I never said without knowing the most basic things about the language

HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I never said without knowing the most basic things about the language

I think the reason he says this is that according to this program, all you know is what they look like and nothing else, and therefore it's not very efficient or useful.

Just IMO.

oh ok. I admit that kanji Gold does not test my full knowledge of kanji but it is the most difficult program for kanji that I could find - I think it is quite difficult to assign an English word or lack of to other 6000 kanji.

Try Kanken DS. See for example this video by some guy:

Eikyu Wrote:Try Kanken DS. See for example this video by some guy:

Another vote for this. If you want to test your reading and writing ability in game form (and lots of useless stuff like radicals), kanken ds rocks. And sorry but, no, it will never ask you for a meaning in english.

I would be more impressed if he passed 1-kyuu of
the Kanji Kentei Shiken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_kentei),
which tests 6000 kanji at the highest level (1-kyuu).

According to Wikipedia, a couple thousand take the Level 1
exam every year and only 15% pass.

Zgarbas Wrote:This guy with his "I know 6000 kanji in this program without knowing the most basic things about the language, look how awesome I am" is a bit triggering

I was originally a bit taken back by the boastful nature of HonyakuJoshua's original posts as well, but I've grown to appreciate his endeavor...

If I am correct, he is not interested in learning Japanese, but merely being able to recognize 6,000 or so kanji. If that is an important goal for him, then who am I to criticize. As a previous poster mentioned, this is an exercise in mentalism akin perhaps to that of Akira Haraguchi who can recite pi to 100,000 places. Because people on this forum, view learning kanji through the lens of Japanese study, and also are familiar with an effective mnemonic method, remembering 6,000 kanji seems less than impressive to us (given time and motivation nearly everybody could do it) and massively impractical. (Why on earth would anybody want to?)

If HonyakuJoshua ever wants to learn Chinese, I am sure his kanji recognition skills will put him in good stead. I am not sure how many characters a Chinese literature scholar would recognize. 6,000 or more seems like a possibility. (Don't know). Or perhaps as chamcham mentions he is a nascent passer of the 1-kyuu Kanji Kentei Shiken.

@HonyakuJoshua
What are your plans for the future? Do you want to put your skill to practical use or is it going to remain an example of mental athleticism? Are you going to stick with the multiple choice format of Kanji Gold or do you intend to deepen your recognition by perhaps producing the Kanji from the keyword, or from Japanese (or Chinese) vocabulary? Are there any kanji recognition competitions that you could enter, in order to have your skill officially recognized?

Good luck, I look forward to seeing where you take this.

EDIT: From a Chinese History Forum, the topic under discussion being the number of characters required to read Chinese.

"As general guidelines, I would say 1,500 characters represent basic literacy, 3,000 are enough to read most non-technical publications (magazines, newspapers, modern books, etc.) fluently without a dictionary, and 5,000 will give you college-level literacy. Historians of China whose native language is Chinese may know as many as 10,000 characters (though not all of them do), and some (but few) know even more.

Someone mentioned "advanced read = 15,000 characters." Fortunately for potential learners, this figure is exaggerated. This kind of knowledge would actually make you one of the most educated people in China!"

@Harpagornes

My next step will to get a book I translated published - I have wanted to publish a book for ages. A publisher has agreed to publish it so I am 'made up' as we say in Liverpool, UK.
I have to make some changes to the word file, but anyways I'm happy. The people I translated it for are happy too.

After that I want to 'master' Japanese grammar and work at becoming a patent translator. The fellow who was teaching me said one of my translations was near perfect and I want to be perfect. I really need a native speaker to teach me grammar as I find it difficult. After that I am going to have a crack at なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習(改訂版) .

I am happy I clicked on all the kanji in kanji gold correctly and am going to apply to the Guinness Book of Records!

Look forward to seeing your book....

Good luck with 2012, and any future kanji studies

chamcham Wrote:I would be more impressed if he passed 1-kyuu of
the Kanji Kentei Shiken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_kentei),
which tests 6000 kanji at the highest level (1-kyuu).

According to Wikipedia, a couple thousand take the Level 1
exam every year and only 15% pass.

Someone I know told me yesterday that she passed Level 1 of the Kanji Kentei while in high school :o

zigmonty Wrote:

Eikyu Wrote:Try Kanken DS. See for example this video by some guy:

Another vote for this. If you want to test your reading and writing ability in game form (and lots of useless stuff like radicals), kanken ds rocks. And sorry but, no, it will never ask you for a meaning in english.

