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First of off a little off topic. Maybe I’m just plain blind but is there a search function here ^^;?
Now, on to business! When I was at high school, I always learned words by writing my ass off. Now I’m following the seasons and I’m told that writing/repeating kanji(or whatever for that matter) isn’t the best way to go.
I wonder; Are there people here that learn to memorize words/kanji by just, let’s say, not writing into repeating into the cold dark abyss of hand cramps? I learned hiragana by my old writing method(with remember the kanji) and it’s fine. Now I want to actually learn katana (rather learn to read than write) with an other method, like Anki-ing. Any tips or experiences for this newbie newb? ^^
Depends on what you plan to do. If your not going to be living in Japan anytime soon and won’t find yourself in a situation where you need to hand write then it’s probably best to skip it for now.
If you will be living in Japan, or you just want to learn it anyway then there’s no harm in doing so. Whether or not helps you remember Kanji better, is down to each person. Some say it helps, others say it doesn’t.
Despite the popularity of handwriting something becoming less useful (check out http://www.tofugu.com/2010/08/27/kanji-amnesia-and-why-its-okay-to-forget-kanji/ ), it is still a good skill to have. You never know when you might need to write something. Although occasions like that might be rare, it’s always good to be literate in a language you’re learning.
If you do plan to skip learning to write for now, the best way to learn Kanji is here on TF using Anki, WaniKani (TextFugu’s sister site), or a method like RTK (although not suited to everyone, check out the many threads on here and other websites about it).
AnonymousI write every word/kanji that’s new to me that comes up in Anki once or twice, If it’s particularly weird/difficult then maybe a few times. If I get a card wrong I also write it once or twice.
After having done RTK, just doing this is enough to get a pretty good wrote memory of Kanji. Not to mention it helps heaps in remembering the word/reading itself.
Wow Kanjiman that was some awesome reply, thanks :).
I’m gonna try learning katakana without writing so much this time. Bbvoncrum, maybe your method might slow me down in my writing frenzy, thank you ^^.
btw Kanjiman, I can’t get inside WaniKani :(. Thanks for the kanji tips though!
You’re welcome. As your a TextFugu member, you can sign up for a free WaniKani account here. You get free access to the first 3 levels of Kanji, but after that you will need to either pay a monthly or yearly fee. Use the code “wanikani heart textfugu” for 50% off.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 4 months ago by
kanjiman8.
Thanks Kanji :D, really appreciate it, though I still have a lot of seasons to go here ^^. I’ll try my best!
I think it’s good to learn to write both the kanas. There really isn’t that many of them so I feel it’s worth it.
=^..^=Really if you learn some of the general rules dor stroke order you can kinda write kanji without having to do the reps. Katakana is especially easy to just know how to write, without actually doing it. That being said i learned both kanas and some kanji by writting and can be helpful but the textfugu way kinda helps aleviate the monotony of this. I would probably just do it for fun rather than requiring it, for now at least but i do intend to go there for a while.
Different for everyone, but I found learning hiragana and katakana by writing but not learning kanji by writing to work for me.
There aren’t that many characters in hiragana and katakana unlike kanji.
Plus for me, learning with mnemonics works well with kanji but not with hiragana and katakana (there ‘s too little to work with and learning a sound compared to learning a meaning undermines the method a bit).
I used an iPhone app called Kana LS to learn hiragana and katakana. It has a practice and test mode and I found that I was able to learn the two sets of symbols in two weeks (I did spend almost all of my spare minutes during this time practicing though). I think by writing each of the symbols dozens of times – albeit with my finger instead of a pencil – I managed to learn faster.
I memorize through repeated usage rather than just cramming everything in my head and hoping it sticks.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 4 months ago by
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