I am having some trouble with knowing what exactly On Yomi/Kun Yomi really is. Some Kanji have the same On Yomi, which makes it more difficult to learn, is it meant to be like that? Is it also used for compound words? Kun Yomi seems to be easier to understand albeit, like On Yomi, pronunciation is a slight problem.

on-yomi are pronunciations taken from (antiquated) chinese. They are usually only used in compounds, but a few like にく (にく) have become words in their own right.

kun-yomi are native japanese readings. These are usually words in their own right (sometimes with the addition of okurigana) that existed before kanji were used to write them. Sometimes, though, they form compounds ... usually obvious 'kun' compounds with kana between the kanji, but not always.

I don't pay any attention to on-yomi/kun-yomi anymore, at least not in the sense of actively studying it. I just learn what pronunciation goes with what word. There's no point in learning 'readings' unless you're learning a word that uses that reading.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:on-yomi are pronunciations taken from (antiquated) chinese. They are usually only used in compounds, but a few like にく (にく) have become words in their own right.

kun-yomi are native japanese readings. These are usually words in their own right (sometimes with the addition of okurigana) that existed before kanji were used to write them. Sometimes, though, they form compounds ... usually obvious 'kun' compounds with kana between the kanji, but not always.

I don't pay any attention to on-yomi/kun-yomi anymore, at least not in the sense of actively studying it. I just learn what pronunciation goes with what word. There's no point in learning 'readings' unless you're learning a word that uses that reading.

Though, why is it that some Kanji have the same On Yomi, isn't it confusing. Also is it necessary to learn both?

screamingfields Wrote:Though, why is it that some Kanji have the same On Yomi, isn't it confusing. Also is it necessary to learn both?

lol... "isn't it confusing?" Japanese wasn't specifically engineered for you to learn, you know. Many kanjis have the same reading because the On reading were borrowed from Chinese, but since the Japanese language doesn't have tones (at least not as Chinese), some ended up sounding exactly the same even though they were different in Chinese. It's only part of the explanation, but google for more XD

Asking whether you need to learn both or not is really asking the wrong question... You shouldn't think of them as different languages, it's really like if a non-English person would ask you if they need to learn both germanic-based and latin-based words. Just learn words. After you've learned a bunch, you'll understand better what is meant with kun/on

I basically agree with everything SomeCallMeChris wrote.

screamingfields Wrote:Though, why is it that some Kanji have the same On Yomi, isn't it confusing.

Dunno. Never even considered it.

Quote:Also is it necessary to learn both?

As Chris just wrote:

Quote:I don't pay any attention to on-yomi/kun-yomi anymore, at least not in the sense of actively studying it. I just learn what pronunciation goes with what word. There's no point in learning 'readings' unless you're learning a word that uses that reading.

There's no point studying Kanji readings on their own when some are rarely used and you have no guarantee which reading goes with which word.
After studying vocab for a while you will start to remember how certain kanji are read in certain compounds and will be able to make educated guesses at how unknown words are read just like natives do. But the main thing is learning the vocab.

I'm just going to echo what other people said -- the problem is that some readings are very common and others are quite rare. There's no way to predict which ones are common or rare, so learning them in connection with words is the best thing to do. There are many common kanji that have common readings, but then have some rare readings as well. For instance, 政 is a common kanji with the on-reading セイ, which is used in a lot of frequent words like 政府 (government) and 政治家 (politician). It also has a kun-yomi まつりごと which is very rare; I'm not sure I can ever remember seeing it used in modern Japanese. Other kanji have the reverse; a common kun-yomi and a rare on-yomi. Or one rare on-yomi and one common on-yomi. Etc.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I'm just going to echo what other people said -- the problem is that some readings are very common and others are quite rare. There's no way to predict which ones are common or rare, so learning them in connection with words is the best thing to do. There are many common kanji that have common readings, but then have some rare readings as well. For instance, 政 is a common kanji with the on-reading セイ, which is used in a lot of frequent words like 政府 (government) and 政治家 (politician). It also has a kun-yomi まつりごと which is very rare; I'm not sure I can ever remember seeing it used in modern Japanese. Other kanji have the reverse; a common kun-yomi and a rare on-yomi. Or one rare on-yomi and one common on-yomi. Etc.

This more or less answers my question. I know both On Yomi and Kun Yomi need to be learnt, I just didn't know whether or not both should be learnt for all Kanji.

I made the error of learning each kanjis on and kun yomi. I got up to 100 hundred kanji perfected their vocab meaning and reading. But how long did take.... A full month. Can I read them in context? Hell no I get them all wrong. Learning them through context is much much better because you will even see how the vocab word is ever used. For example one kanji I studed 低い, ok I remembered the on and kun yomi perfectly, but it means low or humble. How on earth would I get to be able o turn that ino my active vocabulary?

