This doesn't have much to do with Japanese, but I just wanted to mention
greek/latin roots are much more effective for vocab study then learning english words

for example
http://www.learnthat.org/pages/view/roots.html#a

if you learn the 400 some greek/latin words on that list it gives you the ability to decode
tens of thousands of english words. which is what I would reccomend to anyone learning a second language after they got past the core 1-2k (most of which are from anglo-saxon roots so the greek latin wouldn't help you much with 70% of those)


other than Chinese, Japanese roots are not well known so I'm not sure
this would help anyone learning Japanese but if you want to learn english
or teach it this should be somewhat helpful. feel free to comment if you have
anything to say about root words

I agree that it's quite effective to learn the Greek and Latin root words. In fact I'd say do that and you're well on the way to a 95th or higher percentile on the verbal GRE. But the only connection to Japanese I see is that you need an extremely high GRE to get into a top graduate program for Japanese/Asian studies, if that's your thing.

I don't think there is such a thing as "root words" in Japanese at all unless you count the ~化 suffix which matches English words ending in -ization. Though that suffix may well be a clever kanji use for concepts that are translated into Japanese and that end in -ization in English.

Not to mention my perennial favourite "グローバル化."

just learn Japanese words...The more words you know, the better you get at guessing the meaning of unknown words and the deeper your understanding of known words become. You will start recognizing the root words within larger words even without studying them in advance, so I see this as unnecessary. Just study the language and learn the words you're encountering. Anything else can kind of be regarded as wasting time collecting and hoarding information in the hope that it might be useful in the future. Actually this is how I regard Heisig's method (although I did do RTK 1 and 3).

@Irixmar = thanks I didn't know that about ~化

The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called yamato kotoba (大和言葉 or infrequently 大和詞, i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as wago (和語 or rarely 倭語, i.e. the "Wa words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as kango (漢語), entered the language from the 5th century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to the Shinsen Kokugo Jiten (新選国語辞典) Japanese dictionary, kango comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, wago make up 33.8%, other foreign words or gairaigo (外来語) account for 8.8%, and the remaining 8.3% constitute hybridized words or konshugo (混種語) that draw elements from more than one language.[11]

^wikipedia clip, so yes Japan has roots, every language came from somehwere


@nadiatims I'm sorry I'm not sure what you are talking about
in english learning greek and latin roots can be much more effective then just studying english words one at a time. I understand that something as effective as this might not exist in Japanese but I assure you it has nothing to do with hoarding information that MIGHT be useful the future. learning root words has an immediate benefit that can be seen right away. I just read pride and prejudice the other day and came across 20 words in the chapter I didnt' know 15 of them I could guess because I knew the latin/greek root words.

Words enter languages from various sources, and it is an interesting pursuit to learn the roots of those words. It makes language learning easier and will one improve their language skills. However, it process is actually complex. Words in Modern English come from a vast number of languages, including French and Japanese. Knowing the source of words can be help, but just trying to understand new words when encountered is more beneficial. It is through that process of that it is best to understand the root of words.

I don't know when they stopped teach Latin and Greek as an elective course in schools, let alone as required course in English speaking countries. Encountering enough words we get an understand of the root word and can understand the meaning. In English we know the relative meaning of super as in supersonic or supermarket. This is the same when studying Japanese as in 敵 and 滴 or 最初 and 最終. In both cases for me it was because it was part of learning those words.

The more words that you learn the better you get in understanding words that you already know. The focus should be on understand the roots of words that you know, than trying to learn the roots words in a language.

Even though I could have written the my views more clearly, I think that this is what nadiatims meant.