I'm surprised how well I've been able to communicate with people right off the bat. It's exciting to think where I'll be in just a month or two's time. I'm focusing on studying sentence structures and kanji right now.My most intensive area of study right now is on learning the readings of kanji. Right now the book I'm using is called Essential Kanji by P.G.O`Neill. I've had it for a while but was always a little intimidated by it. Now that I've had a lot more experience with the Japanese language, it's making for a great resource. I still don't feel confident in my kanji at all, so I'm starting from the beginning. Of course I know a few of them pretty well by now, and I'm already 35 kanji into the book. I'm sure I'll hit the ceiling of my pretty-well-known-kanji soon and the speed at which I pick up new ones will fall drastically. As I mentioned before, I'm memorizing the readings of each kanji as well as writing each about 20 times.
At the same time I'm working on using transitive and intransitive verbs correctly, as well as some of the sentence constructs surrounding them. I'm also brushing up on older sentence structures that I haven't used for a while and therefore am rusty in their proper usage. I've brought the Japanese in Mangaland books with me, and packed some other ones to be shipped to me once I have a permanent address.
Showing posts with label kanji. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kanji. Show all posts
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Kanji studying misgivings
I continue to have misgivings about my kanji studying methodology. I've bounced around between several different methodologies, and even gave up on studying kanji for a while as I focused again on grammar constructs. I'm still convinced though that my ability to learn the language will greatly increase if I am able to read books, and for that I need to "know" kanji.
First a little background on kanji. Each kanji can have a variety of meanings, but those meanings all relate to each other. I'm going to use "ishi" (石) as my example, since it pretty much means "stone". Now, in Japanese kanji can have several different "readings". While the kanji itself means stone, depending on what word that kanji shows up in, it might sound like seki,shaku, koku, or ishi. The kanji finds itself in such words as oil, stone, pebble, coal, jewel. You can see how those words are all related to stones. My dilemma is that just knowing the meaning of a kanji doesn't necessarily help. When I'm trying to read a word that is composed of two or three kanji, even if I know the meaning of the individual kanji, that doesn't give me how to read the word, or what word the three kanji together form. As I mentioned above, if I see 石, it could be read in one of several different ways. Do I study the kanji, the meaning, and memorize all of the readings? Will those readings help me by themselves? I've used a methodology whereby instead of studying just the readings, I've actually memorized words that the kanji shows up in. In that way it's more like memorizing vocabulary than individual kanji. I automatically know how to read the word since I memorized that group of kanji's reading.
While that is a great way to eventually learn how to read, it also seems very inefficient. I could learn a word for every one of 石's readings (in this case four words). This means that I would put my effort into learning how to write 石, the meaning of 石, four words which contain the different readings of 石, those word's meanings, and how to read those words. Instead of doing all of that, I could just learn how to write 石, the meaning of 石, and the four readings related to it. Is the latter approach the better way of learning kanji? Is it too artificial to be useful for reading? In the latter case, I might know all of the readings for a kanji when I come across it in a word, but I won't necessarily know which reading is correct, or the meaning of the word. I think I will try to switch to the latter method in the hopes that being familiar with a lot more kanji will let me more easily match up words in kanji whose readings I don't know with vocabulary that I memorized without learning the kanji.
First a little background on kanji. Each kanji can have a variety of meanings, but those meanings all relate to each other. I'm going to use "ishi" (石) as my example, since it pretty much means "stone". Now, in Japanese kanji can have several different "readings". While the kanji itself means stone, depending on what word that kanji shows up in, it might sound like seki,shaku, koku, or ishi. The kanji finds itself in such words as oil, stone, pebble, coal, jewel. You can see how those words are all related to stones. My dilemma is that just knowing the meaning of a kanji doesn't necessarily help. When I'm trying to read a word that is composed of two or three kanji, even if I know the meaning of the individual kanji, that doesn't give me how to read the word, or what word the three kanji together form. As I mentioned above, if I see 石, it could be read in one of several different ways. Do I study the kanji, the meaning, and memorize all of the readings? Will those readings help me by themselves? I've used a methodology whereby instead of studying just the readings, I've actually memorized words that the kanji shows up in. In that way it's more like memorizing vocabulary than individual kanji. I automatically know how to read the word since I memorized that group of kanji's reading.
