TextFugu Kanji, 1-2 Strokes
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
By this point, you’ve learned the 1 and 2 stroke radicals. You’ll notice that a lot of radicals are going to be exactly the same as a lot of the kanji you’ll be learning down below. That’s okay, and it won’t be like that for too long, especially when you start hitting 4, 5, 6+ stroke kanji. Sure, there are 4, 5, 6+ stroke radicals to learn as well, but that’s about when the amount of kanji becomes so much greater than the amount of radicals, so the overlap will seem less noticeable.
For now, though, enjoy it while you can. When a kanji is the same as a radical, that’s one less thing you have to learn and remember. That means you actually know a lot of kanji without actually knowing it. Anyways, we should get started!
Learning The Kanji
“Never confuse motion with action.” – Benjamin Franklin
All the kanji is on one page, but that doesn’t mean I won’t break it up for you. Don’t be overwhelmed by all the kanji, just take it one kanji at a time, and you’ll be just fine. I’ll break the kanji into smaller chunks / groups so that you can break your studying up into smaller sections.
Basically, here’s how we’ll do things (you can follow along with the lessons below, too, and it will do the same thing).
- Learn the kanji (includes meaning of the kanji and on’yomi reading of the kanji).
- Use study lists to review and solidify your knowledge of the kanji’s meaning and on’yomi.
- Study Common words associated with the kanji. Each kanji has words that use the kanji you just learned, and by learning these common words you’ll be able to study the kanji and learn something new at the same time.
One thing to know about the vocab / common words section, though, is that even though there will be a decent number of words listed in each kanji narrative, you won’t be learning all of them. Because of the common words contain kanji you don’t know, I’m going to “postpone” them until later, so that way you’re only learning words that contain only kanji you’ve already learned. That’ll make the lists easier to study, and will really simplify the process for you too. Your experience will be better because of it, and you’ll end up making a lot more progress (instead of spending time hitting your head trying to remember and learn kanji you haven’t learned yet, you’ll be able to move on and learn new things that you are actually able to process).
All that being said, it’s time to get started. Basically, just follow along with the directions provided in each kanji narrative, and you’ll be okay. One important thing to note is that you should be practicing the act of learning kanji itself. The more you practice learning kanji, the better you’ll get at learning kanji too. Funny how that works. So, even if you’re bad at learning kanji now, you can get better at learning kanji. You can make that choice, and I’ll make it as simple as possible along the way.
So go ahead, start with the first kanji, 一. Give it a click and follow the directions on the other side.
| Kanji | Meaning | 音 (on) | 訓 (kun) | Strokes | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 一 | one | いち | ひと.つ, ひと | 1 | 1 |
| 二 | two | に | ふた.つ, ふた | 2 | 1 |
| 七 | seven | しち | なな, なな.つ | 2 | 1 |
| 九 | nine | きゅう, く | ここの. ここの.つ | 2 | 1 |
Kanji Vocab 1.1 ← Import To Your Vocab Deck
Kanji 1.1 ← Import To Your Kanji Meanings Deck
Well done, so you’ve made it through the first four kanji. Not too bad, right? You’ll want to import both Kanji Vocab 1.1 and Kanji 1.1 into your “TextFugu Kanji” and “TextFugu Vocab” decks on Anki. There’s more directions on the lesson for this page, but you can also check out the Anki guide here on TextFugu for more info.
After you’ve added the decks, you should study them (that’s what you should do every time) until Anki tells you to stop. Then, keep reviewing as you move forward so you can keep adding new imports to add to your deck. That way you’ll never feel too overwhelmed (that is, as long as you keep reviewing!).
| Kanji | Meaning | 音 (on) | 訓 (kun) | Strokes | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 人 | person | じん, にん | ひと | 2 | 1 |
| 入 | enter | にゅう | い.る, はい.る | 2 | 1 |
| 八 | eight | はち | や, や.つ | 2 | 1 |
| 力 | power | りょく, りき | ちから | 2 | 1 |
Kanji Vocab 2.1 ← Import To Your Vocab Deck
Kanji 2.1 ← Import To Your Kanji Meanings Deck
Alright, now that you’ve gone through those four, can you go back and remember the last eight kanji (the last two sets)? Try to recall the meaning of all the kanji as well as the on’yomi and stories that go along with them.
Okay, one more set. This one contains five kanji (gasp!) but you’ll be able to tackle it just fine, I’m sure.
| Kanji | Meaning | 音 (on) | 訓 (kun) | Strokes | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 十 | ten | じゅう | とお, と | 2 | 1 |
| 刀 | sword | とう | かたな | 2 | 2 |
| 丁 | street | ちょう | n/a | 2 | 3 |
| 了 | finish | りょう | n/a | 2 | S |
| 又 | again | n/a | また | 2 | S |
Kanji Vocab 2.2 ← Import To Your Vocab Deck
Kanji 2.2 ← Import To Your Kanji Meanings Deck
Great job. Now that you’re done with the one and two stroke kanji, make sure you review them all using your Anki decks. Just practice when Anki tells you to practice. If you do this, you should be fine (in the long run). It’s not something that will happen overnight, so keep thinking forward and you’ll be alright.
You don’t have to know 100% of them right now, but hopefully you’ve gone through them all at least once (and several of them multiple times). When you’re all ready, move on to the next section (or head back to the lesson you were working on before you got sent here!).
So how was that? Everything starts off simple and just builds upon things you already know, which means you’re always learning things you mostly know already. Great way to study and learn new, abstract information, right?
When you’re ready, and when you’ve finished both the 1-2 stroke study lists, it’s time to move on to the next section. We’re going to continue with the pattern that’s been set and you’ll study the next set of radicals before moving on to the next set of kanji. Ready? Here we go!