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Hi,
I was wondering why we need to learn on’yomi? I don’t find learning kanji as ‘vocabulary’ too difficult but when I go to learn the kanji themselves I find it difficult to remember the other readings. Is there a way to get around it/is it necessary, or is it better just to learn it in the long run?
Any tips would be great!
ps I’ve been using the free trial of wanikani, but the spaced repetition is really annoying when you already know the basics.Well, as the name implies, on’yomi reading is how the kanji is supposed to be read (in a sizeable amount of situations). So, unless you’re trying to learn Japanese without actually learning how to read Japanese (which would be bold since 99% of the learning material is text), yes, you have to learn them.
You shouldn’t memorize all of the readings in one go, though. As Koichi advises in his course, you should rather learn the most common reading(s) first and the other ones “in the long run”. But I don’t think you will get to said long run with zero knowledge of on’yomi readings and even if you do, that’ll just be more things to learn when you get there. So I’d suggest you follow Koichi’s advice.
I don’t know anything about Wanikani’s SRS, but if the algorithm is any good, you should quickly get to a point where it’s not annoyingly easy anymore.
As for tips, Textfugu’s mnemonics are pretty good. Better than I thought they would be, actually. Besides that, the secret is that there is no secret: work is what gets you somewhere.
Cheers!
パンツ見せて貰ってもよろしいですか。Koichi’s explanation on this is a little muddied, but basically the rough rule of thumb is this:
-When a kanji is standing on its own, or has okurigana (hiragana stapled on the back that indicates verb and adjective conjugations), then you use kun’yomi.
-When a kanji is in a compound word with other kanjim you use on’yomi.Basically, way back in prehistory, Japanese had a spoken language, but no writing system (which is what makes it prehistory). Then Buddhist scholars came to Japan, bringing with them the Chinese writing system. These Chinese characters were used to express words which already existed in Japanese, and these native Japanese words became the kun’yomi. You’ll tend to find that kun’yomi words express basic physical and natural items – trees, rocks, rivers, body parts, verbs, and so on and so forth.
However, the introduced Chinese characters already had Chinese pronunciations – these pronunciations became the on’yomi. The scholars also brought with them more esoteric concepts like government, taxation, and so on and so forth.
So to use an example, the kanji 話 uses its kun’yomi はなす when it’s standing alone. When it’s got an okurigana ending, 話す, it uses a slightly different kun’yomi, はな (you’ll tend to see this written in dictionaries as はな・す or はな（す） to make it clear that はな is the reading of the kanji and す is the okurigana). When in a compound word, say 電話, it uses its on’yomi わ.
There’s about a thousand and one exceptions, though. Rule number one in Japanese: all rules have exceptions, including this one.
I feel like the more concrete and nature-themed a word is, the more likely it is to use kun’yomi, but that’s just my gut feeling, and I’ve got no particular proof of that. Case in point: 川口 (river mouth) uses the kun’yomi for both kanji, despite being a compound word – it’s かわぐち.
Anyway, after all that, like Brook I would advise against trying to learn the readings in isolation. If you just try to go “well that’s kun’yomi and that’s on’yomi” without anything to anchor it to, you’re just going to forget it again. Start learning vocab (with kanji) and you’ll start to get a feel for which reading goes where before too long. You’ll even start to be able to intuit the readings of words you’ve never seen before.
^^agreed, you should do your best to try and learn both kunyomi and onyomi readings. Experience will help judge when to use each one. I myself am thinking of purchasing the Wanikani premium since it has a better focus on kanji than TextFugu.
Gah, I just noticed I made a goof – the reading for 話 when it’s standing on its own is はなし (not はなす).
Thanks for your replies everyone- looks like I’ll just have to persevere!!
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