I have read several posts about how much kanji is needed to read Japanese. Numbers from 1000 to 4000. It seems to be daunting, but with time, you will learn quite a few, its just like building your vocabulary in your native language. You learn a certain amount in school, but watch one or two episodes of CSI or the like, and you will learn new words. Don't be discouraged.

One memory that comes to mind is from my time in High School. We had a student teacher in my Japanese class who shared some letters from her parents. She was in her 20's, grew up in Japan, native speaker and reader/writer, and to my surprise, her parents sent back her letter with corrections on the kanji she used.

Kanji is a lifetime project. Be glad that you are even attempting such a complex task. My own impatience has caused me to start and stop and start again several times. Each time caused me to start all over again.

But after finding this site and this book, my interest has regrown and my memory of forgotten kanji is coming back. My goal is just to become familiar with the kanji in this book. I know the readings will come later is start my grammar studies. Someone on another site recommended thinking of the kanji as an alphabet. Once you know the ABCs, you an then assign them their meanings as you learn them with vocab. I noticed this when looking at a book that had the kanji and then the hiragana version side by side. I know now that the shita, below, can be used with kudasai.

So to wrap up. Dont be discouraged if you don't get the kanji right all the time. Native speakers make mistakes too. Whatever method works for you will be enough with time to help you reach your fluency goals. Don't be discouraged. For those curious, i'm up to lesson three in the book and happy to keep going. I think this time I won't get discouraged and Ill learn all the kanji in this book.

Nice post, Thanks for sharing.

Do you mind if I ask how long you've studied the Kanji for? and how many you managed to conquer using means other than Heisig?

To my embaressment, I've been studying Japanese in general for about 16 years. I have stopped and started for various reason. When I was in the Army for four years, I didn't study at all. When I went to college I never studied. So its just been more of a hobby then anything else.

As to how I studied before, I was learning in a more traditional way. I started in about 1990 in High School here in Washington State. My teacher was a native born speaker and she had great contacts with our local Japanese community. My favorite memory is the girls from Mukogawa coming to class on field trips. Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute i believe is the full name of an all girl Japanese college here in my state, lucky me. Anyway, that is where I learned the repetition method to learning Kanji. Write it out 100 times or more and force the memorization. Then, just force yourself to learn the on and kun meanings as well. I would take a piece of paper and fold it in half lengthwise with kanji on one side and meanings or readings on the other side. I would cover one side and quiz myself. This worked great for about 500 kanji that I learned.

My teacher was impressed that I learned that many, more than anyone else in her class. She wanted to know my secret and she was almost disappointed to learn it was through sheer force of will and discipline to learn them. She figured the other students just didn't care, didn't have the heart. Ironically, she once offered me the book remembering the kanji to see if it would help me learn more, but at the time I thought learning the on and kun was more important than stories or keywords.

So, to make a short story long. I now feel in comparing the two systems that learning a keyword to trigger a familiar remembering of the kanji is a great way to just be familiar with all the kanji. Like being introduced to good friends. No, you won't learn all right away. No, you won't learn everything about them right away. What you will learn is a name to a face. As you get to know them, you will learn more about them. Even my teacher tried to circle the more prominent used meaning and pronounciations of kanji to make the learning process easy. As most of you already know, some kanji have many meanings and pronouciations. With time, you will learn what to use and that is my hope. Just learn the triggers and then over time from exposure learn the more detailed aspects of my friends.

Ok, more than you wanted, take care.

jaedrian Wrote:Ok, more than you wanted, take care.

Not at all! I find it very interesting to read other people's experiences with Japanese classes and such. I've taken evening classes over the last 3 years or so, it's a fascinating experience. Unfortunately the class I was supposed to start this term was cancelled due to lack of applicants, very sad as I really liked the teacher, a Japanese lady married to a British man. I have the textbook for the course, and I guess I will study on my own until something else comes up, but of course, it's nothing like the same thing as studying in a class. In all the colleges (I'm talking about London) the beginners classes are overflowing, at least in the beginning, but beyond that classes seem to struggle for students.

Yes, I was (perhaps perversely) encouraged when I discovered that Japanese forget and make mistakes with kanji, too! Even our teacher had to reach for a dictionary from time to time for less commonly used kanji. I remember one was 妃 (princess/consort) which is the correct honorific for Princess Diana [ダイアナ妃] (our teacher, like many Japanese ladies, it seems, is fascinated by our royal family!).

For some reason I'm also encouraged by the fact that even the Japanese need to use a dictionary from time to time. I'm a native English speaker, not meaning I should have complete grasp of English, just meaning I've been exposed my entire life to English, I still use the dictionary and a thesaurus from time to time. Trust me, the Chinese have dictionarys containing upwards of 40,000 characters, hard for any one person to know them all with all the variants of readings and compounds.

In my current situation, I am also a self learner. I am always looking for new sites with new ways of learning Japanese. This site is great for an introduction to Kanji. I'm going to plug another site, so skip this if your not interested. For reading and for listening skills, I go to http://www.japanesepod101.com. This site has great free downloadable podcasts in mp3 format for your computer or on the go needs. If you join, for a fee, you get access to pdf transcripts and if you pay more, their learning center. You can cheat like I did and do a trial and download all the pdfs for your own studies, a membership would be recommended though. Anyway, after you have your kanji learned here, you can go there and see the kanji in action with their great lessons. That is one way to learn the proper on and kun readings. Well, a note on that.

Most sites I've seen, even the japanesepod101.com don't say explicity that a saying is on or kun. However, I have noticed that there are about 50 or so on readings, at least that is what I think, I may be way off. If you are familiar with those, its easy to tell by pronunciation what the reading is, in theory I hope. I haven't got that far. But my goal is to learn all these triggers for the kanji so that as I see compounds or individual use kanji, ill learn how to say them and how to use them in writing. So for me, I won't start my formal grammar and vocab until I learn these kanji and use them like an alpahbet.

Again, i'm meandering in thought again, sorry. Its easy to start typing and keep going.

Don't be discouraged.

just as you thought, you are way off with the 音読み count.

see here: http://kanji.koohii.com/onyomi/

Splendid, thanks for the link. Spreading the 275 on readings among the kanji, i like those odds.