Originally published: 2014/06/23
One of my pet peeves is when somebody says the phrase “learn Kanji” such as, “I learned 100 Kanji in one week!” Kanji has way too many parts to simply say that you “learned” it. Saying you learned Kanji is like saying “I learned computer!” or “I learned a car!” What does that even mean? Let’s break down the concrete things you can learn with Kanji.
- Learn the meaning(s)
- Learn all the readings
- Learn the stroke order
- Learn how to write it
Now, let’s see how useful all these possibilities are for learning Japanese.
Learn the meaning – Useful
Learning the meaning of a Kanji is great if it’s a word by itself. For example, 「力」 is also a word meaning “strength” so the meaning directly translates into a word you can actually use. However, you can also argue that since 「力」 is also a word, you are essentially saying that you learned the meaning of a word. So in the end, this is really the same as learning words and doesn’t really count as “learning Kanji”.
Having said that, knowing the meaning of a Kanji is certainly very useful for simpler words and concepts. Memorizing the meaning for Kanji such as 「続」 or 「連」 will definitely help you remember words such as 接続、連続、and 連中. In conclusion, there’s nothing wrong with learning the meaning of a Kanji and something I would recommend.
Learn all the readings – Waste of time
To put it bluntly, learning all the readings of a Kanji is a complete waste of time. Yes, as a general rule of thumb, Kanji compounds use the on-reading while single characters use the kun-reading. However, this rule is nowhere consistent enough to make it more than a good guess (this is particularly true for 大 which we can’t seem to decide to read as おお or だい).
In addition, many Kanji have multiple readings kun or on-readings such as 怪力(かいりき or かいりょく?), 外道(げどう or がいどう?), or 家路(いえじ、うちじ、やじ?). Even if you guessed the correct reading, it might be voiced or shortened such as 活発 and 発展. Also, Kanji such as 生 have so many readings, it’s completely pointless to memorize them because you won’t know which one will be used in a word such as 芝生、生ビール、生粋、and 生涯. Not to mention the various words that only use the Kanji for the meaning while completely ignoring the reading. These words such as 仲人、素人、and お土産 are literally impossible to guess the readings for. At the end of the day, if you see a new word, you always want to look up the reading to make sure you learn the correct combination. In addition, the readings will be easier to remember in context of real words that you can actually use. Essentially, memorizing the readings by themselves is a complete waste of time.
Learn the stroke order – Essential at first
I’m not going to go into all the reasons why memorizing the correct stroke order is important. Without going into detail, of course you want to make sure to remember the correct stroke order. However, you’ll find that once you’ve mastered the basics and all the radicals, stroke order for most Kanji are consistent and easy enough that you no longer need to look it up. Every once in a while, you’ll run into odd Kanji such as 飛 or 鬱 where you’ll want to check the stroke order. So yes, definitely look up the stroke order and make sure you’re not developing any bad habits until… you don’t need to look them up anymore. That happens sooner that you might think.
Learn how to write it – Depends
This is going to be a controversial stance but nowadays, technology has progressed to the point where we never really have to write anything by hand anymore. Yes, it’s embarrassing if you’re fluent in a language but can’t write it by hand. This is an issue even for Japanese people.
By “writing Kanji”, I don’t mean just 2,000+ characters based on keywords. Unless you know which combination of Kanji to use for any given word with the correct okurigana, that is a useless parlor trick.
Being able to write any word in Kanji is an extremely time-consuming goal that may not have much practical value. If your daily life requires writing a lot by hand such as teaching Japanese, I feel that necessity and practice would naturally lend to better writing ability. In other words, if you don’t need it, it’s extremely difficult to keep up your memory of how to write Kanji by hand.
However, that is not to say you should never bother practicing writing in general. For beginners, it’s highly recommended to practice writing in general (especially kana!) in order to help develop muscle memory for stroke order as well as getting a sense of proper character balance.
Conclusion – Learn words with Kanji!
I hate the phrase “learn Kanji” because almost every time someone says that, they don’t realize that they haven’t really learned anything that’s directly applicable to Japanese. Compare “learning Kanji” to learning a word. In order to learn a word, you obviously need to learn the definition, reading, Kanji, and any Okurigana if applicable. There is no question of what you learned and whether it’s useful for Japanese. And yet the idea of learning 2,000 Kanji is so attractive that we can’t seem to get away from that broadly undefined notion.
I don’t consider a Kanji as being learned until I know the most common words using that Kanji with the correct readings and can write those words randomly months after I initially memorized it. Unfortunately, given that standard, I probably know about 100-200 Kanji but hey, we all need goals, right?