Edit: I was using white rabbit press cards btw, and they are amazing. It has 6 vocab words on each card with its reading also. However I like to get my vocabulary for books and songs instead

If the OP or anyone else here wants to study a little bit more about the readings of Kanji, I have recently made a lesson just about this. http://www.imabi.net/onkun.htm

Unlike Chinese, in Japanese there are a lot of characters that have the same on-yomi reading.
I think that there are 10-20 characters with the on-yomi reading "shi". So there is no way to know to which character a particular reading belongs to without reading the whole word. Sometimes that's not enough and you have to know the context in which the word is used, as there are many words with the same reading, but different meaning.

Fortunately, words with he same reading have usually completely different meanings. However, that requires some experience.

I don't know which Kanji's On Yomi/Kun Yomi is the more used one or not. How do I tell? Also do I use frequency lists?

screamingfields Wrote:I don't know which Kanji's On Yomi/Kun Yomi is the more used one or not. How do I tell? Also do I use frequency lists?

If you learn from context, it doesn't matter. You'll develop an intuitive understanding of the different readings based on how they're used. It's less important to know how frequently a given reading is used than it is to know, e.g., how to pronounce 生 in 生活 vs. 生　in 生じる vs. 生 in 生きる vs. 生 in 生物. Over time, you'll learn that せい is a good first guess for this character in most compound contexts (先生、生徒, etc.)

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

screamingfields Wrote:I don't know which Kanji's On Yomi/Kun Yomi is the more used one or not. How do I tell? Also do I use frequency lists?

If you learn from context, it doesn't matter. You'll develop an intuitive understanding of the different readings based on how they're used. It's less important to know how frequently a given reading is used than it is to know, e.g., how to pronounce 生 in 生活 vs. 生　in 生じる vs. 生 in 生きる vs. 生 in 生物. Over time, you'll learn that せい is a good first guess for this character in most compound contexts (先生、生徒, etc.)

So you mean through learning while reading? That sounds good but isn't it better to go through flashcards?

screamingfields Wrote:I don't know which Kanji's On Yomi/Kun Yomi is the more used one or not. How do I tell? Also do I use frequency lists?

Didn't we just explain it to you? Stop thinking in kanji terms and start thinking about words. In Japanese, some words are only one kanji, some are two kanji, some are three.. some are only hiragana, some are kanji+hiragana... There's no reason for you to care about kun/on readings. As I've said before, it's the equivalent of latin and greek roots. Have you learned English by studying Old Latin? Then don't learn Japanese by studying individual kanji readings XD (*unless you really want to of course*)

Using frequency list might be a good idea, I know it works for me at least. Though again, look for WORDS frequency lists lol. Then copy-paste those words in a dictionary (e.g. jisho.org) and you'll see the reading.

comeauch Wrote:

screamingfields Wrote:I don't know which Kanji's On Yomi/Kun Yomi is the more used one or not. How do I tell? Also do I use frequency lists?

Didn't we just explain it to you? Stop thinking in kanji terms and start thinking about words. In Japanese, some words are only one kanji, some are two kanji, some are three.. some are only hiragana, some are kanji+hiragana... There's no reason for you to care about kun/on readings. As I've said before, it's the equivalent of latin and greek roots. Have you learned English by studying Old Latin? Then don't learn Japanese by studying individual kanji readings XD (*unless you really want to of course*)

Using frequency list might be a good idea, I know it works for me at least. Though again, look for WORDS frequency lists lol. Then copy-paste those words in a dictionary (e.g. jisho.org) and you'll see the reading.

Alright this should work better. I'll try it first, is there any site which has a good word frequency list?

I can't really tell how good they are, but I've used the JLPT lists from here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary...s#Japanese

There were some mistakes, always search in a dictionary first There are probably others and better ones!

screamingfields Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

screamingfields Wrote:I don't know which Kanji's On Yomi/Kun Yomi is the more used one or not. How do I tell? Also do I use frequency lists?

If you learn from context, it doesn't matter. You'll develop an intuitive understanding of the different readings based on how they're used. It's less important to know how frequently a given reading is used than it is to know, e.g., how to pronounce 生 in 生活 vs. 生　in 生じる vs. 生 in 生きる vs. 生 in 生物. Over time, you'll learn that せい is a good first guess for this character in most compound contexts (先生、生徒, etc.)

So you mean through learning while reading? That sounds good but isn't it better to go through flashcards?

You can use Anki or Skritter. I use Skritter. The point is to learn whole words, not disconnected pronunciations.

I'm not opposed to frequency lists. When getting started, it's pretty much all you have. Once you get beyond a base set of words, however, I'd start deriving your new vocab from your current reading material. You'll grok words a lot better if they're words you have an opportunity to read and hear in context.

comeauch Wrote:I can't really tell how good they are, but I've used the JLPT lists from here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary...s#Japanese

There were some mistakes, always search in a dictionary first There are probably others and better ones!

The Leeds Corpus, which is derived from Internet usage, looks pretty good: http://corpus.leeds.ac.uk/list.html