How To Learn Kanji Readings

So y'all're starting out on your Japanese journey.

Perchance y'all're trying to follow along with your favourite song lyrics, or mayhap y'all found a Japanese volume or manga you're super excited to read.

Mayhap you desire to write a letter of the alphabet to your new Japanese pen pal.

There's merely one trouble…

In society to read or write in Japanese you demand to know something very of import — kanji.

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What Are Kanji?

Kanji are one of three elements used in the Japanese writing system.

They are a set of written characters that have been adopted from the Chinese writing system and are used together with the native Japanese hiragana and katakana characters to write Japanese.

So if you desire to read or write in Japanese, you'll need to learn them!

Allow's take a closer looker at the three elements of written Japanese and the role of kanji among them.

Hiragana, Katakana And… Kanji

Whenever you look at a Japanese sentence, yous probably see a bunch of minor, relatively simple characters, similar this:

これはひらがなです

Those are hiragana, one of the ways that Japanese people write downward the sounds of their linguistic communication.

You might also see other, similar characters that look a bit chunkier:

カタカナ

Those are katakana, an alphabet Japanese people use to write downwardly words that aren't originally Japanese.

Only maybe, mixed in with those characters, you spot a large, intimidating hulk, like this: 漢字を読めますか

Those are kanji, and they've been intimidating new learners of Japanese for, well, basically as long as they've existed.

Which is similar 1500 years at least!

The Benefits Of Kanji Vs. Hiragana

Kanji are borrowed from Chinese and they're more than complex than hiragana or katakana.

For example, you might know that the Japanese give-and-take for "water" is mizu.

Nosotros can write that in hiragana as みず.

This is actually phonetic, as hiragana sounds out the word:

み is "mi"
ず is "zu"

However, we tin also write the same discussion in kanji as 水.

It's still pronounced mizu, but at present we tin can represent that entire idea in ane unmarried character instead of "spelling it out" in hiragana with two separate characters.

Sometimes, if you lot put ii kanji together, they can make a new word based on their two private parts.

Did y'all know that 漢 (kan, or かん) means "Chinese"?

And the character ji (字, or じ) ways, well, "character."

What happens when you lot put them together? 漢字!

That'due south right, it's kanji (かんじ), which literally means "Chinese graphic symbol"!

How appropriate, correct?

Remember, Japanese borrowed kanji from the Chinese, so of course it makes sense to telephone call them "Chinese characters."

Hiragana is a user-friendly style to "spell out" a word if you don't know how to write its kanji but yous do know how to say information technology.

All the same, using kanji saves a lot of space, and if you lot learn to understand how kanji are fabricated, you may even be able to guess what some characters hateful or how to say them, even if you've never seen them before!

Nonetheless, in order to do that, you lot have to know how kanji are set upwardly, which is what we'll expect at next…

How Are Kanji Set Up?

Remember of kanji like a trivial puzzle; they're fabricated out of pieces, and each slice has a specific place where it fits in.

As an instance, let's take a wait at the kanji 海, or うみ (umi).

If we take information technology autonomously, we tin can get a hint on what it ways.

Endeavour breaking information technology into a left side and a right side.

On the right side we tin abstruse 毎, a regular sometime kanji that nosotros might find anywhere.

On the left side that leaves u with 氵, which means "water".

Could it exist that the kanji 海 which is made up of these two more basic parts has something to do with water?

You bet!

海 is the kanji for "ocean".

If you had known that 氵means water, you might take been able to guess what this word meant if yous saw information technology in a sentence.

The Transformation Of Radicals In Kanji

Merely hang on a second…

We already know from our previous instance that 水 means water, then what'south going on?

Why practice these 2 look different when they mean the same thing?

This slice of kanji that gets tacked on to a bigger kanji is called a radical, and radicals change shape when y'all put them onto another kanji.

There are 214 radicals in Japanese and these are the base characters from which all other more advanced characters are built.

You might see this in, say, "world" (土) vs. 塚, a "little loma" or burial mound.

The earth symbol looks near the same appears on the left side of this kanji.

Just when it is used as a radical in this manner, we can see its bottom line showtime to slant upward.

Tin you come across conspicuously how the line at the bottom of 土 slants up when it become part of 塚?

It also happens with 人, which means "person."

If nosotros use 人 as a radical, suddenly "woah!", we get 侠 ("tomboy")! Information technology hardly looks the same.

Certain, it can be frustrating to retrieve, "Wow, I only learned some kanji, and now I have to learn them again in gild to be able to tell what they are when they're radicals!"

But the good news is, at that place's not actually that many radicals.

If you just acquire a few common ones, similar the h2o, globe, and person radicals above, yous've already got a big head outset.

Whenever you take a look at a kanji, see if you can spot a radical and think about whether it tin give you a inkling on the kanji'south meaning.

How To Learn Kanji? six Steps To Go You Started

The first stride is ever the hardest, they say! So to get in a scrap easier for you lot, hither are vi simple steps you can have to start learning Kanji correct abroad.

1. Start Past Learning The Radicals

Equally you saw in the final section, radicals a pretty big part of how kanji are set up!

These characters are the 'basis' for almost of the more complicated kanji characters so it'southward a good idea to chief them first.

There are 214 in total but y'all can offset past merely focusing on the near mutual ones and gradually building up your knowledge from in that location.

2. Practice Stroke Order To Assistance You Memorise Kanji

1 of the all-time means to memorise kanji is to learn to write in kanji.

