Learning kanji from scratch (method)

[choneb9359]

Oh another thing.

I also found that some of the kanjis weren't taught in the right context, but I think this doesn't matter. In my opinion, the "key words" are just there to aid you in the learning process of the kanji. Once you KNOW (have it completely committed to your long-term memory) you can then associate the actual meanings to them. I mean, 分かれる　and 分　uses the same kanji but one means understand and the other minutes. So yea, I guess for this reason I don't think the context of the keyword matters too much; its just there for the purpose of learning the character.

Hope that helped!!

[mmmason8967]

Yes, it was very helpful. It's especially useful to know that it's a kind of standalone thing and doesn't interfere with other learning methods: I've previously had the impression that you pretty much had to put aside whatever you were doing and bang away at RTK, so it's good to know that that's not the case.

Are you really managing to sustain a learning rate of around 200 - 250 kanji a week? That sounds absolutely amazing, at least to someone my age. I'm in my late fifties and while I haven't noticed it getting any harder to understand new things or grasp new ideas (that ability might even have improved with age), it's definitely more difficult to commit new stuff to long-term memory, so I find learning vocabulary (for example) to be a slow process requiring a lot more repetition than it used to.

マイケル

[mwbeale6642]

chone> Just a small point: I think 分かる = to be understood (I think it is intransitive...??) and 分かれる = to separate.

漢字の　勉強するのを　頑張ってくださいね。　楽しくて　面白いですね！

マーティン

[Javizy]

You should think of RTK as giving your a kind of mental "kanji bank". After you have them "stored" you can begin truly learning them in context through vocabulary. You should check out the Koohii forum for more discussion on Heisig. It's certainly not the only option available that overcomes the "learn-as-you-go" potholes, but it's one worth considering.

[jkerianjapanesepod5596]

It's important to note that RTK is probably only worth doing if you do it quickly. I would estimate that 6 months for the whole ~2000 kanji jouyou set is about the longest you want to take, 3-4 months is much better. The reason is that you're only laying a foundation. Even after finishing, you still need to actually learn how to read and write... and it's somewhat difficult to learn that while you're studying with RTK.

I'm not saying this from the perspective of "this is the only true way to learn kanji", but more from a perspective of "you don't want to spend too much time at a place where you can't actually read anything... it's too frustrating".

[taffeta1067]

If you don't like the idea of RTK, I still strongly advise a systematic approach. Attempting to learn kanji as you meet them is a recipe for disaster. What if you meet 憩 before 舌, 自 and 心? Even 舌 can be broken down to 千 and 口. You rob yourself of the opportunity to simply assemble "building blocks" that you already know.

I actually beg to differ on this point. If you are reading in Japanese, then it makes sense to look up kanji as you come to them. If you're enjoying what you're reading, you're more likely to remember them. Yeah, the building blocks and radicals are useful, but it's harder to learn and retain lists of kanji without any particular connection or meaning than it is to work with characters that have some relevance to what you've been studying.

So whilst I wouldn't advise doing what I did and beginning with characters like 魔 and 夢, I don't think it hurts not to avoid learning characters just because you don't know all the radicals yet. I don't think systematic learning is all that effective if you have nothing to bind that learning to.

And erm, I would also advocate learning to write and read the kanji at the same time, not just reading. You will almost always be able to read more kanji than you write, but the more you write them (paying attention to how to write them), the more things like radicals, stroke order, etc become inprinted and the quicker you'll remember and apply the same rules to the next character.

By doing both those things I picked up characters a lot more quickly than I otherwise would've - which has been beneficial for doing kobun this past year - I'm not afraid of obscure kanji that are "outside my safe zone" because I just take characters as they come.

[Javizy]

If you are reading in Japanese, then it makes sense to look up kanji as you come to them. If you're enjoying what you're reading, you're more likely to remember them.

If you don't know kanji, you're coming to them every other character. You're stopping constantly and trying to memorise them; the text that you're reading is little more than a distraction. Lookups make sense in this scenario, but the question is whether a beginner should be putting themselves in a situation that requires that level of endurance.

I don't think systematic learning is all that effective if you have nothing to bind that learning to.

The number of radicals is insignificant given the edge they give you, and they're much simpler and easier to remember than most characters themselves. Kanji and meaning are practically synonymous and meaning is a central focus of all learning systems I've seen. It doesn't follow that a random word that could have an exponential level of complexity (jukugo) offers any benefit over the meanings listed in a dictionary. That's without considering the confusion brought about by ateji.

I just take characters as they come.

I do this too. I wouldn't have attempted it when looking at a block of indiscernible foreign symbols, which I assume anyone asking how to learn kanji from scratch could relate to. I'm not questioning the results you've achieved or the effectiveness of your approach for you. Some people have gone through kanji dictionaries from cover to cover. For the majority of other people, and other complex tasks in general, a good system is much more reliably efficient. Just ask any building contractor why they spend so much money consulting architects before throwing bricks together.