There are various methods that can be used to study Japanese. Which method is your choice and your choice alone. However, not studying the various aspects of Japanese is only to one own disadvantage. Studying the various aspects of Japanese doesn't meaning studying everything depth, but to get a practical understanding of them. This includes Kanji.

There are some 14,000 Kanji in the Japanese language. I have heard the story over and over again that most of the are obscure. This doesn't eliminate the need to learn them when encountered. Additional, the Kanji dictionary use a specific system for looking up Kanji. This includes both the native Japanese Kanji dictionaries, and the learner dictionaries.

It is most common to use the Kanji preparation books for practicing for the Kanken. The books and software programs are designed for preparing for the Kanken. The absence of English is immaterial, as the tests are designed for test speakers of Japanese knowledge of Kanji. Kind of like the JPLT are designed for learners of Japanese.

It isn't perplexing why someone will dismiss off hand things that they don't understand. They hear the same frustration from others who also don't understand, and this re-enforces their believe that it is irrelevant. Radical's are relevant to understanding of Kanji.

I always thought the goal was dreaming in Japanese. That is being able to think in Japanese.

Congratulations on finishing!

@Splatted thanks! I didn't realistically think I'd get it done before the New Year.
@Harpagornes Thanks! I'll inbox you the link once it's published.

Omoishinji Wrote:It isn't perplexing why someone will dismiss off hand things that they don't understand. They hear the same frustration from others who also don't understand, and this re-enforces their believe that it is irrelevant. Radical's are relevant to understanding of Kanji.

Radicals are relevant in that they are the building blocks (although i prefer heisig's notion of a primitive over the single radical per kanji idea). Being quizzed on the names of the radicals is getting fairly esoteric though. Even being able to identify the official radical of a given kanji is only really helpful if you use a paper dictionary indexed by radical. Personally, i prefer electronic dictionaries. I'm sure the japanese will continue to learn it in school for quite some time, but it is rapidly becoming obsolete knowledge.

Having said that, i do do that part of the test as well. 80+% of them are obvious or otherwise a regular pattern. I make no serious attempt to learn the others, but they stick after i get them wrong a few times. I still don't see myself using any of this knowledge.

fakewookie Wrote:

chamcham Wrote:I would be more impressed if he passed 1-kyuu of
the Kanji Kentei Shiken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_kentei),
which tests 6000 kanji at the highest level (1-kyuu).

According to Wikipedia, a couple thousand take the Level 1
exam every year and only 15% pass.

Someone I know told me yesterday that she passed Level 1 of the Kanji Kentei while in high school :o

I would love to hear that story. (No sarcasm intended)

zigmonty Wrote:

Omoishinji Wrote:It isn't perplexing why someone will dismiss off hand things that they don't understand. They hear the same frustration from others who also don't understand, and this re-enforces their believe that it is irrelevant. Radical's are relevant to understanding of Kanji.

Radicals are relevant in that they are the building blocks (although i prefer heisig's notion of a primitive over the single radical per kanji idea). Being quizzed on the names of the radicals is getting fairly esoteric though. Even being able to identify the official radical of a given kanji is only really helpful if you use a paper dictionary indexed by radical. Personally, i prefer electronic dictionaries. I'm sure the japanese will continue to learn it in school for quite some time, but it is rapidly becoming obsolete knowledge.

Having said that, i do do that part of the test as well. 80+% of them are obvious or otherwise a regular pattern. I make no serious attempt to learn the others, but they stick after i get them wrong a few times. I still don't see myself using any of this knowledge.

Breaking down Kanji to make them easier to understand isn't anything revolutionary. I remember a retired professor taking about how her mother would explain Kanji to her.

The knowledge of the radicals are beneficial to the understand Kanji. They are still taught from elementary school. I doubt that everyone who has been taught the radicals remember their correct names. Also, I doubt that the names of every radical is taught during a students primary and secondary education.

Using both electronic dictionaries and paper version, I know that electronic dictionaries also use the names radical as part of their search feature. This includes electronic dictionaries that have hand writing recognition. There is a lot of information included with the definition of the Kanji, including a clarification of the meaning at the bottom. It might or might not be informative.