Whatever cool method to “memorize Kanji” someone tries to peddle you, at the end of the day, you still have to do lots of reading and memorizing tons of vocabulary. This involves daily struggles starting with remembering that 「き」 in 「好き」 is okurigana and continuing with which Kanji to use for 真剣 vs 試験 vs 検査 vs 険しい, or constantly forgetting which kanji is for net vs rope （網／綱）. You may be thinking, “Wow, 2,000 is a lot!” But don’t worry, it pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of words that an adult has memorized in her lifetime. And believe it or not, having a fixed set of characters with mnemonics and compounds actually helps with the much bigger job of learning vocabulary. Once you’ve learned a new word in seconds based on characters you already know, you’ll know what I mean. Trust me.
Addendum: Learning the radicals
Many of the simpler and common characters such as 口 are also radicals that are used as parts of more complicated characters. Obviously you want to learn those as words by themselves. However, there are some radicals that are not characters on their own, for example, 儿 or 辶.
Memorizing them if it helps is fine, especially those that are conceptually easy to visualize such as 儿 for “legs”. In particular, you should learn to recognize when they are derivatives of actual Kanji such as 亻 from 人 and 忄 from 心. A common example is to remember the person radical 亻 next to a temple 寺 as meaning “samurai” （侍）. Learning the radical meaning will really help differentiate from other similar Kanji with different radicals eg 「時持詩待特」.
However, I personally can never remember some of the more abstract ones such as 攵 so while useful, I wouldn’t go full speed and memorize every single radical in existence. Again, learning in context and with actual words is your best bet.
When I read, I guess I “read out loud” in my head. The readings for kanji can make that difficult even if I know the meaning. When reading Japanese, is it best not to expect to be able to sound out the kanji in one’s head?
Sorry but I don’t particularly agree with your article here. I would put learning Kanji as a strong priority in learning Japanese, even if it isn’t easy or quick. Furthermore, I feel very confident in the method of learning kanji by keyword (i.e. Heisig’s Remember the Kanji) with full knowledge that one keyword is not exhaustive of the meaning for most Kanji. The keyword will be indispensable however in making a mnemonic story to stick the Kanji to memory.
There is literally a book, plus a community website (Kanji Koohii), plus ready made Anki decks for the purpose of learning the Kanji this way, so the path is laid out.
Once you have learned the Kanji, and even as you are progressing through the list, written media will become infinitely less intimidating to look upon, and as you read you can pick up vocabulary and then learn the practical use and readings of Kanji. Surprisingly, this is the much easier step as for reasons beyond my understanding the readings associated with Kanji just seem to stick to memory without great effort. Of course, it follows that once you know which Kanji make up vocabulary, that vocabulary in turn becomes much easier to remember.
While writing the Kanji may not have too much practical use these days, reading it certainly does. I understand that the author has good intentions in saving people time, but having walked the path myself I would recommend going against their advice. Please do put time and effort into ‘learning the Kanji’ as it will set you up for learning how to read it.
Have you even read the article past the headline? The author isn’t calling “learning kanji” useless. They’re just saying that the expression “learn kanji” itself is just laughable, because of how much there is to kanji. They even state in the conclusion that you should indeed “learn kanji” along with learning words. Seriously, actually read the article next time before going on a whole rant like this. You will save yourself some time.
Nope, not gonna happen. I will never learn 2000 Kanji. To hell with that crap. And don’t come to me with stuff like: “With the right methods and mnemonics you will eventually succeed” or “it will pay off at the end”
TO HELL WITH KANJI!
I agree with most of what you say, except your aversion to the phrase “learning the kanji”. The kanji are a writing system, not a fundamental part of the Japanese language and it should be treated as such.
Naturally, kanji and the Latin alphabet can’t be compared in all respects (one being an alphabet, the other being a logography), but they can be compared to the extent that they can be known in two different ways: as isolated symbols and within words.
Being a native speaker of German I grew up expecting a very high correspondence between letters and sounds (it’s not perfect, but it’s fairly good). Later, learning English, knowing how every letter is pronounced wasn’t overly helpful when it comes to reading and writing, but I wouldn’t say that “I don’t know the letter ‘g’ before knowing how to use it in the word ‘though'”, for example. Learning a writing system and learning how to write is a difference, at least to me.
Now since the kanji are a logography, it makes most sense to think of the symbols as carriers of meaning, not of sound. Hence, I consider a kanji as learned, when I can connect it to a concept. At the time of writing, I have learned about 1000 kanji. That doesn’t mean that I can read, just like knowing the alphabet doesn’t mean that on can read, but it’s easier to learn reading when you know your symbols.
It’s completely stupid to say that it’s futile to learn readings.I’ve memorized over 2000+ kanjis onyomi readings.Why?Because I want to be able to look it up on the dictionary.In order for me to search a word on dictionary,I need to be able to “write” it with my keyboard.In order to do that,I need to “write” the reading of that word.Not all words are read as onyomi+onyomi but a huge amount of them are.
