I have a few questions I want to ask, help with any of them I would appreciate it.

1. Is there a quick way which I can determine the number of different 漢字 in an anki deck? I just want an idea of where I am at.

2. How can you tell if something is an 音読み or a 訓読み? Sometimes something tells me its one or the other (訓読み tend to be used to read single-漢字 words, 訓読み don't have the 拗音, etc.). Are there other 'rules' like this? Is this something important I should be focussing on? (i.e. should I be learning whether a reading is 音 or 訓 like you would learn in french whether a word is le or la?)

3. What is the best way to learn little grammatical points like "does a の or a な connect this type of word to this grammar"; I find that when I do my anki reviews, I can understand it when I read it, but when I try to write my own 日本語, I always make mistakes like this, and also a lot of mistakes with choosing the right particle. Is there a good way to learn this sort of thing?

Thanks for help with any of the questions.

3. Get a grammar dictionary or find information online. Go to Lang-8.com and for each different way of using the grammar point write 10 sentences. Once you get feedback, evaluate why it was wrong or why it was right. I've found this really pushes you through the basic grammar quickly (It also identifies holes in your grammar knowledge).

1. Kanji stats plugin

2. Pretty much yeah, 訓読み is when its using the reading that is in the "single kanji" word, and 音読み is when it's used in compounds. I say "using the reading" because 売切 could technically be a compound read うりきれ (although it is usually 売り切れ...)
As far as I can tell, there's no hard-cut rules, just tendencies that you see...of course with loads of exceptions.

But I would say don't worry about it too much. Learn the words, then associate the readings (from the word) to the kanji being used. You'll eventually get a "feel" of what reading to use for the kanji.

Just my 2c, other people might disagree with me, but that's how I've been doing it.

vinniram Wrote:2. How can you tell if something is an 音読み or a 訓読み? Sometimes something tells me its one or the other (訓読み tend to be used to read single-漢字 words, 訓読み don't have the 拗音, etc.). Are there other 'rules' like this? Is this something important I should be focussing on? (i.e. should I be learning whether a reading is 音 or 訓 like you would learn in french whether a word is le or la?)

3. What is the best way to learn little grammatical points like "does a の or a な connect this type of word to this grammar"; I find that when I do my anki reviews, I can understand it when I read it, but when I try to write my own 日本語, I always make mistakes like this, and also a lot of mistakes with choosing the right particle. Is there a good way to learn this sort of thing?

訓読み are generally used with words containing おくりがな (just about all い-adjectives and non-する verbs), and single 漢字 words (like you said).

音読み are generally used in words of Chinese origin (as you would expect), which means just about all 熟語.

These two rules are enough to guess how to read the majority of words, which is the only real advantage of knowing the distinction between 音読み and 訓読み as far as I've discovered. It becomes quite obvious after a while. You shouldn't be relying on guesswork over actually learning vocabulary, so the many exceptions shouldn't cause much of a setback really.

thanks for all your informative answers, everyone.

I recommend dl'ing the JxPlugin. Gives you all kinds of insane stats on the kanji in your deck. Also whether its on or kun isn't important at all, you'll just pick it up. Besides, there's words which have different combinations for ex on-on, on-kun, kun-on and kun-kun... so even if you learn "rules" you're still gonna run into exceptions.