I wrote about how I started learning Japanese in the last post.
Yes, the 3-month-long Japanese orientation. But that was just it. I never really caught up my Japanese learning after that. Even after I got married to a Japanese few years later and going back to Japan again!
Moving back to Japan, still I felt like I didn`t really need Japanese in my daily life. I have my husband, to help me when I need Japanese, just like I used to have a translator back then when I was still a foreign student in Japan.
I did learn Japanese by myself, finishing my Minna no Nihonggo for beginner, and was able to read children books. My vocabularies also grew, because I was totally immersed in Japanese this time. Unlike before when I was still a foreign student using only English, now Japanese was all over me.
Then I decided that it was time for me to learn Kanji!
Kanji For Elementary School
The problem is, where do I start?
My husband recommended learning the Kanji as he did at school. So he bought me a book, Kanji for Elementary School. It has 1,006 characters that children learn in school, from 1st grade to 6th grade. These Kanjis are called kyouiku Kanji or Kanji for Education. The 1,006 kanjis were according to the 1982 school curriculum.
It is said you need to know the minimum 2,136 kanji known as the jouyou Kanji or Kanji for daily life, to be able to read the newspaper in Japanese.
The number and the order of kanjis taught in elementary school changed several times, and it seems to be expanding from time to time. It was 881 kanjis in 1946, and has become 1,028 kanjis by the 2020 school curriculum.
First graders started with 80 kanjis to learn in a year of schooling. It is doubled in the second year to be 160 new kanjis, and reached the maximum in third and fourth grade at 200 new kanjis to learn!
That explains why I was stuck at the third grader Kanji! My husband said it was normal, and I was going the right way. He decided to supplement the book with a special (simply another) Kanji book for 3rd and 4th grader!
My Kanji Learning Method
Well, it was not really my method. I simply followed the book’s structure.
First, it shows the Kanji, with the two different readings; the Chinese reading (called onyomi or simply ON) and the Japanese reading (called kunyomi or simply KUN), how many strokes it takes, and which group it came from. The Kanjis usually grouped by part of the strokes it has, but on complicated kanji it may have few possible groupings so I think it was grouped based on some consensus.
Learning a new kanji, I usually wrote it repeatedly on my kanji writing practice notebook. It is a special notebook with grids to help you write with balance. The grids get smaller as you proceed to higher grade. I wrote at least 2 rows for each new kanji, it goes up down from right to left. As for the reading, I remember quickly the KUN reading because it usually has already a meaning. While the ON reading needs to be paired with another kanji to be able to from a meaningful word (called JUKUGO).
Second, it gives the meaning. It gives both the meaning in the KUN reading, or when it is paired with another kanji for a meaningful ON reading. I quickly forgot the ON reading and its word examples (the JUKUGO). But, and this is the wonder of Kanji, I usually can guess the meaning without knowing how to read it! This is the exact opposite of Hiragana, that I can easily read even when I have no idea what it means.
Third, it gives the examples of how to make a sentence using the Kanji or the JUKUGO. Sometimes it supplements the explanation with illustrations or with a short explanation about the formation of the Kanji (called naritachi). I usually remember the Kanjis that have both illustrations and its origin.
Looking back, I now realize that knowing the meaning of one kanji and writing it take more than just memorizing, and may be needing a photographic memory. That’s the only explanation for the fact that I can read books with Kanjis all over it, but can’t write a decent short message in Kanji with a pencil and a paper!
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