I classified words into 3 categories.
1st group: Kanji + kana combination words
2nd group: Kana words
3rd group: Kanji+kanji words
3rd group is divided into 3 groups:
a-Onyomi+onyomi words,, i.e. when kanjis come together,their onyomi readings are used to read them
b-Onyomi+onyomi,there are some words whose onyomi readings are used for their reading,but their readings are abbreviated,like 結果
c-Kunyomi+Kunyomi,same as above,except kunyomi reading is used
d-kunyomi+onyomi or vice versa,self explanatory,I dont need to explain what this is
So,in order to read most of these 3rd group words,you “have to” know how kanjis are read.So,I don’t agree with you.One should learn the onyomi readings at least.
When speaking using kanji do you use onyomi or konyomi pronunciations
I’m not sure if you’re asking about describing kanji or simply speaking Japanese. I’ll answer the former first. It depends, unfortunately. Because Japanese phonics are so limited, picking one pronunciation isn’t enough to convey what kanji you’re using. You have to tell them the word you’re using and then point to the kanji in that word. For example, if you’re referring to one kanji for the word test (試験 しけん), then you need to say “しけんのけん” if that’s the kanji you’re trying to describe to people.
The second is well, even harder. From what I understand so far after a couple of years is that kanji normally takes on the onyomi form when paired with other kanji, and kunyomi when attached to hiragana. For example, the 食 kanji’s onyomi is しょく, and the kunyomi is た(べ). Eat is 食べる, food is 食べ物 (たべもの), but meal is 食事 (しょくじ), also turning the kanji reading for こと (kunyomi) into じ (onyomi). It’s really frustrating but over time you memorize words and know which one means what. I suggest that when you learn a kanji you take some time to learn vocabulary that uses it to get a handle on how both pronunciations are used.
That depends entirely on the word being spoken. Don’t focus on all the different possible readings of a Kanji. You’ll never remember them without proper context. Focus on learning each new Kanji and reading in the direct context of the word or sentence you’re learning. That will make learning easier, more practical, and more efficient.
I want to chime in on writing kanji to learn it. You don’t need to physically write the character down. Writing it in the air or on a desk is just as good or better.
There is a scientific study that demonstrates this phenomenon with the title “Air Writing as a Technique for the Acquisition of Sino‐Japanese Characters by Second Language Learners”. I would link it but I don’t think it is allowed in this comment section. That name will get google results though.
So, write your characters in the air as you study! It helps and doesn’t take longer. And the most important part? It’ll keep you honest. You wrote that symbol with 2 lines instead of 3? Send it back and learn it again!
I say “I learned a kanji” but for me that means I learned the meaning of it, have at least one reading I associate with it, and I also learned several words that it’s used in. and after all that been able to correctly answer when prompted about the kanji and words months later (using a SRS program)
I need to do more practice writing though, most of the kanji I just learn to read the words and dont actually practice writing them atm
You will appreciate drawing the strokes in the right order once you need to look up illegible hard kanji characters, where you need to draw it as close to what you think the character looks like on handwritten input for it to lookup what is that word easier.
~From a Chinese speaker currently learning Japanese
Another reason is that, especially when written with traditional brushes, the strokes literally look different depending on the direction in which you move the brush. The brush is full of ink at the start of the stroke, and less so at the end. That practical fact gives Kanji calligraphy its distinctive look and the characters would literally look different if written in a different stroke order.
You make it seem like the readings of kanji aren’t necessary, but you will need to know the reading of a kanji in order to use it verbally, and since kanji are basically just written forms of words, you’re essentially saying “you don’t need to know how to say a word in order to use it.” You could say you need to learn the meaning along with the reading but when you’re a language like Japanese and have 5,000 words that all mean “women” (blatant over-exaggeration) it gets hard to differentiate which one you’re supposed to use, but you can “see” the kanji as you’re verbally speaking a sentence and differentiate what reading you’re supposed to use.
Maybe what they’re trying to say is learning the readings by themselves is a waste of time compared to just learning what readings are for a certain word
This isn’t the case. If you need to think this much about which version of a word to use then you need to focus more on remembering the definitions of vocabulary and in what context they are appropriate. Not only do a huge percentage of Kanji have nothing to do with it’s pronunciation at all but native speakers learn to speak long before they learn to read. The readings of a Kanji will come in time. It’s much more important to remember the meanings and stroke Order of the Jouyou Kanji and double down on those meanings as you learn new words.
Very much this. The whole idea that you need to ‘learn the reading of a kanji in order to use it’ is baloney. We know this, because go ask a Japanese person if they sometimes have trouble remembering how to write a kanji. Of course they do! Doesn’t mean they don’t know what the word means.