While that is a great way to eventually learn how to read, it also seems very inefficient. I could learn a word for every one of 石's readings (in this case four words). This means that I would put my effort into learning how to write 石, the meaning of 石, four words which contain the different readings of 石, those word's meanings, and how to read those words. Instead of doing all of that, I could just learn how to write 石, the meaning of 石, and the four readings related to it. Is the latter approach the better way of learning kanji? Is it too artificial to be useful for reading? In the latter case, I might know all of the readings for a kanji when I come across it in a word, but I won't necessarily know which reading is correct, or the meaning of the word. I think I will try to switch to the latter method in the hopes that being familiar with a lot more kanji will let me more easily match up words in kanji whose readings I don't know with vocabulary that I memorized without learning the kanji.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Kanji Studying
I finally feel like I have an effective kanji studying technique. I've been using the Kanji in MangaLand book lately. It has the most logical progression, and the most useful vocab I've found in any kanji book so far. Up till now I've always struggled with the various aspects of studying kanji:
I write the word in kanji on one side of a notecard, and the hiragana reading plus the English meaning on the other side. I look at the kanji side, and make sure I know both the English meaning of the word, and the hiragana reading of it. I then write the kanji a few times in a notebook and go on to the next one. If I don't know the meaning of a word, then I make sure to review that one more often. I tend to memorize in batches of 6-12 words, and then move on to the next batch. As I accumulate words that I have lots of trouble with, I'll memorize a batch of the trouble makers separately from the rest.
I've found that studying this way increases my vocabulary, allows me to memorize stroke order and the various readings of a kanji, and the individual meaning of a kanji. Frequently, vocabulary includes kanji that I am studying, and kanji that I have not yet studied. I try to learn the stroke order of all the kanji in a word I am studying, although I don't feel the need to learn the meaning or the readings of kanji that I haven't gotten to yet. I can usually discern some meaning anyways, and I figure I will get to that kanji in the future.
The only disadvantage to this method is how long it takes to get through a group of kanji, since I am not only memorizing the kanji, but it's stroke order, other kanjis' stroke order, and several new words per kanji.
- Do I memorize the individual meanings of kanji?
- Should I memorize all the common readings of individual kanji?
- How do I effectively memorize a kanji's stroke order?
- What about vocabulary written in kanji?
I write the word in kanji on one side of a notecard, and the hiragana reading plus the English meaning on the other side. I look at the kanji side, and make sure I know both the English meaning of the word, and the hiragana reading of it. I then write the kanji a few times in a notebook and go on to the next one. If I don't know the meaning of a word, then I make sure to review that one more often. I tend to memorize in batches of 6-12 words, and then move on to the next batch. As I accumulate words that I have lots of trouble with, I'll memorize a batch of the trouble makers separately from the rest.
I've found that studying this way increases my vocabulary, allows me to memorize stroke order and the various readings of a kanji, and the individual meaning of a kanji. Frequently, vocabulary includes kanji that I am studying, and kanji that I have not yet studied. I try to learn the stroke order of all the kanji in a word I am studying, although I don't feel the need to learn the meaning or the readings of kanji that I haven't gotten to yet. I can usually discern some meaning anyways, and I figure I will get to that kanji in the future.
The only disadvantage to this method is how long it takes to get through a group of kanji, since I am not only memorizing the kanji, but it's stroke order, other kanjis' stroke order, and several new words per kanji.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Why are there 4 #$#@$# alphabets?
Okay, I'm not sure if you can consider kanji an alphabet (Kinda leaning towards no on this one), but still, there are three different methods that the Japanese generally use to write their language:
When I started out learning Japanese, I had a hard time grappling with this issue. I felt like it was done to spite people learning their language, and wished everything was written in hiragana (I know, wishing everything was written in romaji would have been a better dream, but then I wouldn't have to learn any new alphabet and that would feel too much like cheating). Having been exposed to Japanese for a couple of years now, I feel that I can give an explanation to those who are currently in the position I was in.