My comment isn't about mastering the names of all the radicals. It is to stress the relevance of them for understanding Kanji. I will have to politely disagree with the demise of radicals from the general knowledge of Japanese. However, Knowledge is Knowledge and method an individual wants to use is their choice.

Omoishinji Wrote:The knowledge of the radicals are beneficial to the understand Kanji. They are still taught from elementary school. I doubt that everyone who has been taught the radicals remember their correct names. Also, I doubt that the names of every radical is taught during a students primary and secondary education.

Yes, hence my comment that kanken also tests "useless" stuff. Stuff that you are taught in school and forget is more or less useless. It's still taught for historical and political reasons.

I did RTK, i know the benefit of breaking kanji up into components to aid memory. Testing knowledge of those names however, rather than just treating them as mnemonics, is a pointless waste of time imho. You're not testing anything real.

Omoishinji Wrote:Using both electronic dictionaries and paper version, I know that electronic dictionaries also use the names radical as part of their search feature.

Really? Mine is either hiragana entry or draw the kanji.

This is all neither here nor there, i wasn't attacking radicals. I just said offhand that kanken also tests some fairly useless skills. I actually have a reasonably advanced knowledge of them considering my overall japanese level.

zigmonty Wrote:ho. You're not testing anything real.

Omoishinji Wrote:Using both electronic dictionaries and paper version, I know that electronic dictionaries also use the names radical as part of their search feature.

Really? Mine is either hiragana entry or draw the kanji.

Not all electronic dictionaries have draw pads, and if they don't, knowledge of the radical/component names can be very important. It's much faster and easier to look kanji up that way (if you don't know the reading) than by using stroke order or 部首.

Now, this doesn't have very much to do with being able to identify *the* radical of a particular kanji. Knowing that the radical of 弊 is the bottom part as opposed to some other element isn't very useful outside of tests. But knowing that the bottom part is called にじゅうあし (or こまぬき） and that the top right part is called のぶん is very useful. In some cases it may even be faster than actually drawing the kanji.

Omoishinji Wrote:My comment isn't about mastering the names of all the radicals. It is to stress the relevance of them for understanding Kanji. I will have to politely disagree with the demise of radicals from the general knowledge of Japanese. However, Knowledge is Knowledge and method an individual wants to use is their choice.

You are talking about radicals in the sense of "parts that make up kanji" (i.e. primitives), but the rest of us are talking about radicals in the "one-main-radical-per-kanji" sense, which is what is tested on the Kanken. That knowledge is almost completely useless unless you are taking the kanken or are still using a paper dictionary for some reason. I haven't even seen radicals tested in Japan's multitude of quiz TV shows.

Omoishinji Wrote:Using both electronic dictionaries and paper version, I know that electronic dictionaries also use the names radical as part of their search feature.

You can search kanji by parts in an electronic dictionary just fine without knowing which is the main radical or even the radicals' correct names. For example, 神 is made up of radicals with the name しめすへん (ネ) and た (田), but I can pull it up just fine by searching on ね and さる.

Thanks for all the replies! My copy of なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習 came today and I will be trying to complete this whilst headbutting my way through a wall called Japanese grammar.

Thanks Harpagornes for comparing me to Haraguchi!

JimmySeal Wrote:I haven't even seen radicals tested in Japan's multitude of quiz TV shows..

Could you give me some urls to info about/videos of these quiz shows please?

OP do u know also how to write them with the correct stroke order?

Anyways congrats. You should learn chinese or japanese for sure.
I'm happy I discovered another program I might use.

I will be more impressed if you will learn (english meaning okla...) the 50 000 characters in the biggest chinese dictionary :p

fakewookie Wrote:Someone I know told me yesterday that she passed Level 1 of the Kanji Kentei while in high school :o

Yes I have a friend who did the same thing!

Gaijinme Wrote:OP do u know also how to write them with the correct stroke order?

Anyways congrats. You should learn chinese or japanese for sure.
I'm happy I discovered another program I might use.

I will be more impressed if you will learn (english meaning okla...) the 50 000 characters in the biggest chinese dictionary :p

`

I probably know the stroke order for quite a few, but I couldn't give you a figure. I Know a lot of Chinese hanzi. When I was at university the Japanese guy said he would write me a letter to ANYONE IN THE WORLD and I was very happy. I think I focused too much on kanji when I should have been focusing on grammar.