The other day I wrote a somewhat obstinate piece on why learning kanji thoroughly is important for the learner of the Japanese language, accidentally calling myself, and possibly you – my apologies for that – a dumbass in the process. Now that I’ve gotten that off my heart, I’d like to touch upon the much more difficult and substantial topic of how to learn those kanji. I do not mean this to be a definite and final guide in any way, but rather I hope to share my experience and thoughts regarding the most efficient way(s) to kanji fluency.
First of all: my kanji level is already pretty high. I can read books and (somewhat) newspapers in Japanese. Secondly: I find kanji quite easy to learn. I know a lot of people who think studying kanji is worse than being eaten alive by killer ants (I just saw the movie “The Hive”, so please excuse the analogy), but for me learning kanji has always been very enjoyable. Intelligence tests have shown (as I already suspected) that my intellect is based around spatial/visual understanding of concepts, and perhaps kanji just happen to be my calling in this world… Or maybe I’ve found fun interesting and stumulating ways of studying kanji, which I hope – and actually think – is the case, because that means you can find it just as fun as I do!
Thirdly: I still have a lot of learning to do. I estimate I know about two thirds of the kanji I need to know now. So there’s still a lot “in it” for myself to refine my study methods as well.
Anyway nuf of me jabberin bout myself. Please let me tell you what I think is the poodle’s core of kanji, and the key to the successful learning of which:
It’s true! Kanji, to the Japanese, is just the character set you use to write Japanese. Japanese is a natural language and thus it’s primarily spoken. Kanji might not be the most efficient way of transcribing spoken word into writing, but it is nevertheless how it’s done in Japanese. And efficiency aside – it’s a very charismatic method!
Now, there are people - such as my arch nemesis Dr. Heisig - who want you to believe stories such as: Japanese is very easy for Chinese people to learn because they already “know” the characters, so the best way for a Western fatass such as myself to learn kanji must be to first remember their shapes and compositions and associate them to some stupid keyword. Then I’ll be on a par with the Chinese and can start learning the Japanese readings and the words they’re used in – not to mention trying to forget all the erroneous and stupid keywords I was made to believe to be actually useful.
Well people, I don’t want to go through the process of becoming Chinese in order to become Japanese, nor do I want to spend substantial time memorizing misinformation, as the keywords are often not very related to the actual usage of the kanji. I want to learn Japanese kanji; their meanings, writings, usages, and – most of all – pronunciations.
Kanji are the characters used to write words, and thus it is essential to learn their phonetic values as well as practical usages in writing vocabulary words. Concepts such as “meanings” or “keywords” for kanji are constructed and construed.
I do believe kanji have meanings though, and I’d like to recommend a good book for learning them. It’s the book called “A Guide To Remembering Japanese Characters” by Kenneth G. Henshall. First of all I’d like to raise my two major complaints about that book, that are essentially the same: the title and the “mnemonics” thing. I will go ahead and blame that -again! – mainly on my arch nemesis Dr. Heisig. It’s all Heisig’s fault! Everyone seems to think you need some magic mnemonic formula to magically “remember” the kanji… It makes me sick!
But Henshall’s book – besides the name and the stupid “mnemonics” thing attached to each entry – is actually nothing more and nothing less than a simple etymological kanji dictionary! There are many of these in Japanese, and I strongly recommend you to upgrade to a Japanese one as soon as you’re fairly comfortable with it, but until then Henshall’s book is superb.
Anyway, no book is the solution to learning the kanji. I believe everyday practical tricks are the key to that. More about that in the next post…
