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Kanji learning : kyouiku or JLPT

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Po-ru
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5479 days ago

173 posts - 235 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Spanish, Norwegian, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 1 of 4
24 December 2009 at 11:02pm | IP Logged 
As a foreigner learning Japanese, which do you think is more effective as to learning the
Kanji. Learning the kyouiku kanji by grades(1st grade, 2nd grade, etc.) or learning them
through the JLPT site?
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wildweathel
Newbie
United States
Joined 5562 days ago

32 posts - 71 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 4
25 December 2009 at 3:04am | IP Logged 
If your goal is proficiency, you want a grapheme based method. I know about Remembering the Kanji and Kanjidamage.

RtK teaches writing, approximate meaning, and on'yomi of 3005 characters over three volumes:

1: writing and meaning, about 2000
2: on'yomi, same characters as 1
3: remaining characters

KD teaches almost everything that RtK covers (skipping many less-common on'yomi) plus common words with their pronunciations. 2000 characters with better selection than RtK, plus better (or at least more risqué) mnemonics that cover all characters--RtK gives mnemonics for about 600 characters before turning you loose to invent your own.

I've completed RtK 1, am working on 3, and might return to 2 for the easiest to acquire groups (where on'yomi is specified by an element of the character). The most critical thing is to know how to break down characters into parts and remember how to write them--which will automatically make it much easier to recognize them.

on'yomi and jukugo are nice to know, but shouldn't be learned at the expense of writing. If I were to do it again, I'd learn writing and on'yomi from KD, leaving vocab/kun'yomi for later.

I think 2000 is a good number to initially learn since it will only take a few months at a leisurely pace--or 3 weeks if you do it full time(!)--while still giving you nearly every character you'll see in real text. If you want to tackle something smaller, google "Remembering the Kanji Lite"--a 1110 character reduction of RtK to the JLPT 2 list.

Best of luck in your kanji studies.
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Captain Haddock
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
kanjicabinet.tumblr.
Joined 6767 days ago

2282 posts - 2814 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek

 
 Message 3 of 4
25 December 2009 at 4:25am | IP Logged 
I learned the kanji by grades and used the same elementary school texts that Japanese children use. I found this
was a good way to get exposed to real Japanese instead of "Japanese for learners". This worked well for me.

Keep in mind as well, that even if you specifically study for the JLPT tests, (1) a certain percentage of material for
each test is taken from vocabulary and grammar not prescribed for that level, and (2) all the levels are getting
revised this year, rendering old material somewhat obsolete.
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ericspinelli
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5782 days ago

249 posts - 493 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Italian

 
 Message 4 of 4
27 December 2009 at 9:52pm | IP Logged 
I used the JLPT lists. I learned levels 3 and 4 in order by rote. I then started reading and while doing so I completed Unicom's excellent The Preparatory course for the Japanese Proficiency Test Level 2 Kanji Tango Drill. The book combines characters, phonetic components, and vocabulary and is complete with example sentences.

While there are benefits to working through the kyouiku lists, keep in mind that they are designed for children. In the end you will need to know them all, but there are a number of characters that are quite useful for an adult but do not show up until the later grades for a variety of reasons. There are certain benefits to learning from the materials Japanese children use - which include additional information, vocabulary, etc. - but I wouldn't learn the kyouiku kanji from a plain list.


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