How to master Japanese Kanji…fast and efficiently
Several months ago, I have started my Japanese language learning journey in Hikaru Nihongo with my awesome Sensei Alaa and Solafa.
The learning journey went smooth until I met the beast……the Kanji.
Kanji (漢字; Japanese pronunciation: [kandʑi] ), or kan’ji, are the adopted logographic Chinese characters (hànzì)[1] that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana and katakana. The Japanese term kanji for the Chinese characters literally means “Han characters”[2] and is written using the same characters as the Chinese word hànzì.[3]
In more simple words Kanji is the bases for the Japanese writing system.
Kanji Struggle
I will try to summarize my current Kanji struggle and how I’m trying to overcome it, in a hope to find the best route to master the Kanji.When you first want to study Kanji you will encounter a lot of different pieces which you need to memorize for each Kanji character.
These different pieces are sometimes related, but most of the time it have no relation at all and will drive you crazy. Also, it will make the memorization process of Kanji difficult and a time consuming process.
I will try to highlight these different pieces of Kanji characters and how I encounter each part of the equation.Please note that this is a developing method, so it may change over time ….
Little bit of history…
First, Let me highlight some historical background. Japanese language was first a spoken language and it didn’t have a written system like other languages. So there were at least a Japanese word for everyday objects.
When Japanese people tried to make their own written system, they looked around to their neighbour China and borrowed Chinese characters which is of course … the Kanji characters.
The borrowing itself isn’t a problem, the problem is how they borrowed it and how they merged it within their language.
When they borrowed the Kanji characters, each Kanji did already have its own Chinese pronunciation, so Japanese bring it with the Kanji character which will make later the On’yomi (音読み?, literally “sound(-based) reading”) or On-reading for that Kanji character, only with a twist……. Can you guess it?!
The On’yomi or On-reading is the Chinese pronunciation but as the Japanese people hear it. And as the Chinese and Japanese people pronounce things differently, the original Chinese pronunciation and its Japanese counterpart is not similar and in sometime different from its ancestors.
And to make things a lot worst, the Chinese pronunciations were different for some parts of China than another. Also, these pronunciations did changed over time.
So, we were left with multiple Chinese pronunciation for the same Kanji character and of course Japanese brought them along.
So…….. You guessed it right we have multiple On’yomi or On-reading for the same Kanji character….. :(
Also, Japanese was already a spoken language first and have their own pronunciation for things which make later on the Kun’yomi (訓読み?, lit. “meaning reading”), the native reading or Kun-reading.
These Kun’yomi or Kun-reading were then related to different Kanji characters they borrowed. As with On’yomi, Kanji sometimes have multiple Kun’yomi.
So…. Each Kanji character is composed of the following:
- Symbol: The drawing sketch of the Kanji character itself.
- Kun-Reading: Native Japanese pronunciation [multiple ones in some cases]
- On-Reading: Pronunciation/s drived from the original Chinese.
Japanese language Bomb
There is no definitive count of kanji characters, just as there is none of Chinese characters generally. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters. The Zhonghua Zihai, published in 1994 in China contains about 85,000 characters;[15][16][17] however, the majority of these are not in common use in any country, and many are obscure variants or archaic forms.
Japanese have about 50,000 Kanji characters O_0 which is a massive number for a language….. But there is a good news….
Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 characters are commonly used in Japan, a few thousand more find occasional use.
There are a several lists of Kanji… The one I’m interested in is The jōyō kanji.
The jōyō kanji (常用漢字?, literally “regular-use Chinese characters”) is the guide to kanji characters and their readings, announced officially by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Current jōyō kanji are those on a list of 2,136 characters issued in 2010.
The 2,136 kanji in the jōyō kanji consist of:
1,006 kanji taught in primary school (the kyōiku kanji)
1,130 additional kanji taught in secondary school
Foreign learners of Japanese also often focus their kanji studies on the jōyō kanji list.
The jōyō kanji list consists of 2136 Kanji character …. Not that good actually :] .. Sorry, but still better than 50,000 Kanji character.
Kanji Memorization problem
The problem that I’m trying to find a solution to it is how effectively memorize each Kanji character with its Symbol, On-readings and Kun-readings.
Let me first introduce to you some of the techniques used for each piece of the Kanji character.
Kanji Symbol
Each Kanji symbol consists of different number of strokes which some times will look like a baby sketches :)
You need to memorize its shape, number of stokes and order of these strokes …. Why strokes number and order, you ask ?!!!!!
Because you will need the number of stokes most of the time in order to lookup a Kanji in dictionary and the order of stokes in order to make your Kanji character looks like the original Japanese character and it is a good habit at the end.
There are a lot of techniques that you will find out there that trying to make you memorize the Kanji symbol, most of it falls in one of the following categories:
- Pictographic.
