Advice on learning Kanji.

[Apollo]

"Yea, I know what your thinking, that I'm advertising for the book" Wait..we aren't supposed to advirtise anything on thise site...even if it's related to Japanese?

[hideko_san]

obviously we can give pointers, but always in an objective way

[Apollo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, is it true that it is best to go

1. Kanji
2. Hiragana
3. Katakana

In that sequential order?:o

[hideko_san]

no, not at all....
hiragana first, then katakana and finally kanji

[sparky]

*lol* That would be weird! Imagine trying to memorize about 2,000 kanji first! :p Anyway, kanji should be last, because the different readings for the kanji are given in hiragana and katakana, so you should know them first.

Oh, and my two cents about this little "hideko_san battle": seriously, who cares how many kanji he/she is memorizing per day? That's his/her problem. If he/she is telling the truth, great; if not, well then what a bad choice of character because then he/she would be a liar. I suggest you all cut it out. It's a ridiculous fight. People work in different paces, so all I have to say is that each person should follow his or her own pace. If hideko_san's is faster, well then, good for him/her. If not, I'm sure he/she will tone it down so that he/she can learn better. So for all students, ganbatte ne!

[hideko_san]

thank you, but in the last couple of days, i've had to tone down my pace, i'm down to 10 a day maybe now, since the kanjis are getting harder to make stories for.
I see now that a better rereading of my kanji-vocabulary will have to be done, since there are now several kanji i can't remember.

[Apollo]

I know this is an odd question, but I am learning the romanjii first, before I even start with kanji, katakana, and hiragana. But I was curious, does kanj, kat, and hira have a certain amount of sounds that you have to read or what not? Because I wrote something in hiragana to my friend the other day and he seemed to be counting something.

[sparky]

I'm not sure I understood you... Each symbol of Hiragana and Katakana has only one sound and no meaning. Kanji, however, can have various sounds depending on the word, usage, meaning, context, etc.

For example, "hi" would be:

Hiragana
- ひ (just "hi", no meaning)

Katakana
- ヒ (just "hi", no meaning)

Kanji
- 日 (can be read as "hi", "nichi", "bi", etc. and means "day" or "sun" )
- 火 (can be read as "hi" or "ka" and means "fire" )
- etc. (there are way too many to list... :p)

I hope I've helped at least a little!

[hideko_san]

火 can also be read as "bi" and a wasteland of other readings....
Some kanji may have up to 20 different readings, while most have between 1-4 that are used pretty commonly....

[hideko_san]

i also feel that learning the romaji is like putting another three weights on your shoulders, because you start to think in english or at least roman letters, but they don't have those in japan.... in norwegian we would call this "bjørnetjeneste" -directly translated as "bear favor", you do one step that you believe will help, but in the long run will hinder you.

[john2]

Daisuke wrote:
Well i don't know how fast you learn, it did just sound very unrealistic. I have been studying for a month and 2 weeks, and I do only know 22 kanji. The first two weeks, i studied only hiragana everyday, which made me a little worried because people do allways say that they learnt it in a week.. I feel kinda proud of myself everytime i learn something new, because you don't find many people in Denmark who does actually speak japanese.

Seems like a good book... If it is that useful, i'll buy it.

plesse plesse plesse teach me how to do them that quickly

[s0n9al]

Actually Chinese students will find it easier to study kanji...as the kanji characters are chinese characters....

[Rurounikenshin]

i think what you say is very good for me, i'm studying Japanese, so i need your advise! Thank you very much!

[HavocS]

Hi,

I started learning japanese two months ago - first hiragana, then katakana (well, this took me one month, because I was satisfied with hiragana and too lazy to start katakana ) and I just started kanji recently. My method is to write down every single kanji, readings in hiragana and meanings in english (since my native language is hungarian, I practice english this way too). I think the first 80 kanjis are pretty simple to memorize, my only problem is readings...) The first 80 kanjis can be learnt in 3-4 days because they are not so complicated, grade 2 kanjis are a LOT more difficult... so if someone says he learns 80 kanji a week that might be possible, but he has learnt ONLY the first 80 and may think it will be this easy in the future too...

[sarcastic_enigma]

Which form of Kana is used more? Hiragana or Katakana? Or would it be better to learn both?