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Kanji help

  Tags: JLP | Kanji | Book
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
seals44
Newbie
United States
Joined 5795 days ago

25 posts - 25 votes
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 1 of 6
02 July 2008 at 5:31pm | IP Logged 
I was going to start learning the Kanji through the Heisig books, but another member of this forum (Maximus) suggested the Kanji books by Bonjinsha. I recieved one of the books, but I have a question; what is the point of the books? Wouldn't I be better of to just get the Kanji in JLPT order, put them in an srs, and study them that way? It would be essentially the same thing, but I would get the Kanji in a better order (neither of the books I mentioned are in JPLT order), and I would save the cost of buying a whole lot more books. If somebody could please explain to me that and why what they suggest is a better way/makes sense, it would be greatly appreciated.

Second, what exactly do I need to learn with the Kanji. Do I just need to relate the symbol to the KUN and ON readings and know the translation? Thanks.
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ElfoEscuro
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
cyworld.com/brahmapu
Joined 6067 days ago

408 posts - 423 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese, English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 6
02 July 2008 at 10:05pm | IP Logged 
Personally, I recommend using Heisig's book. The order in which the kanji are presented in the book is specifically to aid in memorization. The book also provides tips in creating mnemonics to help memorize the kanji.
You could learn kanji using the alternative you suggested but it will be harder.
When learning kanji, you should learn only the core meaning; no readings. It's better to learn readings later, on a sentence by sentence basis.
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Yukamina
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6042 days ago

281 posts - 332 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean, French

 
 Message 3 of 6
02 July 2008 at 10:25pm | IP Logged 
Why is JLPT order better? Half the point of Heisig is that the kanji are ordered like building blocks and with similarly structured kanji.

For example...

元 頁 頑 see the third kanji is made up of the first two. Now, instead of learning the third one first, you learn the components(or "primitives") first.


立 木 見 親 斤 新 again, the simpler parts are taught first, even if they are uncommon kanji, like 斤.


末 未 沫 味 妹 朱 株 these kanji are taught together, you can see there are some look-a-likes and kanji that share components.

Some people don't like the idea of learning less common kanji before the most common, but if you plan to read Japanese, you'll need the less common ones too(so why put them off? I think it decreases your chances of learning them altogether)
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furrykef
Senior Member
United States
furrykef.com/
Joined 6250 days ago

681 posts - 862 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian

 
 Message 4 of 6
03 July 2008 at 2:33pm | IP Logged 
JLPT order is not a logical order for learning kanji because you often learn more complex kanji before simpler kanji that way. For example, you may learn 花 (flower) before 化 (change) because it's more common. That's a simple example, but there are some really complicated characters where you'll really appreciate learning the simpler ones first. As said before, Heisig does a really good job of this.

If you want to do Heisig, then I very strongly recommend using the site Reviewing the Kanji -- including its SRS. I ignored it for a long time because I had no idea just how helpful the site was, but now I know better. I think it's crazy to do Heisig without it.

seals44 wrote:
Second, what exactly do I need to learn with the Kanji. Do I just need to relate the symbol to the KUN and ON readings and know the translation? Thanks.


I think it's a waste of time to memorize "on" and "kun" readings. Instead I think you should use your SRS to memorize whole sentences and words, like this:

猫は車の前にいます。
ねこは くるまの まえに います。
The cat is in front of the car.

I'm not sure yet what the best way to input sentences like these into the SRS is, but I would make sure that you have sentences going from English to Japanese in one form or another. Of course, you should be careful... sentences that have too many unfamiliar words are hard to memorize.

- Kef


Edited by furrykef on 03 July 2008 at 2:46pm

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Cerinety
Diglot
Newbie
Netherlands
cerinety.deviantart.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5778 days ago

11 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: English, Dutch*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 5 of 6
07 July 2008 at 8:29am | IP Logged 
Ive just got some random book called 'kanji and kana' which is al the normal kanji and name kanji. Im just going to learn them from the lowest amount of strokes to the highest. I think what book you use is not really impostant. As long as the kanji comes along with on and kunreading a translation and some examples. Books dont really help further in learning. Just take some papers and write say it out loud and write it all the time....
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Monox D. I-Fly
Senior Member
Indonesia
monoxdifly.iopc.us
Joined 4913 days ago

762 posts - 664 votes 
Speaks: Indonesian*

 
 Message 6 of 6
19 August 2017 at 5:41pm | IP Logged 
Yukamina wrote:

元 頁 頑 see the third kanji is made up of the first two. Now, instead of learning the third one first, you learn the components(or "primitives") first.


By the way what is the meaning of the Kanji 頁? I know it's radical for "head", but what does this Kanji mean on its own?


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