Rex
Retaining Kanji Learning kanji has always been the hardest part about Japanese for me. Reading is alright, but I can only write ones that I use all the time. Any tips on retaining?
Jul 4, 2015 7:09 PM
Answers · 7
1
when I was in an elementary school in Japan, we did kanji drill which is like we practice kanji by writing it A LOT and searching for vocab using the kanji and practicing those vocab on notebooks. It made our hand very sore but it actually really helped us tons.
July 4, 2015
I also struggle with kanji. I have found "remembering the Kanji" to be a really good book for me. The process makes you write the kanji to test yourself so you get very good at stroke order etc. and you learn them in such a way that you are writing the same character over and over (e.g. You learn the kanji for tree and them 10 others which have that kanji for tree as part of another kanji) the stroke order becomes second nature. I went from trying to learn kanji the traditional way and I probably could remember the meaning of about 20 kanji after 6 months and that's just meaning I couldn't write them. With "remembering the kanji" I know remember and can write about 400 kanji (in 2 months). I'm also not doing it regularly. I stopped for about a year and when I came back to it I could remember all the ones I had learnt before so the method really works for me.
July 4, 2015
Most of Kanji's is compose of 2 parts. Left part and right part or upper part and lower part. And those part has meaning. For example, "hand" "sky" "fire" or like that. Instead of just memorizing Kanji, try to see the composition. Sorry my poor English :P
July 5, 2015
If I misunderstand your question, I'm sorry. Almost Japanese people recognize kanji as form 形(かたち). I think It says the same thing in English. English country's people can speak a word, but sometime they don't know its spell. Kanji is same! Japanese people can read a word without writing. For example 恋をする。(Fall in love) Some people can't write 恋, but they can understand the mean. Because they remember the form of 恋. So, I recommend you to read many easy Japanese book. Thank you for reading.
July 4, 2015
こんにちわ!Though not an answer, I can say that, for me, using kanji everyday helps me to retain. Whether it is writing it down or speaking it or even just having post-it notes around! When a language no longer becomes something you only learn and turns into something you use, the mind tends to grab hold. Being on italki is sure to help you as well; welcome!
July 4, 2015
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