kevkk
New member
From: Sydney
Registered: 2008-04-18
Posts: 2
Hi, sorry if this has been asked before and feel free to point out the thread if it exists.
I'm up to 170 characters but curious how I am going to learn the prounounciation of the characters I am learning. I'm getting around 90% success on retention, but I'm at a loss what is the best way for learning pronouciation of the characters I'm learning.
Any recommendations on how to bridge the gap?
Thanks.
I find I do really well studying individual words, rather than the kanji themselves. I've naturally learned how to read, for example, 食, not by memorizing its 音読み/訓読み but just by having 食べる,食物, and 食う in the sentences I review. If there's some other reading of 食, I'll eventually learn it when I pick up a word that uses it. If the reading never shows up in a word I learn, then it'd be kinda pointless to learn that reading anyway since it'd just transform nonsensical writing into nonsensical sound.
I think there's a project here (2001 kanji odyssey) to do all of that systematically, I'll probably join up in that once I finish RTK myself...
Raichu
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2005-10-27
Posts: 249
Website
I use a combination of techniques.
snispilbor's approach is a good one. Learning readings from words encounter means that you'll tend to learn the more practically useful readings first.
I supplement that with browsing my kanji dictionary. Seriously, it works for me, I don't know how, but I find that without me putting effort into it, some readings of some kanji just stick. Unfortunately it's not predictable, and often readings of some pretty useless kanji like 匁 (もんめ) adhere while ones like 標 (ヒョウ) I keep forgetting.
I've been on and off been trying flashcard drilling by covering the readings on my dictionary and trying to recall them. I've only had moderate success, so I've written a simple SRL system and I'm slowly importing data from kanjidic. So long as I do it regularly, I should have better luck with that.
So yeah, try everything and see what works best for you.
rich_f
Member
From: north carolina
Registered: 2007-07-12
Posts: 1708
If you're saying you're 170 kanji into RTK, then you still have a way to go before you should start worrying about readings. It's a lot easier to just finish RTK volume 1, then move on to working on the readings. Once you finish it, people go on to a variety of things. Some go on to RTK volume 2, some do kanjichains/kanjitown that sort of thing, some of us are doing Kanji Odyssey (which is sentences full of kanji) or Kanji in Context (which is also sentences full of kanji, but for more intermediate levels.)
Personally, I'm using Kanji Odyssey, because it covers a lot of common vocab while also teaching readings. A group of us got who already own the books broke the books up into chunks and put the sentences all in a spreadsheet to enter into an SRS program for personal reviewing. I've been using it for a month and a half now, and I love it. It's a little tough at first, but once you get over the first 30-40 entries, (about 100 or so sentences) it gets easier.
The thing is, doing RTK makes it so much easier to recognize kanji, that pretty much any reasonable method will work if you study it and use something like an SRS to keep it remembered.
One thing I'm doing on the side is playing Kakitori-Kun on the DS-- I'm learning some new readings that way as well.
billyclyde
Member
Registered: 2007-05-21
Posts: 192
rich_f wrote:
If you're saying you're 170 kanji into RTK, then you still have a way to go before you should start worrying about readings. It's a lot easier to just finish RTK volume 1, then move on to working on the readings. Once you finish it, people go on to a variety of things.
rich_f is totally right-- you can only do so much, and it's easier to ask the question of how to approach pronunciation when you're at 1500, 1800, 2000 kanji. Heisig saved readings for vol 2 because doing things all at once makes the task a beast.
Patience, it'll all fit together.