I would love to hear the reason for why the stroke order is important. I heard one reason that it helps with reading handwriting, but you make it sound like there are more reasons for it.
well i think i heard it mentioned that eventually it becomes easier to write quickly which is important and maybe (totally a guess, I suck at japanese and I haven’t even come close to finishing this book at all) it helps with muscle memory?
Stroke-order is important for looking things up in dictionaries.
It’s important to know and use the stroke order for Kanji because it makes writing much easier and the strokes will flow smoother. Another reason to know and use the correct stroke order is out of respect to the language itself. If you were to ever have a Japanese person watch you write Kanji in the wrong stroke order, it would be seen as disrespectful (especially from elders) because it shows that you don’t care about the language enough to learn it the right way.
Understanding stroke order is important for many reasons that people covered relatively well but there’s one large benefit no one has mentioned. It helps with reading and recall. Think about Hiragana for example. Even something as simple as that is made unnecessarily difficult to read because you don’t have perfect recall of the characters. I never learned to write it when I was first learning it and I remember it was difficult to read it quickly because I had to take a second longer just to remember what the character was. Being able to write a character means you can visualize the character in your mind exactly how it looks. This removes any confusion for characters that look similar and creates a powerful connection between each characters and it’s functional utility when reading the characters themselves. It is absolutely a must if you want to be able to read and comprehend at a native level.
Knowing how to write them with the correct stroke order and type helps with everything because in a way, the characters aren’t the glyph on the page but are the gesture you have to make to produce that character. Its a bit of a splitting hairs kind of distinction but that really is what allows you to have a good idea of what a character is even if its “poorly written”. Most adults also write in some degree of the semi cursive script and then knowing the stroke order is even more important. Writing in 行書 is faster and easier but you cant do it without knowing the correct order and general form of a kanji in 楷書. It looks childish to write in plain 楷書 so if someone did go through the work of learning to write without paying attention to stroke order, they will have bad handwriting and will have a terrible time reading anything other people write by hand.
-easier to learn kanji through writing practice (kanji like 悪 make more sense when written correctly)->muscle memory->retain kanji longer
-better recognize and retain radicals and kanji components (参考, 事案 etc make sense when you can break them down)->easier to look up kanji you don’t know or guess readings based on similar ones
-easier to read different fonts (入vs人, 末vs未, 一vs ー, even り and そ are different in different fonts)
-easier to read different handwriting styles (you can always tell when beginners didn’t learn to write properly when they can’t get ツ vs シ)
-develop a sense of balance of the characters->neater, more legible, more beautiful handwriting
Conversely, Japanese students struggle with this in English and don’t always learn it the right way. I’ve seen students write a as a one-stroke loop like how some people write 2, and misunderstood “I have a dog” as “I have 2 dog.” The spacing between the letters and space each letter takes up gets uneven (or too even) and letters don’t flow into each other. They can’t read or write cursive, even mild handwriting-style. As you can see this isn’t a huge dealbreaker if their/your goal is to speak fluidly or read only printed text, but if you ever want to read those handwritten notes/thoughts in manga, or read the menu at a mom-and-pop restaurant, or tattoo kanji on people, or not be embarrassed when you’re TAing for Japanese 101 and writing on the board, it’s helpful. And I would argue it’s crucial for a holistic understanding of the language and culture.
I would say it’s not so important to learn Kanji through writing, but it depends on how you will be using it in the future. I was able to learn the hiragana/katakana without writing via tofugu.com ‘s guides with mnemonics, and similarly, I used mnemonics to be able to recognize and associate a meaning to 2200 Kanji in 7 months with a guide by Nihongoshark.com . I learned a bit about stroke order without even having to try, and now that I’m actually taking a Japanese class, it is helping immensely to already have the general idea of what the Kanji looks like and what radicals it has.
“Learning” Kanji really is a subjective idea, and most people who actually know their ways around Kanji and all their aspects are scholars who’ve studied them for years. As for me, I’m not worried about learning the pronunciation or precise stroke order of a given Kanji until it’s used in a word for vocabulary, so I’m going to slowly increase my knowledge by learning what the word sounds like and which hiragana (in that word) the Kanji replaces.
I will say, writing can assist in remembering Kanji/kana, but I think that forgetting the difference between シ and ツ just means that a student hasn’t found a proper mnemonic to remember them by (and that’s why I’m so glad I learned via tofugu instead of by writing, I would have still confused them until today if I hadn’t gotten a “memory hook” to figure out which is which to start off).
I’m not big into writing down the kanji. However, I used to write the kanji – and tried to keep the stroke order in mind. I think it’s useful to write the kanji down to increase the learner’s ability to VISUALIZE the kanji. I got pretty good at visualizing and once I did that I rarely write them down. But one can always improve one’s visualization skill.