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I am almost through season 2 now and have a decent grab on how to learn and remember kanji.
However, I still struggle with remembering the pronunciations. It is also quite hard to remember/distinguish between on’yomi and kun’yomi readings.
I can’t help but wonder whether this really the optimal way to learn kanji, doing the meanings and readings at the same time. I think I read somewhere that Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji splits the two up, so you first learn the meanings and later the readings.
What are you thoughts on this? How do you learn and remember kanji the best? :)
I am using TextFugu and the Anki decks. Haven’t really tried WaniKani yet.
AnonymousUse Wanikani, it will help!
I pick 5-10 kanji to learn in a day, along with many common words that use them. Words alone help me remember the pronunciation of each kanji, so in my kanji deck I only have a meaning (or two) for each kanji.
By getting a lot of context, meanings and readings are easier.
Possibly the most contentious issue with learning Japanese!
I’d say trying to learn both pronunciations is not a good idea. It would be too confusing & inefficient.
I’d try and work one pronunciation into the mnemonic you’re using to learn a kanji. If you can’t, don’t worry about it, learning a mnemonic for the meaning is the priority.
Learning vocab with the kanji instead of worrying about learning the pronunciation is pretty popular.I haven’t done Heisig but from what I’ve seen it just does the meaning for each kanji. If you want to do pronunciation it’s up to you to work it in.
I know this is old but it’s a similar thread and I’m basically wondering the same thing. It seems a bit pointless to learn the on readings along with the kun. I’m starting to think it’d be best to learn it like 上 means up and is used in 上げる／上がる, which are あげる and あがる. If I come across a word that uses the on reading, I’ll just learn the word (and therefore the/an on reading). Does this make more sense? I’m pretty sure it’s what Gustav Dahl was saying, restated, but I’d like to be sure.
@willbobaggins: That’s pretty much what I do, except I do it for both on *and* kun readings. Learning them through vocab just seems the most logical way to do it.
@Gustav: Whether you choose to learn readings separate from kanji or together or not at all, I’d suggest not to bother trying to remember which is on and which is kun, it’s really not that important.
I know this is old but it’s a similar thread and I’m basically wondering the same thing. It seems a bit pointless to learn the on readings along with the kun. I’m starting to think it’d be best to learn it like 上 means up and is used in 上げる／上がる, which are あげる and あがる. If I come across a word that uses the on reading, I’ll just learn the word (and therefore the/an on reading). Does this make more sense? I’m pretty sure it’s what Gustav Dahl was saying, restated, but I’d like to be sure.
That would be wrong imo. This way your increasing the amount of what you have to remember. Example: 女王 and 王女. Instead of remembering the 2 whole words you only have to remember the on readings for the kanji, and it gets worse when the word has more than 2 kanji in it. Ofc some of these words will have exceptions but i think its more productive to learn 2-3 readings associated with each kanji, than remembering how to say each combination.
@Arnold: I’m not sure I follow. Learning readings *and* learning how to read specific words increases what you have to remember, not the other way around: e.g. learning that 便 can be read as べん *then* learning that the word 便利 is read as べんり is learning two separate things, whereas just learning the reading of 便利 is only one thing (the fact that 便 can be read as べん in other words follows naturally, you don’t have to put any extra effort into learning that); then you come to the word 郵便 in which 便 is read as びん this time, so where you’ve had to learn 4 things (べん・びん・便利・郵便) I’ve only had to learn 2 (便利・郵便).
Same thing with 女王 and 王女: you have to learn 女＝じょ and 王＝おう and 女王 and 王女 whereas I only have to learn 女王 and 王女 (even though it’s a particularly easy example since the readings are the reverse of each other, they’re still two distinct words with different meanings that you have to learn – *just* learning 女＝じょ and 王＝おう doesn’t work).