Did you know that kanji are written in a specific order, line by line?

This is called "stroke order," and while it seems similar it wouldn't brand much of a deviation, it's really important.

Take a look at 海 again.

When writing this kanji, you would start with the topmost dot on the left.

Then the second dot down, and so the final stroke in the radical.

Afterwards that, move all the way dorsum upward to the height and brand the fiddling hat (2 strokes, starting time the one on the left, then the horizontal 1).

Japanese dictionaries will commonly tell you what order to draw the strokes in.

And then… who cares?

Does it actually affair what social club I draw the lines in?

Well, get-go of all, people reading your handwriting really care.

If you do a stroke backward or start in the incorrect place, it can make your kanji hard to read.

Imagine how much wobblier and weird it would look if you drew a check marking by starting at the very pinnacle and going backward!

You'll also find that later you practice stroke guild for a scrap, it becomes easier to think kanji.

And then even if y'all're focusing on learning to read rather than write in Japanese, it's worth practicing stroke order equally a mode to help you lot memorise the kanji and therefore improve your reading skills!

3. Learn Jouyou Kanji

Okay, that's overnice and all—but how do you actually cull which kanji to learn?

Later all, there are more fifty,000! Phew!

The easiest way to cull your kanji is to focus on the jouyou kanji.

(Jouyou is written as 常用漢字, which literally means, "commonly used Chinese characters." Encounter how we can approximate what kanji mean when we put them together?)

The jouyou kanji are what kids in Japan learn first.

They're the most mutual kanji yous'll see, and if you learn all of them, you lot'll be able to read at least 80% of the Japanese language you lot observe anywhere.

That'south a large step!

The jouyou kanji will guide y'all through some really helpful words – everything from "tree" (木) and "me" (私) to more than advanced words like "constabulary" (法律) and "vicious cycle" (悪循環, which is 1 of my favorite kanji, by the way; "bad" + "repeating" + "circle"? It'south perfect!).

4. Supplement Jouyou Kanji With Other Words That Are Important To You

As yous go through the jouyou kanji, you might think to yourself, "Man, I wish I knew how to say X!"

Supplement the jouyou kanji you're learning with any words that are important to yous.

This will depend a lot on why you're learning Japanese in the first identify.

If you want to talk to a pen pal, try thinking about words you'll employ often: seasons, the atmospheric condition, what you do in your life.

If you're learning kanji and then you tin do research in a specific field, try to think of words that are really important for describing what yous do.

Or if you're learning Japanese in social club to read Japanese literature or manga, focus on the vocabulary that's nearly relevant to the types of things you read.

Choose some words that are relevant to y'all and practise those alongside the jouyou kanji.

5. Use Spaced Repetition

I already mentioned how you lot tin practise writing kanji past learning stroke orders, simply reading kanji is another important skill to develop.

One really easy way to do this is by using a smartphone app like Anki or Flashcards Palatial that use spaced repetition engineering science.

When you apply these apps, you tin create your own set up of flashcards to practise your kanji with!

Endeavour making kanji flashcards for any kanji you take a hard time remembering. I do information technology a few different ways:

Make cards with kanji on the front to practise either for their meaning or pronunciation.
Create cards with whole sentences on them and practice reading them, kanji and all.
Make cards with a give-and-take in your native language on the forepart, and then endeavor to write out the kanji that y'all would use for it.

What makes spaced repetition great is that it learns from you.

If you lot ever get a particular carte right, it will wait a while before it gives you that card again.

If y'all often go a kanji wrong, it will show yous that menu more often until you lot get it down.

These systems accommodate to your learning style and make kanji memorization a blast!

half-dozen. Read In Japanese As Much As Possible So You Can See Kanji In Context

Memorising kanji is one thing… simply unless you see them in context you'll never really acquire how to use them in real-life situations when you need to write or speak the words yourself!

That's why I believe information technology's of import to practice lots and lots of reading in Japanese so that y'all tin can learn not just what each kanji means merely how it's actually used as part of the language. Reading is at the core of the StoryLearning® method.

The challenge hither is finding interesting reading textile that's at the correct level for y'all.

Afterwards all, reading volition only exist constructive if you can sympathize the bulk of what y'all're reading.

Y'all also need to listen to audio of what y'all read if possible, otherwise you won't know how to pronounce the new kanji you lot see!

All in all, fabric similar this is pretty hard to find.

So I decided to create it myself!

It's called Conversations and it tin acquire to read kanji naturally, in context, while listening to audio at the same time.

I've likewise included hiragana transcriptions of central words in the text then that you have that aid as you piece of work to improve your kanji knowledge!

You can find out more almost it here.

Learning Kanji Is Challenging, But You Can Practise It!

Kanji might seem overwhelming, particularly when y'all're thinking about radicals and stroke order.

"How am I ever going to do this?" you might wonder.

The all-time matter to practise is just bound correct in with the jouyou kanji and get started. I recommend you begin by enrolling in Japanese Uncovered. The class includes a number of kanji lessons and you'll be able to enquire questions and go feedback from our squad of Japanese experts.

You'll start with easy, two- or three-stroke characters, and before yous know information technology, you'll look at kanji with xvi strokes and think, "Eh, nil I haven't seen before!"

Spend plenty of fourth dimension exploring how different kanji are constructed and read them regularly in context, and you'll be well on your mode to success!

Image credit: "Japanese_Reading" by Arnaud Titoy [CC By 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/past/two.0)], via Wikimedia Commons