Tech support requests (Anki especially, visit /r/Anki).Requests for or links to copyrighted content."How do I learn Japanese?" or "What should I learn next?" and other similar enquiries that can be addressed by the wiki pages.Use the "Welcome" sticky thread for these. Introduction/Study Buddy/Starting Plan posts.Please use the "Daily" sticky thread for these.
Genki I, Tango N5, etc) or that could be addressed by a single answer. Any question for beginner or JLPT N5 level material (e.g.The following posts will usually result in removal: No trolling, immature, or hostile behavior. No requests for or links to copyrighted material. Use furigana if you think they won't understand your kanji usage. Consider the OP's skill level when answering a question. State your question clearly in your post title 3. Check if the question is addressed in wiki/search. Welcome to /r/LearnJapanese, the hub on Reddit for learners of the Japanese Language. Interested in moving to japan? Head over and make a post at /r/movingtojapan. Traditionally, 214 radicals are used to classify kanji in dictionaries.New to Japanese? New to the sub? Read the Wiki! Of course, knowing hiragana, katakana, and kanji radicals will help you create these associations. For example, the kanji for “parent” 親 can be broken down into 立+ 木+ 見 (standing on a tree to watch over their children). These strategies also work for more complex kanji. In this case, the story already exists: kunoichi is how female ninjas were called ! What will help you the most in memorizing kanji is breaking them down into smaller units.įor example, you can break down the kanji to write “woman” 女 in く ( ku in hiragana) + ノ ( no in katakana) + 一 ( ichi, one in kanji).įrom there, you can make up a story that will help you remember the kanji. Nowadays it is written 従! It is often difficult to recognize the original drawing. For example, the kanji for "to follow" was originally written 从 but it was made more complex to prevent low-class people from accessing to knowledge (=power). In order to memorize the first 3 categories, picture association is quite helpful.īut don’t get too much used to it! Kanji have evolved a lot: they were modified and even made more complex throughout many centuries. If you are curious, you can learn about them on Wikipedia! Memorizing the shape of a kanji *There are 2 other categories, but since a few amount of kanji fall into them, I chose not to explain them here. This last category is the most important one, because more than 70% of kanji were formed this way. ④ Combination of a component that conveys the general meaning and a component that represents the pronunciation ( 形 けい 声 せい 文 も 字 じ keisei moji): ③ Combination of meanings ( 会 かい 意 い 文 も 字 じ kaii moji): ② Representation of an abstract concept ( 指 し 示 じ 文 も 字 じ shiji moji): ① Drawing of concrete objects/phenomena ( 象 しょう 形 けい 文 も 字 じ shōkei moji): Let's have a look at the different ways* kanji were formed. Understanding the different types of kanji That is why kanji are still used today and have so many different readings.īut don’t panic, KANJI-Link is here to help you memorize them! But they didn’t get rid of kanji! They were too useful to differentiate homophones (words that have the same pronunciation but a different spelling). Roughly, this is how they did it:Ī few centuries later, Japanese people created 2 writing systems based on kanji: hiragana and katakana. So, Japanese people had the great (?) idea to borrow the Chinese writing system. Originally, Japanese was only a spoken language. Kanji: Introduction A little bit of history