When I was 5 years old, I was looking at some Chinese products in my home and wondering why they chose such difficult writing system.

I noticed that there was one symbol which always appear in the beginning of one word. It was an easy symbol: 中

But in that time, I didn't understand why that word doesn't appear in the only Singaporean product I see in my home which was:



Few years later, when I learned the meaning of this hanzi/kanji, and the meaning of the local name of China in Chinese, I understood why they put that word in every Chinese product.

I remember 一番 used to advertise Japanese products as a kid.

Mine was 八戸 because that's the town I moved to when I didn't know anything about any Japanese. I think I picked up 八 before 戸 just to clarify the actual first...

一

加

The first two I remember were 本 and 当, naturally from 本当.

I remember sitting in class during my freshman year of high school drawing those two over and over in my binder.

Mine were 木, 林, and 森, from an article I read on the Chinese writing system. It's the first time that kanji "clicked" for me and I realized there was a method to that madness... Prior to that I had actively ignored any kanji/hanzi I saw as like most westerners I thought it'd be impossible to learn so I'd better not waste my time...

鬼 because of Tamahome (鬼宿） from ふしぎ遊戯。Tamahome has the kanji on his forehead. In middle school I would write it on a friend's forehead :B

I think mine was probably 人. I never really had experience with kanji before learning Japanese enough to really know one. Now, though, I do see a lot of kanji and feel like they were somehow familiar from seeing them a long time ago, though.

In 3rd grade we had a teacher who had spend some 10 odd years living in Japan, and she basically got me interested in all that is Japan. The writing system was one of the things that hooked me. 木 was first (if you want to be really technical) but also involved was 人　and 大. I think she chose these to show us that while they look similar, they're actually different (the tree has a Trunk and Branches, a person has Legs, but when he gets BIG, he grows Arms)

Before I got into Heisig, however, someone showed me that there was a method to kanji, with the 解 from 理解　or 解く。 I don't remember his crazy etymology or whatever, but it made me realize "wow, there's a system"

Then I found Heisig and I use the "system" to learn them . Although I'm pretty sure 糸 doesn't historically mean "Spiderman"

I remember learning the first 10 numbers from my math text book in about grade 5.

I remember being 8 and looking at fireworks box's and being amazed at how complex the characters were and thinking that chinese people had to be genius's to write in them I know one of the first kanji i learned was 鰻 which is unusual considering that it has 22 strokes.

Mine were in the back of a Japanese grammar book of mine that was entirely in　ローマ字. Mine were　雨　and 火. They were trying to teach how they evolved from pictographs or ideographs (they also showed 一), ...then explained how most of them didn't though. That's always discouraging.

春
About a year ago I learned this kanji from a girl I dated at the time. It was part of her name. Before that kanji were just kanji......I saw them everywhere but never learned what any of them were. I sure have come a LONG way since then (feels like another person in another life)LOL! A year ago I had no idea that I would be learning Japanese, or be reading/writing kanji.....

I must add, I used to make up my own "kanji"　back in high school (I didn't even know what they were called). Of course they weren't real kanji, but the style of kanji influenced my art and doodles. I still have an art piece of a "kanji", and I keep hoping to some day find that it really is a Kanji. Just for fun, here it is....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20...1137126614