Let me tell you first off, having "foreign" words written in katakana is a huge boon to foreigners in Japan. If I see a word in katakana, the first thing I do is try to sound it out and see if it sounds like an English word. It seems that most katakana words are outright English words written using japanese phonetics, however some of them are a kind of pidgin English. Words like so-fa (sofa), gasu (gas), and garasu (glass) are all direct English translations. They basically took the english word, and made a Japanese equivalent that sounds as close to the original English as is possible with their alphabet. A word like pasokon (personal computer) is a hybrid of two english words, but still easier to remember than a completely foreign word. Sure it sucks that you have to learn 48 new katakana symbols that stand for the same thing as 48 new hiragana symbols that you already learned, but it's a small price to pay.
Just have to add this in here to scare people even more. Sometimes there even weirder ways that their alphabets are combined. Take "keshigomu" for instance. The word means "eraser" and is a combination of "keshi" which is basically the root of "to erase" and "gomu" which is katakana for gum. The word actually has kanji, hiragana, and katakana all together... how wonderful right! :)
Now that I've had a chance to read some children's books written soley in hiragana, I can really appreciate why kanji exists. Remember that there are generally no spaces between characters in Japanese. Basically, kanji makes it really easy to figure out where words start and end, similar to spaces in an English sentence. When I only understand maybe 30 percent of a book's vocabulary, I frequently don't know where one word starts and one word ends when they are all written in hiragana. I also tend to find words in between words (where I recognize a word that doesn't exist by taking a combination of the end of one word, and the beginning of another), and my Japanese tutor laughs at me a lot :) With kanji (and furigana, which are little hiragana written above the kanji so I know how it's pronounced), I know for certain where words begin and end.
Another reason why kanji is so important, is because there are several cases of words having the same hiragana as each other, but completely different meanings (but different kanji). Take "hashi" for example. Hashi can mean bridge, it can mean edge or it can mean chopsticks (and a few more things, but you get the point). When written in hiragana, there is no way to tell what the meaning is without context, and even then it can be confusing. When hashi is written in kanji however, the meaning becomes clear.
- Katakana
- Hiragana
- Kanji
- Romaji (but they don't generally use this, it's just for us gaijin)
When I started out learning Japanese, I had a hard time grappling with this issue. I felt like it was done to spite people learning their language, and wished everything was written in hiragana (I know, wishing everything was written in romaji would have been a better dream, but then I wouldn't have to learn any new alphabet and that would feel too much like cheating). Having been exposed to Japanese for a couple of years now, I feel that I can give an explanation to those who are currently in the position I was in.
Let me tell you first off, having "foreign" words written in katakana is a huge boon to foreigners in Japan. If I see a word in katakana, the first thing I do is try to sound it out and see if it sounds like an English word. It seems that most katakana words are outright English words written using japanese phonetics, however some of them are a kind of pidgin English. Words like so-fa (sofa), gasu (gas), and garasu (glass) are all direct English translations. They basically took the english word, and made a Japanese equivalent that sounds as close to the original English as is possible with their alphabet. A word like pasokon (personal computer) is a hybrid of two english words, but still easier to remember than a completely foreign word. Sure it sucks that you have to learn 48 new katakana symbols that stand for the same thing as 48 new hiragana symbols that you already learned, but it's a small price to pay.
Just have to add this in here to scare people even more. Sometimes there even weirder ways that their alphabets are combined. Take "keshigomu" for instance. The word means "eraser" and is a combination of "keshi" which is basically the root of "to erase" and "gomu" which is katakana for gum. The word actually has kanji, hiragana, and katakana all together... how wonderful right! :)
Now that I've had a chance to read some children's books written soley in hiragana, I can really appreciate why kanji exists. Remember that there are generally no spaces between characters in Japanese. Basically, kanji makes it really easy to figure out where words start and end, similar to spaces in an English sentence. When I only understand maybe 30 percent of a book's vocabulary, I frequently don't know where one word starts and one word ends when they are all written in hiragana. I also tend to find words in between words (where I recognize a word that doesn't exist by taking a combination of the end of one word, and the beginning of another), and my Japanese tutor laughs at me a lot :) With kanji (and furigana, which are little hiragana written above the kanji so I know how it's pronounced), I know for certain where words begin and end.
Another reason why kanji is so important, is because there are several cases of words having the same hiragana as each other, but completely different meanings (but different kanji). Take "hashi" for example. Hashi can mean bridge, it can mean edge or it can mean chopsticks (and a few more things, but you get the point). When written in hiragana, there is no way to tell what the meaning is without context, and even then it can be confusing. When hashi is written in kanji however, the meaning becomes clear.
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