Just wanted to share some observations after the first 1000 that might help people who are just beginning. If you're curious, my method is to use flashcards with the meaning, some vocab (with the kanji in question deleted) and stroke count, and try to draw it myself – if I fail, I might use the radical or I might just reset the flashcard. I do 10 new cards per day, but I also skip days if the reviews go over 100. This method works for me but there are so many different tactics you could use – do what works for you! I will say that learning to write them has really burned them into my brain, and I am glad I decided to go this route even though I won't ever be writing them much in real life.
Now for my thoughts:
– First and foremost, what works for you is what works. Don't take anything I say as gospel – it isn't.
– Second, don't learn the readings on their own. You can do this if you want, but most people do not. It's not really that helpful – you still have to learn which reading to use for each word anyway.
– Third, when deciding how to study, keep in mind the number one rule about memorizing anything: brains don't like to store isolated information. So think about how you can leverage that to your advantage. There are tons of ways and I'll expand upon a few in a bit.
– Fourth, kanji sometimes follow certain rules. These rules are not something to obsess over (at least in the beginning), but they can be useful to understand. For example, many kanji have one component that determines the 音読み (on'yomi), and one that assists with the meaning. As you begin to recognize these patterns, your studies will get easier.
Here are some examples of how you can exploit neural connections to make things easier to memorize:
– Mnemonics. Mnemonics are super huge for kanji. Use your own, or use the many resources available to you that come with mnemonics. I like the book Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary but you can also use any number of free websites.
– Vocab. Try and learn kanji alongside vocab. Learning kanji separately from vocab is *doable* but also *unneccessarily frustrating.* There are always exceptions – like if a kanji is super simple and easy to remember – but overall, it's best to focus on kanji that appear in at least one word you know. What I do is I add kanji to my deck the first time in run into them in a new word – pretty simple.
– Repetition. Related to vocab, this is simply the principle that the more you see a kanji the more you will recognize it. This can be hard to leverage directly, but for example if you were playing a video game that had a lot of swamps in it you will probably have an easy time learning 沼.
– Components. Hoo boy – this could be an entire book on its own, so I'll sum it up quick for now: Being able to recognize the individal components of kanji has massive benefits, and learning kanji with shared components around the same time can help a lot. Radicals are one piece of this, but there are tons of non-radical components, component pairs, etc. that appear in multiple kanji. Now here is the kicker: you don't need to know what these things are in order for them to help you. Don't get me wrong, learning why these shared components exist can help you with meaning and pronounciation, and it's not a bad thing to study. But at the same time, just recognizing that the component exists means *that becomes one single piece of information you have to remember that can be re-used across possibly dozens or more kanji*. That alone is massively useful.
As an example, let's say you run into the kanji 沼, and you already know 海 and 召. Here are some things that might happen:
– "No new components. So I can easily remember this as just the combination of two pieces I already knew." <– this will almost certainly happen
– "Oh hey, the water radical! And this means swamp. That will be easier to remember." <– this will probably happen, water radical is very common
– "Ah, the right side is 召. That means the 音読み is probably ショウ." <– this might happen, but you will typically want to verify pronounciation on a word-by-word basis anyway
If you take anything away from this post, let it be the example I just gave you – stuff like that forms the foundation for being able to learn and use kanji, in my opinion.
One last note: I welcome more advanced speakers to comment on my thoughts, correct me, etc. But if you're gonna be rude about it – I'm aware this is reddit after all – just know I'll ignore you and move on. Being respectful and kind is just better for all of us anyway, isn't it?
by TheFranFan