Same thing with 女王 and 王女: you have to learn 女＝じょ and 王＝おう and 女王 and 王女 whereas I only have to learn 女王 and 王女 (even though it’s a particularly easy example since the readings are the reverse of each other, they’re still two distinct words with different meanings that you have to learn – *just* learning 女＝じょ and 王＝おう doesn’t work).
If you learn full words 王女(princess) and 女王(queen) then, when other words come up with either 女 or 王 youll have to learn them again. So, instead of learning how to read 王女 and how to read 女王 (2 things), learn how to read 王 and how to read 女 (2 things), but the latter will help you know how to read new words that have one of these kanji.
Same with the meaning of the word, for example princess and queen. If you know that 王 means king and 女 means woman. You can figure out that 女王 means woman king which is queen.
Ofc in the beginning theres 1 more thing to learn but in the long run it will help figure things out instead of learning it from scratch.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by
アーノルド.
1st option. lets take 王女, 王子, 女子. you memorize the 3. you come across 子犬, so you have to learn it too.
2nd option. now if you learned 王, 子, 女. On top of knowing these 3 alone you now know meaning and reading of 王女, 王子, 女子 and if you come across 子犬 or 子牛 you already have an idea what these might be and part of how these are to be read.
now memorizing readings for 王女, 王子 and 女子 will most likely need as much effort as learning kun and on readings for 王, 子, 女. But the second option will have benefits in the long run.
Dunno how much clearer i can explain what i mean.Remember when i started on kanji 犬. And there was 子犬. It was “oh, child dog, a puppy. must be しいぬ or こいぬ.” so it was easier to remember what the reading was. Same with 牛 “子牛? it has to be こうし”.
If you learn full words 王女(princess) and 女王(queen) then, when other words come up with either 女 or 王 youll have to learn them again. So, instead of learning how to read 王女 and how to read 女王 (2 things), learn how to read 王 and how to read 女 (2 things), but the latter will help you know how to read new words that have one of these kanji.
You won’t have to learn them again, you got those readings for free when you learned the words 王女 and 女王. Learning the readings(s) for 女 doesn’t automatically tell you how to read it in every word it’s featured; that’s the annoying thing about kanji, they often have multiple readings, so you can’t say 女＝じょ only 女＝じょ(possibly), meaning you still have to learn *which* reading is used in every word. Doing it my way, when I come across the new word 女性 and learn that in this case 女＝じょ too, that solidifies the reading in my head a bit more.
Same with the meaning of the word, for example princess and queen. If you know that 王 means king and 女 means woman. You can figure out that 女王 means woman king which is queen.
That doesn’t help though because 王女 is *also* king + woman – if that was the first word you saw, you’d assume *that* one was “queen” but it isn’t. Also, kanji compounds aren’t always as straightforward as this; when they are, it’s awesome, but they’re not always. Even though you can sometimes guess the meaning (and/or reading) of a word from the kanji, you still have to check that your guess is correct.
As for your second post, it’s just the same thing as I’ve mentioned above, that learning the meanings and readings of kanji doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to guess correctly the meanings and readings of the words they’re featured in, you still have to learn which words have which readings (by learning them). Knowing that 女＝じょ doesn’t help when you come to 女神 where 女＝め so you still have to learn it.
I think my main point is that it’s not necessary to learn readings separately because you pick them up naturally through learning words. If you learn じょ first, then you can *guess* that 女性＝じょせい (and similarly for all future words); if you learn 女性 first, you *know* that 女性＝じょせい and you get じょ for free as a consequence. Either way you do it, you’ve got じょ as a reading, but the second way takes less effort.
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What Michael said.Also, who would ever need all these words for king, queen etc(I would understand if it was 姫 though)?! Japan doesn’t even have either lol. Something like 成 is a much better example. Very common words and almost never changes reading in compounds; 完成、賛成、達成、成功、構成、成長、成立、成分。
There are a lot of kanji that can be read in multiple ways depending on the compound. GL memorizing ALL the readings of those kanji and put it to actual practical use. In those cases you need to learn the readings for every compound, not each kanji. -
This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by
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