I was wondering there are so many Kanji that are talking about sometype of relationship like 息、姉、兄、叔、婿 e.t.c

than so many that talk about things that we do like 見、聞く、飲 e.t.c
and more abstract things like 始、変、比 e.t.c
and others that are just suffixes/prefixes 的、倍、不。無、
and those that talk of real things as 男、子、刀、
e.t.c
you get the point

is there somewhere in this world where people have tried to group Kanjis (atleast 常用漢字) in this way? I mean where I am studying I come across kanji that are just abstract Ideas and yet others that simply have no sense until combined with something, and there are others as simple as 男、女 than there are those than are used to give building names 官、院 e.t.c all the different varities are mixed. Don't you think that having some resource with Kanjis arranged in this order will also provide help?

matrixofdynamism Wrote:Don't you think that having some resource with Kanjis arranged in this order will also provide help?

No, because kanji aren't words.
You say 息 is a relationship... well, 息子 is, but いき is something we do... or have... depending on whether you mean 'breath' or 'breathe'.
官 is used sometimes to name buildings... and sometimes to name roles in an organization, and sometimes to mean bureaucracy in general.
変 is abstract? If it means 'strange' it is. But if it means 'to change' that isn't it 'something we do'? Or both, as 'to change' is a pretty abstract verb.

Etc, etc.

Kanji don't truly have 'a meaning'. They have some indefinite number of meanings, possibly none - though kanji are less and less often used if they are purely phonetic - or possibly many.

I would argue kanji had near infinite meanings.

2001.Kanji.Odyssey was the closest that did this. While grouping similar meanings is not the best method to learn Kanji alone, it's outstanding when learning groups of words using those Kanji. That's the main reason that word lists sorted using the KO2k1 order have been more successful based on anectdotal evidence on this forum.

"Kanji don't truly have 'a meaning'."
"I would argue kanji had near infinite meanings."

hmm I see your point, you really have pointed out something quite significant to me.

just what is so special about 2001.Kanji.Odyssey?? I only came to know about it through this forum.

matrixofdynamism Wrote:just what is so special about 2001.Kanji.Odyssey?? I only came to know about it through this forum.

Someone posted about this book a few years ago. It quickly became apparent as a good resource. The company took time to provide kanji that were organized not just by their commonality, but also in groups of five with some sort of similar meaning. On top of that, for each kanji, they provide 3 to 5 words that used that symbol in addition to two or three sample sentences.

Not only that, CosCom (the publishers) offered a CD version, then later released PDFs study sheets for those that purchased the CD (the PDFs were all free at one time, so maybe someone has them all collected).

What this forum did with the books were two larger projects. First, they transcribed manually the entire book of sample sentences. Second, they inputted the entire vocabulary list into the iKnow site (when it was still free). Both still exist in some format available by request I'm sure.

Later, when another gifted programmer offered a way to sort sentences and vocabulary lists by specified kanji list, this offered another benefit. Word lists sorted by the KO2k1 order were more intuitive to learn. Others and I used that program to sort the iKnow Core 2k and 6k list first by sentences, then later by the vocabulary list.

Long story short, KO2k1 introduced the idea that while Heisig offered the best format to learn how to memorize individual Kanji fast, CosCom offered the best format to learn individual words fast using iKnows method of simple sample sentences with professional pronunciation.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Kanji don't truly have 'a meaning'. They have some indefinite number of meanings, possibly none - though kanji are less and less often used if they are purely phonetic - or possibly many.

This is a good thing to keep in mind. I think that the only kanji that really have "a meaning" are ones that are so rare and obscure they never had time to accrue addition meanings.

But kanji almost always have a whole bunch of different meanings depending on the compounds they appear in -- remember that a "meaning" is nothing more than an invention of a textbook writer or dictionary compiler based on the compound words (or kun-yomi) the kanji has. Sometimes the meanings are extensions of a core meaning, other times they're totally separate because the kanji was borrowed due to its simple form -- 丁 is a good example of this; it originally meant "nail" but then developed a whole bunch of unrelated meanings with the same pronunciation due to its simple form, and the "nail" meaning was shifted to 釘.

yudantaiteki Wrote:This is a good thing to keep in mind. I think that the only kanji that really have "a meaning" are ones that are so rare and obscure they never had time to accrue addition meanings.

朕 only every means imperial we? This is one of the few example and I wouldn't call this *so* rare or obscure?

I am thankful for introduction to 2001.Kanji.Odyssey by Nukemarine.

I have had a look at the CD version of the software and looks much better than other tools I have used yet. But I was just wondering, why does the level 3 not have example sentences?!

Besides that I am sure that certain Kanji having a related core meaning can be grouped together similar to how Kanji having a similar Radical are grouped together or how Kanji having the same sound are grouped together. Defining the core meaning of course may not be that simple since the Kanji have adopted so many meanings by being used in different compounds. I agree with that point as well.

By the way, what would be best place to get sentences for Japanese words? I try Kodansha Dictionary and jisho.org, but sometimes both are not helpful in giving sentence for one of the Jouyou Kanji that I have in hand. It really is quite strange I must say.

I take example sentences for my anki deck mostly from the プログレッシブ和英 at dic.yahoo.jp, and sometimes from the other dictionaries at yahoo. If that doesn't satisfy, I go to alc.co.jp or tatoeba.org

Quote:朕 only every means imperial we? This is one of the few example and I wouldn't call this *so* rare or obscure?

I'd call it pretty rare and obscure, but then I'm not in the habit of reading imperial edicts. Although I read plenty of fiction that has empires in it, fictional monarchs tend to use some variation of 我 (我、我が輩、など) ... I don't know why 朕 isn't used.

Also it's apparently used in one obscure compound without any apparent connection to its use as royal-we:
ちん‐ちょう［：テウ］【朕兆】-日本国語大辞典
〔名〕兆候。きざし。＊正法眼蔵〔１２３１〜５３〕夢中説夢「それ朕兆已前なるゆゑに、旧の所論にあらず」＊哲学字彙〔１８８１〕「Presage 朕兆。先機。前徴」＊温岐‐再生檜賦「窮勝負於朕兆、慕 ...

If I were to look for a single-meaning kanji I'd look at trees, animals, and minerals - the more dramatic ones and the more common ones are used in metaphors and get extended meanings, but there are likely some few that aren't.