Jan 30, 2016
How to learn Kanji quickly?
Please advice me how to learn Kanji quickly?
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on Jan 31
If you already know katakana and hiragana, you'll learn really quickly with TV. You can put the subtitles on so that you can read everything that's being said. I recommend shows like Sazaesan on Sundays at 6:30pm since it's simple, everyday Japanese. I also recommend watching Japanese music programs, like NHK Kayou Konsaato on Tuesday nights at 8. It's mostly enka, and since those songs are slower than pop/rock, it's easy to follow along and you'll pick up A LOT! Thursdays on TV Tokyo is Moku 8 Konsaato starting at 7:58pm. Anyway, this is how I learned kanji when I was a kid growing up in Canada; my relatives always sent us tapes with music shows, and I always followed along with the words at the bottom of the screen. You can pick up more kanji from the singers' names and song titles too. Good luck, and have fun! :D
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on Feb 2
Facebook used to have a cool function called Kanji Box. I don't know if it's still on there, but I found it pretty useful. I also tried that thing of making lists and sticking them around the apartment so that I was nearly always in front of some kanji at home. The best way for me though (and it's a little boring) was to keep notebooks full of kanji I needed to learn, and study them on the trains to work.
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on Feb 3
I've found great success with a phone app called "Skritter." It works like a flash card system, but allows you to practice drawing out Kanji as well as learning pronunciation and understanding meaning. There is a small subscription fee, but the first 14 days are free for you to try out without having to put in any CC info. I like it because it has lots of different vocabulary lists you can select to study from. For instance, I study out of the Genki books, and I can load up the list from the lesson I'm currently working on to hone those words in my mind. Similarly, it has lists for all the JLPT tests.
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on Feb 4
Hello I have been living for almost 20 years in Japan. I tried many books, most of them were based on the Japanese way to learn Kanji. Then I found a book named "Remembering the Kanji" by James W. Heisig. It is available on Amazon and there is also a IPhone Appli for it. The author wrote that he could manage to remember most of official kanji characters (about 2,000) in 1 month. As a foreigner in Japan, this was the most helpful book on Kanji. Of course you will not manage to remember all of them but the process is interesting. While there are about 2,000 official kanji, in daily business life you do not need to remember all of them. One rule: When you get an e-mail in Japanese (or a letter). Top third is greetings, Bottom third is greetings, so concentrate on the middle part of the e-mail. 300~500 kanji used in business would bring you to manage most of business communication in e-mails. Regards Marc
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on Feb 27
Everybody is different, but what worked for me was understanding the background of the kanji. It helped me remember them better. I had to know every kanji for my finals in University, I retained about 2000 by this method. To take the a very basic example 木 き ki is drawn like a tree, put a person 人 resting against the tree 休み becomes rest, 林 two trees is a wood, 森 three trees is a forest and so on.
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on Mar 6
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on Mar 15
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on Mar 15
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on Feb 22
Marc that is such a good hint about the contents of an email! I'd never realised it before but it's so true, the middle third is the real content. There are so many apps and books and methods for learning kanji. I believe that if you have the desire to learn then it won't matter which you choose. Get a pen, a grid book, a dictionary or kanji textbook, and start studying. Think about your goal too. Do you need to know how to write them or only read them? If you don't need to write them, don't, just study flash cards. Are you being tested for your knowledge of individual kanji or is this to survive life in Japan? If it's for daily life, learn the kanji in words and sentences, not individually. But if it's for university, you might be quizzed on the kanji individually. So look at your goal and choose how you study accordingly.
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on Jul 25
10 Answers