This time I'll talk about dealing with situations without furigana (the little kana on top of kanji). Without kana, it takes more work to identify a kanji. Here's how I proceed:
Step 1:
Although I recognize the meaning of some characters individually, this doesn't help much when they're used in combination with another kanji to make a word. I start by identifying the single-use kanji:
雨：rain
家：house
帰：to return
Still, just as an example, I'll explain how I'd find the
kanji.
Step 2:
A good set of tools will certainly help here.
First, I use takoboto, a dictionary software. When launching the software, various options are available, including the ''find by radicals'' option.
Step 3:
Finding by radicals provide all the radicals which you can click through. The kanji I'm trying to identify can be dissected in radicals:
. The radicals are arranged in order of strokes. In this case I've seen the radicals often enough to recognize it's made out of two radicals, one on the left and one on the right.
By clicking the radical, all the incompatible radicals are automatically grayed out.
I already know the radical on the left, but with other kanji that can turn out to be useful. Once I've selected the radicals, I have access a possible list of kanji to the left:
All I have left to do is to select the right kanji:
Step 4:
While I could use this process for each of the other kanji, it's sometimes faster when you have the first kanji of a vocabulary word.
For example, I already have 家. If I copy/paste the kanji in the search area, I'll have access to various words which start with 家. As it turns out, the word I'm looking for is right there:
Conclusion:
So this is basically how I find kanji without a dictionary on hand.
Thank you for reading!
Step 1:
Although I recognize the meaning of some characters individually, this doesn't help much when they're used in combination with another kanji to make a word. I start by identifying the single-use kanji:
雨：rain
家：house
帰：to return
Still, just as an example, I'll explain how I'd find the
Step 2:
A good set of tools will certainly help here.
First, I use takoboto, a dictionary software. When launching the software, various options are available, including the ''find by radicals'' option.
Step 3:
Finding by radicals provide all the radicals which you can click through. The kanji I'm trying to identify can be dissected in radicals:
By clicking the radical, all the incompatible radicals are automatically grayed out.
I already know the radical on the left, but with other kanji that can turn out to be useful. Once I've selected the radicals, I have access a possible list of kanji to the left:
All I have left to do is to select the right kanji:
Step 4:
While I could use this process for each of the other kanji, it's sometimes faster when you have the first kanji of a vocabulary word.
For example, I already have 家. If I copy/paste the kanji in the search area, I'll have access to various words which start with 家. As it turns out, the word I'm looking for is right there:
Conclusion:
So this is basically how I find kanji without a dictionary on hand.
Thank you for reading!
