Kanji: recognition vs writing (What should I do?)

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
ilmari
Orange Belt
Posts: 187
Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2016 10:12 am
Languages: Fluent - French (N), English, Hebrew, Japanese.
Intermediate - Korean, Finnish, Spanish, Russian.
Studying (now) - Russian, Spanish
Dabbling - Italian, Polish, Yiddish, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Indonesian, Māori, Latin, Esperanto, Swahili
Would love to study - Norwegian, Swedish, Ancient Greek, and so many more.
x 461

Re: Kanji: recognition vs writing (What should I do?)

Postby ilmari » Fri Jan 05, 2018 3:14 am

Any serious study of kanji needs a lot of writing practice, even if eventually, in real life, you will not write a lot. This is what all Japanese kids go through, and what all of us who managed to reach a decent level in Japanese (i.e. being able to read, more or less fluently, modern and contemporary material) did. This is how you accustom your brain to this very complex writing system.

Of course, if your objective is just to manage, to read street and transportation signs and restaurant menus, you don't need to do all that. Just a bit of passive recognition would do. Which is also perfectly fine.


It seems my previous contribution was a bit short and not totally clear. What I wanted to convey was the idea that, at the initial stage of your studies (and in the case of Japanese, this can mean the first couple of years), there is no shortcut to learning to write the kanji if you wish to attain real proficiency.

Why is it so? Based on my own experience, it is the best way to learn precisely and accurately how kanji are made - what are the radical and the element(s) of each kanji. You will also learn the correct stroke order of each kanji part, which is not only a curiosity, but the key to be able to read any hand written document, not even talking about the different calligraphic styles.

Later on in your studies, once you got the hang of it, there will be no need for regular written practice (except in preparation for exams), as in the 21st century, we barely write by hand anymore. In the case of Japan, the only things you may still be required to hand-write from time to time are your address, your profession, etc. But your initial written practice would have been the key to reading fluency and good recognition and retention of new kanji you encounter.

As for my mention of menu items, it is true that you will find there many low frequency kanji, but this does not mean you need to write them to be able to recognise them.
2 x

User avatar
RubiksKid
White Belt
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2017 5:06 am
Location: Reno, NV
Languages: English (N), Spanish (3,000 - 5,000 words), Japanese (~2,500 words), French (~3,000 words), Chinese (complete beginner, >100 words)
x 20

Re: Kanji: recognition vs writing (What should I do?)

Postby RubiksKid » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:26 pm

So I've been going from key word to writing for several days now, and the additional effort isn't too bad. It's approximately twice the effort I'd say. One thing I didn't expect, though, is how satisfying it is to actually be able to write out the characters. It seems almost silly, but being able to write them is really cool. Another thing that I considered is that even if I don't use writing that much in the long run, being able to write the characters probably makes my ability to recognize them more resistant to atrophy over time.

Anyway, I'll be at around 700 characters before the start of next semester, and then I plan to pick up a few every day until summer, during which time I'll learn the rest.
2 x

User avatar
leosmith
Brown Belt
Posts: 1341
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:06 pm
Location: Seattle
Languages: English (N)
Spanish (adv)
French (int)
German (int)
Japanese (int)
Korean (int)
Mandarin (int)
Portuguese (int)
Russian (int)
Swahili (int)
Tagalog (int)
Thai (int)
x 3104
Contact:

Re: Kanji: recognition vs writing (What should I do?)

Postby leosmith » Sat Jan 06, 2018 5:21 am

RubiksKid wrote:So I've been going from key word to writing for several days now, and the additional effort isn't too bad.

Another thing you might consider, since you have time constraints, is to stop trying to learn the kanji before you've even encountered them via your other studies. The method of learning them all up front creates an imbalance with your other skills. This is no big deal if you have unlimited time and plan to learn the language really intensely (say 3hrs/day plus), consistently until you've got all the kanji well in use. But having an anki deck full of kanji for years is really inefficient, and getting something right in anki does not equal mastery in real life. You are better off learning how to use the Heisig method by learning a couple hundred characters or so, then waiting until you encounter additional characters to learn how to write/recognize them. Doing this will make the Japanese you know, regardless of your level, more balanced, more useful and more satisfying.
1 x
https://languagecrush.com/reading - try our free multi-language reading tool

User avatar
RubiksKid
White Belt
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2017 5:06 am
Location: Reno, NV
Languages: English (N), Spanish (3,000 - 5,000 words), Japanese (~2,500 words), French (~3,000 words), Chinese (complete beginner, >100 words)
x 20

Re: Kanji: recognition vs writing (What should I do?)

Postby RubiksKid » Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:11 am

leosmith wrote:Another thing you might consider, since you have time constraints, is to stop trying to learn the kanji before you've even encountered them via your other studies. The method of learning them all up front creates an imbalance with your other skills. This is no big deal if you have unlimited time and plan to learn the language really intensely (say 3hrs/day plus), consistently until you've got all the kanji well in use. But having an anki deck full of kanji for years is really inefficient, and getting something right in anki does not equal mastery in real life. You are better off learning how to use the Heisig method by learning a couple hundred characters or so, then waiting until you encounter additional characters to learn how to write/recognize them. Doing this will make the Japanese you know, regardless of your level, more balanced, more useful and more satisfying.
You make some good points, and I do have to admit that my studying has been imbalanced lately. Still, I try to apply what I’m learning by connecting it with my current vocabulary. For instance, sekai, a word which I knew before, I can can now see as 世界 (generation + world). I’m trying to make a lot of these connections as I go, but I certainly don’t do it for every kanji. I know it’s imbalanced, but if I keep up this pace I’ll be done pretty soon, and in hindsight this will seem like a relatively short stint in my Japanese studies.

Having said that, I’m going to continue with an open mind. If I find that learning all the jouyou kanji at once is affecting my other studies too much, I’ll scale things back like you suggested and take things in chunks of two hundred or so.
1 x


Return to “Practical Questions and Advice”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests