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On September 13 2013 18:04 FFGenerations wrote:
oh i see, you do write them down then (you dont just stare at anki and learn to recognise them).
hrm thats interesting, i didnt know that "words" can consist of multiple kanji, i think i just thought every word has its own single kanji.
Nah, it's far more rare that a word has only one kanji than it being a construct of 2 or more. You only need to know about 2500 kanji to almost never run into unknown kanji in most normal Japanese sources. This wouldn't be possible if every word had a unique kanji.
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On September 13 2013 18:01 Tasaio wrote:
How much kanji you want to remember is all about what goal you have with your studies. As I live and study in Japan, I need to be able to read and write a lot of kanji. But if you just want to be able to communicate in basic Japanese and read simple books and so, you do not need very much knowledge of kanji.
I guess it all comes down to setting goals that suits your needs.
Even if your goal is to be able to write a lot of kanji, it's probably still better to first focus on general vocabulary and then gradually learn how to write the harder kanji to go with your existing vocabulary. Learning how to read words using harder kanji should certainly not be skipped.
People will still be able to read your stuff if you write it in hiragana (and often you can write on a computer), but you won't be able to understand certain things if you lack vocabulary. Learn the most useful things first.
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i looked at http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar and understand now what you mean by "learn words not just kanji". following a grammar guide/textbook will give me enough words in hiragana and kanji to construct sentences as i learn the grammar.
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Here's an extra piece of advice that a lot of students miss out on:
DON'T rely on non-natural resources. For example, jisho.org is my personal favorite E-J dictionary. It has a ton of sample sentences. DON'T use them. These are the same sample sentences as the ones used on wwwjdic and are from the Tanaka corpus. There are tons of mistakes in them and unnatural japanese because of the way it was compiled.
Only use example sentences you are confident are correct, or at least produced by a native. For example, example sentences from the kokugo dictionary on yahoo, or sentences from japanese sources. This makes sure you don't get into bad incorrect habits and get the incorrect mental image of the concepts.
Same if you're looking for language parters or asking for help. If you ask here for example, there's probably lots of people who can help you out, me included, but always keep in mind that what other students teach you might very well be unnatural japanese. It's quite common that a correct usage of a language is unnatural. For example, "I want to go home" and "I want to go to my building" in a sense means the same thing in English, but one is super natural and the other sounds weird even though the meaning is understood.
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What's kon and hon? Kun-reading and on-reading of a kanji?
For words, you always want to have the spelling of the word in kanji (+ sometimes hiragana) and the reading of the word in hiragana. Trying to deduce the reading of a word by looking at the readings of the kanji the word is made up of isn't going to work.
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On September 13 2013 19:26 spinesheath wrote:
What's kon and hon? Kun-reading and on-reading of a kanji?
For words, you always want to have the spelling of the word in kanji (+ sometimes hiragana) and the reading of the word in hiragana. Trying to deduce the reading of a word by looking at the readings of the kanji the word is made up of isn't going to work.
lol i didnt think i posted that. i edited my post to make more sense
question:
on this page, why does he write a dot between characters:
学生 【がく・せい】 - student
友達 【とも・だち】 - friend
元気 【げん・き】 - healthy; lively
see the ・s there?
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On September 13 2013 18:04 FFGenerations wrote:oh i see, you do write them down then (you dont just stare at anki and learn to recognise them). hrm thats interesting, i didnt know that "words" can consist of multiple kanji, i think i just thought every word has its own single kanji. my goal is really pursuing this as a hobby. its challenging, progressive and rewarding (to me). as for living/working in japan in the future, its unlikely (im working on a programming degree..), but its a good hobby for me (i go crazy for MMD) 
DEFINITELY and ALWAYS learn how to write Kanji while learning Kanji imo. That is if you're studying them in Anki don't just look at them but write them down like you said.
It's incredibly easy to look at Kanji and go "oh it's like that, yeah got that" after a couple seconds of staring and you got a basic idea about it, you're probably able to figure out what it is if you see it again but you're going to get in SO MUCH trouble if you encounter stuff that just looks alike and you start to confuse them.
And there's a ton of stuff that looks somewhat alike for people starting. As you get better you get an idea on what to pay special attention to and you recognise what the "building blocks" of a Kanji are rather than memorizing every single stroke so it get's easier but there's really no reason to make it easy on you to fall for that common mistake to just "briefly" look at it, get a basic idea and think you're fine.
動く vs 働く
線 vs 緑
as example. If you write them down it's almost impossible to mix them up. If you don't you might end mixing them up because you don't have a clear image of it but rather think like something along the lines of "oh that's the one that has that weird thingy on the left/right side, right?", which might have been something unique at the time you encountered the kanji for the first time
Edit:
On September 13 2013 19:33 FFGenerations wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2013 19:26 spinesheath wrote:
What's kon and hon? Kun-reading and on-reading of a kanji?
For words, you always want to have the spelling of the word in kanji (+ sometimes hiragana) and the reading of the word in hiragana. Trying to deduce the reading of a word by looking at the readings of the kanji the word is made up of isn't going to work. lol i didnt think i posted that. i edited my post to make more sense question: on this page, why does he write a dot between characters: 学生 【がく・せい】 - student 友達 【とも・だち】 - friend 元気 【げん・き】 - healthy; lively see the ・s there?
those are words made up out of 2 Kanjis.
学生 is made up out of 学 and 生 (duh)
the first part is what's being pronounced がく, the second part is what's being pronounced せい, making it がくせい. The dot inbetween is just there to give a help in understanding how the pronunciation comes to be. Rather than remembering がくせい it put's emphasis on it being a word build out of 2 blocks.
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yeah i do learn to write characters, it just confused me when people said "i use anki" when i thought it was more like flashcards (but spinesheath explained he uses writing tools alongside anki)
thanks; i looked up 学 by itself and see that it means school, which is pronounced がく , so understand how this will be helpful in the future
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Something that (I don't think) has been mentioned yet that I use are the Kanji in Context books. They are all Japanese so you need to be intermediate/advanced to make use of them but they are fantastic. They take a very logical and practical approach to learning kanji, plus you'll absorb a lot of the common compounds using a given character and how they are used.
A lot has been covered here already so there's not much more for me to say but one thing I really want to stress is your personal goals for the language and the way you learn best are what will determine how and what you study. I know people who can watch anime and understand 99% of what they are hearing but can't read or use grammar properly enough to pass JLPT 4. On the other hand there are people who go nuts memorizing JLPT material and pass level 1 with zero practical use of the language and no speaking ability at all. Neither of those types of people are wrong in the way they studied, they just did their own thing to meet their own goals. There's nothing wrong with that. However, if you want to truly become fluent in the language (your definition of fluency varies but let's say near-native level listening, speaking, reading and writing) obviously no single method of study is going to be enough. Unless you're some sort of language savant it's a massive undertaking that will require years and years of consistent study.
The only real "secret" to learning the language is exactly that: consistency. If you stick with it you will progress, and if you don't you won't. It's as simple as that. Doing the JLPT, or even just practice tests, can be a good way to gauge your progress but don't put too much stock in test results as it only tests a limited portion of your overall learning. Doing something you enjoy like watching anime/Japanese TV/reading manga tends to help too. The first day you begin studying you will not understand a single thing you're seeing/hearing, but try again in a month and suddenly you will pick up a few words. Try again in a few more months and you'll understand even more. While it's not an accurate measure of your progress, I've found doing this to be helpful to stave off the feeling of futility that comes when you've been studying for a while and feeling like you're getting nowhere. It can be something as simple as trying to make small talk with someone in Japanese and realizing how much better you are at expressing yourself compared to a few months ago. When you realize you are in fact making progress you will be more motivated to keep at it.
Sorry to ramble but I hope this helps some of you getting into the language. If you really want to learn Japanese don't get discouraged by the sheer amount there is to learn. Accept it's a process and stick to it.
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Niiice I've been looking around for a good source to learn japanese or at least improve mine a bit. Watching some manga in japanese with subtitles taught me a few words and expressions. but i can't read for shit
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United States2822 Posts
Also, as far as just practice and corrections go, http://lang-8.com/ is a great place to just type in a sentence and get it corrected by a native speaker.
And for grammar resources, 日本語基本文法辞典 "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" is a really good reference guide, too.
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is there some kind of NAVER, DAUM and NATE on japanese sites?
these sites really helps and provides korean learning...
and was hoping to see one on japanese sites...
example... an all in one site
1. a live chat/messaging site
2. a legit online dictionary not just translations but more than that
3. a forum for learning japanese wannabies
4. grammar related blogs
having understood korean on normal grounds...
i learn that learning foreign languages via translation mode is very very wrong...
will lead you to making false grammar constructions...
nevertheless i like to learn japanese...
from what i could see, this is entry level types...
please dont get me wrong...
edit:
oh... theres some interesting sites that they posts...
thanks for opening this topic...
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Most Japanese people in japan do not have home computers and do not understand what the internet is. In other words, no.
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On September 14 2013 06:14 riyanme wrote:
is there some kind of NAVER, DAUM and NATE on japanese sites?
these sites really helps and provides korean learning...
and was hoping to see one on japanese sites...
example... an all in one site
1. a live chat/messaging site
2. a legit online dictionary not just translations but more than that
3. a forum for learning japanese wannabies
4. grammar related blogs
having understood korean on normal grounds...
i learn that learning foreign languages via translation mode is very very wrong...
will lead you to making false grammar constructions...
nevertheless i like to learn japanese...
from what i could see, this is entry level types...
please dont get me wrong...
edit:
oh... theres some interesting sites that they posts...
thanks for opening this topic...
I guess the closest you get is yahoo.co.jp and mixi.jp. Yahoo is obviously yahoo, it's still probably the most popular "such site" on the net. Mixi is like japanese facebook.
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On September 14 2013 12:08 futility wrote:
Most Japanese people in japan do not have home computers and do not understand what the internet is. In other words, no.
"Most people" has computers in Japan. Almost 50% of all homes have smartphones. 79.5% uses the internet, according to a study be the Japanese government in 2012. So, you're wrong.
Yes, there are quite a few who don't use the Internet here, maybe more than some other industrialized countries. But to say that most Japanese people don't use Internet and do not understand what it is, is just false and ignorant.
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so whats the consensus here for going through RTK?
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On September 14 2013 21:57 Tasaio wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 12:08 futility wrote:
Most Japanese people in japan do not have home computers and do not understand what the internet is. In other words, no. "Most people" has computers in Japan. Almost 50% of all homes have smartphones. 79.5% uses the internet, according to a study be the Japanese government in 2012. So, you're wrong. Yes, there are quite a few who don't use the Internet here, maybe more than some other industrialized countries. But to say that most Japanese people don't use Internet and do not understand what it is, is just false and ignorant.
Yes and according to the Japanese government the Fukushima power plants were totally safe.
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On September 14 2013 23:44 Frolossus wrote:
so whats the consensus here for going through RTK?
Did it. I bumped into AJATT who speaks highly of RTK a few years ago and I decided to give it ago. I was a complete beginner when it came to Japanese at this point.
I personally liked it. It taught me how to write characters (I now write them as second nature, it's like learning how to ride a bike. If you remember how it looks like, you just know where everything goes and the correct strokes / order.)
I also remember most of the characters without problems. (Been awhile since I finished it, gave the book to a friend.)
Though unlike AJATT, I personally think you should combine it with something else, especially if you don't have the energy to rush through it. The book isn't designed to give you all-around Kanji information. Simply how to write them, and how to remember their meaning. So once you finish it, you won't know the Japanese pronunciation, and you will know only 1 meaning of the word, while the truth is, many characters have numerous meanings and sometimes the meaning Heisig gives isn't exactly the best imo.
Anyways, if you feel like the RTK will work for you, why not. Just remember that RTK is one small step when it comes to learning Japanese.
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I really don't see the point of learning kanji by themselves. You will still have to learn words afterwards. You might as well just learn words and apply the techniques of RTK as you go.
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I agree with spinesheath in that you shouldn't bother remembering kanji for words you don't know. When you are at a more advanced level, maybe (because the words are rare in everyday spoken language), but not at a beginner level. Learn the words first. And try to have fun while doing it!
I've never tried RTK and didn't feel I needed anything of the like. I learned them just fine by simple writing them using Anki.
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EPT