- Written Mnemonics.
- Repeat… Repeat … Repeat….. To infinity and beyond…. :)
Lets go into each of these techniques quickly…
Pictographic : In which they are trying to related the Kanji symbol with a story picture or a drawings to make it stick in your head.
This is divided into two further groups:
- The “What they call the origin of the Kanji”… In which they give you some picture stories and trying to convince you that this is the origin of the word…. They begin with some nice clear picture … Then another unclear drawing and then …. wait for it….. BOOM …. Surprise ……..The current Kanji symbol…. :]
Can you see what I mean …. Does the above origin and drawings make any sense to the word 愛 love ?!!!!
Another example
How it come that this is “to press; pressure” get what I mean. Sometimes the pictograph has some meaning, but most of the time it doesn’t.
Source: The Key To Kanji: A Visual History of 1100 Characters book
- The picture mnemonics or hints … In which they give you a picture that looks similar to the Kanji and build some relations with it, so that you can relate that Kanji to this picture in your head.
Word Mnemonics : As the name indicates is relating the Kanji with some word story instead of a picture. Also, they will tell you if any story didn’t make it stick in you head… Just come up with a new one.
This is the base of “Remembering the Kanji” book and technique. I find it useful but sometimes I find that the story isn’t working for me.
I use koohii website which is a crowd-sourced and up-voted written mnemonics from other learners if you don’t want to come up with yours.It recommend Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig to study with the website.
And Finally, the old-wise man way: write the Kanji zillion number of time, Repeat and Repeat ……….. until it stick in you head and if it didn’t …. Just Repeat …………… :(
To put things in more clear way, I think there is almost noting to call the origin of a Kanji character. Sure along time ago there must be some kind of origin, but now I think there isn’t.
I personally, find the second method “written mnemonics” is the most appropriate and more practical.
Kanji Symbol Strokes and its Strokes order:
Most guides will tell you to memorize Kanji Symbol and memorize it stroke-by-stroke. This is might be an easy task especially when you start learning Kanji as you will usually will start with low number of strokes for each Kanji character mostly will consists of 4 or 5 strokes.
But when the number of strokes increase, memorizing the number of strokes, order and its shapes will be a huge headache and will eventually drive you crazy…
Simply there is a solution that most of guides will not tell you about at the beginning and honestly I don’t know why?!!!…. The whole Kanji characters is composed of smaller building unit called Radicals.
Radicals is like LEGO building blocks which will help you build different types and shapes of LEGO designs.
Kanji have exactly 214 Radicals which is used and mixed together to make any Kanji character.
As the LEGO building blocks could be used to build different designs and shapes. For example the same Lego building blocks is used to build different designs of Rainbow, Radicals work exactly the same. It is considered like the building blocks of Kanji, so combinations of different radicals will make different Kanji characters.
So the good news, I have only to know each of the 214 Radicals and its strokes order, in order to build any Kanji character ever, which is a relief instead of having to memorize a loooooot of Kanji characters with their +4 strokes with each stroke order..
You can see here the all 214 Radicals ordered by their number of strokes, below is some of these radicals.
The meaning hear doesn’t matter, it is a way to make it easy to call each one of these radicals.
Lets examine by example how does these radicals actually make learning Kanji a more easier and straight forward process.
In example 1… there are two different kanji characters and their corresponding meanings.If you make a closer look, you will find that these Kanji characters contains the same 2 building blocks…
The only catch that changing the position of the radical inside the Kanji character will change its shape a little, but will preserve its main shape and stroke order.
If you follow the traditional ways, you will need to memorize these kanji characters stroke-by-stroke in order to memorize the number and order of these strokes.
You can imagine what will be the case if you have a kanji with more stoke and they are a lot..believe me…. Simply you will kill yourself after a while :(
But if you want to memorize the above kanji characters using radicals, you will need only to memorize its building blocks and their order inside the kanji character… Nothing more…as each radicals you already memorized their stroke number and order… more simple and efficient, What do you think?!
Also an extra bonus of using radicals instead of plain strokes, you will never come to a case that you treat the kanji as a drawing and make an extra jump strokes or exceeding lines.
On-readings and Kun-readings
I’m still trying to figure out more practical ways to memorize these readings, but the obvious one for now is memorize some words for each kanji character which include these readings.This puts a lot of extra work and effort needed to memorize more extra vocabs aside from our normal lessons’ ones.
In my opinion, if we use the radicals methods all kanji characters will be roughly the same it doesn’t mater what grade it is in.
So I suggest that we stick to lessons’ vocabs and learn the kanji associated with it, instead of going in separate parallel paths.
This is my thoughts until now in how to master Japanese Kanji…. I’m still learning and will update this method frequently in a search for a better,faster and more efficient way… so stay tuned.
Please feel free to feedback me if you have any ideas or comments.
