ahibba Wrote:Actually I knew a handful of English words before ever learning the alphabetAijin Wrote:Studying kanji before studying any of the words that use those kanji seems a little odd to me.When you started learning English, didn't you learn the alphabet first before any of the words that use those letters? or did you learn it in this way: A apple B banana. How can you you read the word "apple" if you did not study letters p, l, e yet?
That happens when you're exposed to common words in media before you've even begun formal education on the language though.I don't know if the analogy is fair. I'd compare the roman alphabet more to hiragana/katakana, which of course has to be learned before it can be used. But for kanji, it's hard for me to imagine learning only how to write the characters first, and then having to go back and learn all the readings, and then on top of that having to learn all the vocabulary that uses those various readings.
To me it makes more sense to do it at the same time, so that you can instantly use what you learn. If you only learn how to write a character and it's rough English meaning, it has no practical application until you learn the readings and words that use it. But, I think that probably both ways of learning have their advantages and in the end equal the same amount of time. So whatever works best for people is great
I would be interested in hearing more about how you guys feel that style helps you/is better than learning everything at once though! Pros/cons would be great.