There are more than 1 type of writing in Japanese and Kanji is one of them. To read about the other type of writing and as to why do Japanese need more than 1 type of writing, you could check this article: Japanese Type of Writing.This article will help to answer basic questions about Kanji and effective method to master Kanji within a few months. Well then, let’s start

Structure of a Kanji

人

This is a single simple kanji

• Basic meanings: man,people
• Onyomi (Chinese) reading: じん (jin), にん (nin)
• Kunyomi (Japanese) reading: ひと (hito)

Note that there are more than 1 readings for a kanji. So for example, 人 in 日本人にほんじん (nihonjin) : Japanese people is read as Jin. While in “どんな人ですか？” (What kind of people/person?) it is read as hito.

About Japanese Radical

What is radical? Basically, a complex kanji is made out of a combination of shape. We call these repeated shape “Radicals” or “Kanji building blocks”. Check out the example below:

春

This is kanji means spring, and it’s more complex than previous 人 kanji.

Now if you analyze and break it into part, you can see it’s actually a combination of 三 (three) + 人 (people) + 日 (sun/day)

By knowing this fact, remembering/trying to write this kanji is now much more easier! These 3 kanji you saw, we called them radicals/building blocks. And you can check out all the list of 215 radicals shape and meaning with this link here.

Notes about Japanese radical

1. Some radicals combination might make sense, but most of them are not

For example, we have a sample here which make sense. 愛 (love) is a combination of 受 (receive) and 心 (heart). So literally Love is to receive someone’s heart. It’s quite logical right?
*You might have noticed a grey stroke which is not exist in 受 (receive), but don’t mind about where does the grey stroke comes from 😀 In kanji, please treat all general rules with flexibility, since they are not 100%.

But most of the kanji you will encounter will be like the 2nd sample. If you asked “Why?”. We really recommend you for not to sign up for that class… _:(´□`」 ∠):_ Just be aware that you could see a kanji/pure radical in a complex kanji, and use it to aid you with memorization. For example, you could make up a story like “A heavy wind blows. My bug box fell upside down. All the bug I have caught are gone”.

2. Some radicals are a real kanji with meaning, like the kanji for spring we covered. But some of them are PURE radicals. Which means that they are purely building blocks and cannot stand by itself. Some pure radicals have meaning but some don’t. As you can see in the image below, kanji with the same pure radicals usually hold a more/less related meaning. Note that this doesn’t apply to all kanji. But knowing this fact should help you to learn related kanji easier.

Japanese Compound Words

Compound words is a combination of Kanji to create a new meaning. We have those in English too! For example football: foot + ball or underworld: under + world.

Things to note about Japanese compound words:
1. Same kanji, different sound. Check out these two compound words 男子 (danshi) and 子供 (kodomo). Both have 子, but one is read as SHI and another as KO. In most case, it’s quite random. So our recommendation is just to memorize them when you see them.

2. When combined, usually the first kana of the combined word change sounds into it’s muddied version (kana with mini quote or circle). For example: 花 (flower) is はな (hana). Combined as 火花 (spark), it is ひばな (hibana). Another example: 紙 (paper) is かみ (kami). Combined as 手紙 (letter), it is てがみ (tegami).

3. In rare occasion, the reading of a compound words might not follow any rules/reading of the kanji. As in 一人 (one people/alone) which is read as hitori or 北京 (Beijing) which is read as Pekin

4. In most cases, compound kanji are logical literal words. 三角 (sankaku: triangle) is 3 corners. But some case, it cannot be explained/hard to be explained literally. Here’s one example, 事故 (jiko: accident). 事 is fact/reason/matter/possibly/business/thing. 故 is cause/circumstances/reason/intentionally.

How to learn Kanji?

Important: Avoid learning how to write kanji. Unless the writing process is easy & fun for you and help you to memorize the meaning/reading of each kanji, we really recommend not to not sign up for “Writing Kanji” class… Because the purpose of kanji is to help you with reading. So you only need to read them. And we can easily type kanji with computer/smartphone these days. So writing kanji is a very low priority (but super hard to learn) skills.

Purpose: to learn Kanji for JLPT test

1. Get a list of words for JLPT (you could click the link below to get them)
JLPT N5

2. Get offline dictionary for your phone:
IMIWA for apple | Takoboto for android

3. For each entries of words, try to get the sentence examples. You could get it at online dictionary such as Tangorin. Because by reading examples of sentence, you could get a clear meaning of a words & how to use them in a sentence.

4. Get digital flashcard for smartphone:Ankidroid
*Ankidroid is the best and free apps for flashcard builder. For iphone, you could try the FreeAnkiAppFlashcard, Free Brainscape or 25$ AnkiMobile

5. Create a flashcard deck from 1st list. Make sure you read each sentence examples before inputting a word to your deck. Now, the most important thing is: Don’t just put the kanji shape, meaning and reading on the card!

What you could write on each card:
– Write the conjugated version of the word you found on the book
– Write meaning of each kanji
– Describe the shape of the kanji or it’s radical
– Create a weird sentence (mnemonics) that can relate to some of the word, etc

For example, if you want to memorize 歌手 Kashu: singer.Here are what you can write beside its reading & meaning:

– 歌 uta: song
– 手 te: hand
– Singer hold mike on hand and then sing a song!
– Kardashian Sucks as a singer (Kashu)

Note that as in Sucks and SHU sample above, the sentence doesn’t have to include a perfect similar word. 60 – 70% word similarity should do as well to help you with your study. Since sometimes to find a 100% similar words will be harder than to just memorize the words by itself _:(´□`」 ∠):_

6. Review your card everyday, and add new cards when you see fit
Key: Review EVERYDAY. Your brain logic: What you don’t use = junk and need to be erased from database.

How many kanji should I learn in a day/month

The real answer is as much as you possible. But we know that this is not what you want to know. So here’s a number… about 70 words/day or 500/10 days if your goal is to master around 70% coverage (4000+ compound words) within 3-4 months. With this amount, JLPT N5 list of words (600 entries) can be done in 10 days or a total of 3 weeks to cover N5-N4 (1500 entries).

But note that everyone have a different capability. So you could try to do around 10/day at first, and if it’s too easy/hard, you could adjust it until you reach a number which you’re comfortable with
ヾ(@°▽°@)ノ

And that’s all you need to know to effectively learn Kanji. If you would like to achieve 70% kanji reading coverage, we recommend you to read this article here: Mastering Kanji in 4 months. Note that it’s best for you to learn JLPT N5 – JLPT N3 first before starting the 70% coverage route.

Well then, Happy learning! ｡ﾟ✶ฺ.ヽ(*´∀`*)ﾉ.✶ฺﾟ｡