[taffeta1067]

If you don't know kanji, you're coming to them every other character. You're stopping constantly and trying to memorise them; the text that you're reading is little more than a distraction. Lookups make sense in this scenario, but the question is whether a beginner should be putting themselves in a situation that requires that level of endurance.

Well, I didn't say I was against having a system (though I believe the system that works varies from person to person, especially in self-study). What I was really getting at was that a student should not NOT learn a kanji they encounter early just because it isnt on their revision chart yet. It doesn't matter if they are right at the start of Japanese learning, or a year in, or whatever.

Whether they know the building blocks or not, as you put it, the fact is that if they've encountered that character outside of their study, it's probably come up in something that interests them. Things like song-lyrics, TV shows, books, food, martial arts - there are a lot of students who come from those backgrounds and learn Japanese because of those interests. They may have already encountered particular words or characters and want to understand them in better context. It makes perfect sense, therefore, for them to learn characters associated with those backgrounds because they connect to a personal interest and are likely to remain in the memory more easily than something learned by a rote list.

I learned kanji in an eccentric way. Heck, I learned the whole language in an eccentric way. I wouldn't advocate anyone copying my method, because though it's worked for me, it's not necessarily for everyone. BUT I do think that taking every opportunity to learn a new character - whatever that comes from - provides familiarisation with the IDEA of kanji, as well as a way of linking it to personal interest. And the idea is to stop people seeing lists of characters but rather words and meanings - so I think it's important to forge that connection, even right at the beginning.

[Choneb]

Howdy all!

I'm back again after a long hiatus. I am happy to say that I have now graduated from a Masters of Engineering management degree. Organising my graduation ceremony took up a lot of time and taking my family around Australia took up the rest of the time. So there was a period of 3 weeks when I didn't do any study. But now that I'm back home in Thailand, I've managed to catch up and made some significant progress in my RTK. I'm now up to 1070 characters.

After having encountered a lot of radicals along the journey, I find that learning new characters now is very easy. Once the radicals have solidified in your memories its much easier to recall them. Personally, I found this to be more effective that my learn as you go method, I was attempting at the beginning of my learning kanjis. But hey, that's just what works for me. What works for you guys out there may be different.

At the rate I am going, I should be finished before the end of Jan. I am doing 30 new characters per day, splitting them into increments of 5 characters. I find it to be less tedious this way.

All the best!
Chone

[mmmason8967]

I'm back again after a long hiatus. I am happy to say that I have now graduated from a Masters of Engineering management degree.

卒業おめでとう！

At the rate I am going, I should be finished before the end of Jan. I am doing 30 new characters per day, splitting them into increments of 5 characters.

So you started in the middle of October, had three weeks off and you'll finish at the end of this month? That's quite amazing!

マイケル

[phileuro]

What is your definition of 'knowing' them?

For me, 'knowing' a kanji means knowing how to write it given the definition, and how to read it. If you are saying that after 3 or so months you can write these characters given a definition and correctly give the definition of any random character in the set of 2000 then I am very impressed!

[community.japanese]

Hi everyone!
Very interesting discussion going on...

Please feel free to let us know if we, JapanesePod101.com team, can also help

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Sandman77]

Didn't care for Heisig method at all. Using all that time without it helping in actual reading is a drain mentally.

I was much happier just learning the kanji as a part of an actual Japanese vocabulary word. It seems to me one would forget most of the characters anyway from doing Heisig during the massive amount of time it takes just to build up your vocabulary in Japanese (it could be a couple years, or more, before you'll need to learn some of those kanji in an actual word)

[community.japanese]

Sandman77-san,
If you could learn kanji as a part of words without problem, that's brilliant!!
Those "method"s are merely "help"s. Was there any special way you learned kanji?

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[chonnyfonny696924]

And erm, I would also advocate learning to write and read the kanji at the same time, not just reading. You will almost always be able to read more kanji than you write, but the more you write them (paying attention to how to write them), the more things like radicals, stroke order, etc become inprinted and the quicker you'll remember and apply the same rules to the next character.

By doing both those things I picked up characters a lot more quickly than I otherwise would've - which has been beneficial for doing kobun this past year - I'm not afraid of obscure kanji that are "outside my safe zone" because I just take characters as they come.[/quote]

I think this is where I've gone wrong this whole time. reading kanji but absolute Zero writing. Because of the fact I just don't want to write out 2000 kanji because that does not sound fun at all. (yes yes call me a baby )
There's too many methods to tryout in learning Kanji. At the moment, I've been just glued to reviewing core words in flashcards but remembering kanji is hard because I didn't know the meaning of them.
I tried the jouyou kanji quiz and I get lost because there are one or two on-yomi readings but a million kun-yomi readings.
guess I'll have to bite the bullet and start writing Kanji on paper even If I have to write at least 2000 in the next few months. Heck as a very very slow learner I can only remember like a few. But I haven't given up
RTK sounds good but obviously ordring the book may take time to ship. Anither method I tried tongiht is skritter as some of you suggested. It's pre good cause I'm learning about stroke order more definely.
Once I find a method I believe I will learn faster than just floating around.
Sorry for a bad post
Ernie