しごと, that's that, and that's how you memorize it(note that this particular word is made up of an on + kun). You don't need to divine it through the kanji. The kanji are helpful in remembering, and can help you guess, because they do have readings that are more frequent than others. But you need to remember words as words. Remember that 仕事 = しごと and しごと = 仕事 the same way that you remember the word 'work' in English. work = w o r k, w o r k = work. It's not as different as people like to make it out to be, especially from English, which is honestly made up of phonograms that are only about as phonetic as the kanji are. How do you know to read 'ow'? Well, in cow, it's this way, and in row, it's this other way. Unless you mean a British 'row,' as in a fight, in which case it's that first 'ow' again, apparently. Right? Right. The Kanji just make it harder because there's so many of them and they're unique, but also easier because they're unique (!) and actually have meaning inherent to them.

As for when you use kanji, as opposed to kana, you use them all the time. They form the core of the writing system. The only parts of speech that aren't written with kanji as a rule are particles and the inflecting portion of inflecting words (verbs, adjectives). Also many foreign words are in katakana, but that's not really a part of speech. Other individual words may or may not be written using kanji, but it doesn't have to do with their role as words, it's largely arbitrary - many words have kanji, but are often written without them, and some words have no kanji at all. So, yes, names, titles, as well as all other nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, everything that isn't a particle or a conjugation may be written with kanji. But they may also not.

More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system

Thank you very much! This was a very useful reply!

I'm sorry if i caused an annouance (it sounded as if you were agitated) it is just that i have never been to a japanese class in my life. So I hope you can imagine how deep in the water i feel at the moment. There is a lot to take in, and yet very little guidance for me.

I will first study the theory behind the writing system, as you gave me a great link for it. I do understand that its best not to think of a rule for kanji, but just to memorise vocab by hwo it is read, and the kanji for it, rather than thinking to much about it.

Thank you again.
Gareth

[Javizy]

Definitely learn the readings by reading, and not by trying to memorise them character for character, like Quackington is saying.

Even without knowing what kun-yomi and on-yomi mean, you'll quickly start to distinguish two sets of readings for a given character; one used in words with okurigana or single character words, and one used in compounds. This really helps for memorisation and guessing readings.

If you learn on a word, and not character basis, then the Japanese-Sino-Japanese hybrids and other exceptions will be no more challenging than any other word, although they do throw off your guesses.

Try searching the forum for 'sentence mining' if you're interested in techniques to make this more efficient.

[QuackingShoe]

I back up Javizy's backing me up.

Also, no, no, I wasn't agitated or annoyed or anything. My writing just tends to take a certain tone when I'm explaining things. I know it can come off as cold, so I apologize. It's something I should probably pay more attention to.

Anyway, good luck.

[rpgherogaz]

Thank you both of you!

I will look into sectence mining.

This really does seem very troubling with this "guessing" concept.

It seems that you can never be in a situation where it is clear and easy. Even after remembering it all!

But i am not one to give up.

I will take things slow, learn vocab, and the kanji with it, and when i come across a new one, learn its readings and go from there. Would that be a good choice?

I do not know if you have picked up on this, but my confidence seems to be very low, but my determination is very high.

Gareth

[Javizy]

You can't really be 100% sure, but lately I do guess right of most of the time with characters I know well. When you look them up afterwards, it helps you remember them very easily if you guessed them right. If you think about looking up a difficult English word, it's not always easy to know how to pronounce it (which parts are stressed in particular) just by reading it, so it's not just Japanese that's tricky like that.

I think teaching yourself kanji like that will create a lot of headaches later down the line. A lot of difficult characters contain radicals that are characters themselves. Look at 貝 and 斤, and then 質, for example. If you come across 質 first, it'll be a nightmare, but if you know the other two, it's just a case of putting them together, so to speak.

There are a couple of textbooks that structure a kanji-learning course around this concept. The one I used was James W. Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. It teaches you how to write, from memory, 2042 characters, with a remarkable, yet simple mnemonic system that makes use of your imagination to remember characters. Using the system, you can easily learn additional characters, which becomes necessary at advanced level. Most people finish it in under 6 months.

It ignores how to read the characters completely, for reasons that we've explained already: the best way to learn to read... is to read. What you have at the end of the book is the ability to recognise 2042 characters, so you can practice reading just about whatever you want, or mine any sentence you come across, without being limited by what characters you know. Being able to write them all so easily is also invaluable. If you opt to follow the JLPT path instead, you'll be lucky to know 1000 of them in 3 years.

As for the confidence issue, I'd like to meet somebody who was confident about learning kanji. All you hear about as a beginner is how difficult it is, and it's very hard to imagine how to learn such a foreign, bloated, inefficient writing system with zero experience. You've already taken the first big step by deciding to learn kanji; I've come across a lot of saps who believed they could get by with just romaji.

It took me a while to decide whether I would even continue learning the language, but I haven't regretted taking the leap. Try not to have unrealistic expectations. You won't be reading novels by next year, but as long as you make steady progress, you will enjoy the rewards, and start to imagine yourself becoming literate in the not too distant future. Just take it as it comes, and try to enjoy the learning process, because that's one of the most important things when learning any language.

[rpgherogaz]

I know I sound very repetative but thank you very much!

This post really did open a few things for me.

I had no idea that Kanji contained other kanji. So that''s one step in the right direction!

I agree. It just takes time. Currently, there is no deadline for me to "know everything" so to speak. And rushing is something im determined not to do. It is very hard when you want it so badly though!

I will invest in this book as I seem to hear it everywhere! For now i have prioritised my learning as:

Grammer; (plus kana)
Vocab;
Speaking and listening;
Kanji.

If I have any more questions I'll be sure to keep asking this forum. It seems to helpful!!

Also congratulations on both the contributers for becoming so amazing at Japanese! I envy you both!

[NightAero]

Definitely learn the readings by reading, and not by trying to memorise them character for character, like Quackington is saying.

Even without knowing what kun-yomi and on-yomi mean, you'll quickly start to distinguish two sets of readings for a given character; one used in words with okurigana or single character words, and one used in compounds. This really helps for memorisation and guessing readings.

If you learn on a word, and not character basis, then the Japanese-Sino-Japanese hybrids and other exceptions will be no more challenging than any other word, although they do throw off your guesses.

Try searching the forum for 'sentence mining' if you're interested in techniques to make this more efficient.

so are you saying that we should learn kanji first by their meanings, and then learn their readings by looking at a kanji word?
Would you say that learning the meanings with "Remembering the Kanji" and then using flash cards to learn their readings is a good idea?
I thought that looking at flashcards after i got the meaning down would help me learn them. Heisig says in one of his lessons that you should review kanji by looking at the meaning and try to remember the kanji. But i didn't want to spend hours making those cards lol, and Anki isn't very helpful since I have school and can't bring my laptop. :/ I think it's important to write the words we learn from J-pod because you'd end up forgetting it. But would trying to write a kanji you don't know be a good idea? what if you know the word and meaning well, but don't know the kanji? thank you in advance![size=12]