To skip my rambling and go directly to the point of this post click here, although it might still be worth reading to find out what brought me here!
皆さん、こんにちは！
It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?? Sorry for being on such a long hiatus from FunWithJapanese.com. A lot has happened in my life since I last made an update of any kind to this website. I’ll spare you the boring details, but the point is I just sort of hit a plateau with my Japanese studies and with life happening at the same time, it was hard to get motivated again to pick it back up.
But I’m back! Needless to say I have that 火 lit up under my ass again! Better yet, how about a 大炎! I think I finally found my fastest way to learn Kanji!
If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you’re at a similar level with your Japanese as I am. You know your kanas, you know some Kanji and you can more or less make really small fluff talk with some cute J-chicks at http://twitcasting.tv. But like me, you thirst for more.
You aren’t quite Japanese-literate enough to even express yourself quickly or efficiently, let alone even try to open your mouth to simply say, “today was a good day” (今日はいい日でした). You’re sitting there watching all kinds of J-dramas, animes and mindlessly listening to Japanese radio but nothing seems to be progressing — even though you conveniently ignore the huge elephant in the room: THE DREADED 2,000+ KANJI that you wish you could just plug yourself into the Matrix and download to your brain in 2 seconds or take a pill like Bradley Cooper in the movie Limitless and learn them all in 30 minutes.
You know you should learn them if you ever plan on being good at this stuff. But why is it so damn hard to even get started?! Using Kanji flashcards?? No way. I bought a set a couple years ago and never studied with them once. Way too much cluttered info and way too confusing to absorb anything simple from them. (I should throw them up on eBay now that I think about it.) Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji?? Okay I won’t lie, I gave it a shot but I just felt that since I wasn’t learning any ONyomi or KUNyomi readings along with the mnemonics, I was creating extra work for myself down the road. What’s the point of learning each Kanji’s meaning, but not learning how to pronounce them or even see them being used in compound words?! To me it seemed like an ass-backwards way of learning. No thanks, not for me! I want to be able to read and think in Japanese by the time I’m finished tackling something extensive such as RTK.
So once again I hit up Google and searched “fastest way to learn Kanji” but this time had the genius idea of appending the word “readings” to this search… And that’s when I stumbled across KANJIDAMAGE! This is the gem I’ve been searching for! This guy knows what he’s doing. I really dig his approach when it comes to cramming so much info for each kanji into an easy-to-remember mnemonic. It’s like RTK, but with yo’ mama jokes. (Literally.)
Two main features about KANJIDAMAGE that I found to be extremely helpful:
- The ONyomi (Chinese) reading is treated as a “sonic” (heard) radical and is included in the mnemonic. Which leaves more brain room and takes less brain effort to remember the other KUNyomi readings if any.
- I realized that when it comes to remembering a kanji by its radicals, there essentially are no “rules” or “concrete” meanings for a radical — either use the mnemonic provided or use your wild imagination to make up your own mnemonic — whatever wacky story it takes to remember the meaning and readings!
I’ve always read about and have seen videos of people taking entries from RTK and one-by-one creating a new Anki flash card for their kanji studying decks, but never thought I could see myself taking the time for all that mess. But thanks to my two favorite aspects of KANJIDAMAGE listed above, creating my very own kanji study deck for Anki now seems less of a chore and more of an adventure!
[ Even after creating my first 100 Anki cards, I was able to correctly read a few compound kanji I stumbled across! Example: 湖 (big lake; ONyomi: KO) + 水 (water; ONyomi: SUI) = 湖水 (KOSUI = lake)!!! Okay, yeah both 湖 and 湖水 mean “lake”, but first reading 湖水 as “KOSUI” and then finding out afterwards it also means lake was actually a rewarding experience to be quite honest. I can read Japanese kanji!!! ]
After spending some time now with KANJIDAMAGE, it’s starting to make sense why similar websites such as TextFugu are putting their own spin on how to learn Kanji with radicals and mnemonics.
At the rate I am going now, I should more or less know about 1,700 kanji in the next few weeks just by casually studying. Soon enough, FunWithJapanese.com will have it’s own version of a 漢字辞書!
Stay tuned for a status report and detailed video on how I am studying my kanji!