a better way to learn kanji.. ?

Hello everyone, this is my first post.
I started learning japanese a while ago, and started with Pimsleur language learning (which is all audio, meaning it teaches how to listen and speak).
And I finished learning all hiragana and katakana.
Now that I started kanji, I found out that it has two pronunciations. the onyomi and the kunyomi.
now correct my thought if its wrong,
by learning how to speak japanese fluently, would it be easier to read the correct pronunciation of the kanji?
for example:
when asking about how many people are there in the family,
its is: kazoku ni nan nin imasu ka
and NOT kazoku ni nan hito imasu ka
while nin and hito share the same kanji ﾂ人, i wouldnt of course read it as hito since i "know" that in this situation, nin is used.
so i ask again, does being able to speak japanese very well help choosing the correct pronunciation of the kanji?
and if so, is it enough to just know the meaning of the kanji without knowing the onyomi and kunyomi? since i know the japanese term verbally and the kanji that represnts it?
those are just thoughts that came up to my mind when i started learning kanji.
I thought that i would try to learn to speak japanese before starting with learning kanji
I now know 10 kanjis, and both pronunciations and how to write them (numbers from 1 to 10)

For now, the way Im doing it is learning through Pimsleur and then alongside that I'll learn the english translations (and NOT the pronounciations, not on or kun) of the kanji. That way, if I come across 人 for example, I will already know thats person/people. So I will then know that in kazoku ni nan nin imasu ka, nin is 人 because I know nin is person/people.

After Pimsleur I'll probably double check the pronounciations to ensure things are matching up correctly and once I've reached a certain level of proficiency I'll find everything starting to link together and fit in. Hopefully then I'll see that I know most of the possible readings for the kanji and when to use them.

For example, you will have learned from Pimsleur I the various ways to pronounce 四, (i.e. shi, yon, yo, yot(tsu)). This is where my method comes in handy because you don't just have the issue of learning on and kun readings, but you've also got various kun readings based on the context and situation. So from Pimsleur I you will have learned how 四 would be pronounced in a number of situations.

By the way I believe the best way to learn the english translations to kanji is using Heisig's Remembering The Kanji. Visual Mnemonics rock ;D Think of it as the reading/writing equivalent to Pimsleur in its ability to teach you and have you memorise and recall quickly and efficiently.

For now, the way Im doing it is learning through Pimsleur and then alongside that I'll learn the english translations (and NOT the pronounciations, not on or kun) of the kanji. That way, if I come across 人 for example, I will already know thats person/people. So I will then know that in kazoku ni nan nin imasu ka, nin is 人 because I know nin is person/people.

After Pimsleur I'll probably double check the pronounciations to ensure things are matching up correctly and once I've reached a certain level of proficiency I'll find everything starting to link together and fit in. Hopefully then I'll see that I know most of the possible readings for the kanji and when to use them.

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Thats exaclty what i'm thinking ;D
And by the way, where did you reach in pimsleur? do you believe that when you are done with japanese III, you will be able to speak japanese proficiently? to a level that helps you a lot of kanji?
I'm still in japanese I, lesson 23 (I'm doing as advised to take 1 lesson a day)
and for Heisig's Remembering The Kanji, how do u study from it ? i saw the book, and i just had a look on the first two lessons (stories). the first one had like 15 kanjis, and i'm not sure about the second. Do you take 1 story a day?

If you do 1 mnemonic ('short story'), you will have to study for like 6 years, and within a year you will forget with you have learnt. Do as many as possible and repeat from the beginning. You don't have to mess around with reading the stories again or creating ones if you can remember your stuff. Whatever you remember, repeat once then move on.

Do not expect to have any language proficiency after you complete a short programme. Proficiency comes with practice, gradually and not once you have learnt a number of crucial things. Patience, thats what you need.

ichiban said:

Thats exaclty what i'm thinking ;D
And by the way, where did you reach in pimsleur? do you believe that when you are done with japanese III, you will be able to speak japanese proficiently? to a level that helps you a lot of kanji?
I'm still in japanese I, lesson 23 (I'm doing as advised to take 1 lesson a day)
and for Heisig's Remembering The Kanji, how do u study from it ? i saw the book, and i just had a look on the first two lessons (stories). the first one had like 15 kanjis, and i'm not sure about the second. Do you take 1 story a day?

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I'm currently on lesson 29 of Pimsleur I. I believe that by the end of Japanese III I will have some decent japanese speaking skills that will act as a STARTING POINT. I think that pimsleur can only really provide a stepping stone at the beginning and a foundation. While it does teach you to have instant recollection and an almost instinctual speaking style (like a native), the actual range of vocabulary it provides is limited in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention its got quite a formal style and basically no colloquialism in it, that's something that would only come from living in a Japanese environment.

But I do believe its a good place to start and from there I'll be able to more confidently work with other resources. I also believe it will be very useful for helping with kanji pronounciation.

As for Heisig's, taking a kanji a day would be a very slow and inefficient way of doing things. The average time for the first book is 3-9 months. So thats between 30-100 kanji a day. While this may seem daunting, trust me its easier than you think. Last year I quite easily learned a good 300 in 3 days and I retained the information for 3 months, before forgetting them (because I didn't review the kanji, a very important part of the process, and basically stopped learning to focus on A-levels). The mind is a very powerful thing if you use the right methods!

As I mentioned, reviewing the kanji is also important. There's infact a website which makes doing this very easy (and basically has all the kanji from the book and you can set which kanji you're on and automatically all the kanji leading up to it are loaded as digital flash cards. It will then randomly go through them and you can guess the translation.)

Kanji Koohii

Thanks everybody for the precious info
I didn't mean to study one kanji a day
but a lesson a day
for example the first lesson has 15 kanjis, so I have to finish them in one day. That was my point.
I have a thought that sometimes discourages me; If I finish level III, whom will i practice japanese with? I got no japanese friends at all (well actually i got one friend that speaks japanese, but it's not like i can chat with him all day long).
Any ideas where i can practice? is anime a good practice?
And if i got to learn lots of kanji, how am I going to pronounce them since i'm not learning that much new vocabulary everyday from pimsleur?

I havent really got any resources after Pimsleur yet since I'm not done with it. But I assume there will be other resources to teach phrases and sentences just like you've been learning sentences and phrases from Pimsleur. So I assume the other resources will teach you different pronounciations of kanji in various situations automatically.

Not sure what to do about practice of speech due to lack of Japanese friends, I have the same problem lol

Oh right, I got confused because you compared lesson to story, and I imagine a different story for each kanji

While digging up my old files, I found a software that might be useful to learn more phrases
it is Declan's Japanese FlashCards
you can google: "declan software"

I'm also currently using Heisig's method and I find it goes much faster than trying to learn the Kanji AND the meaning AND the On Yomi AND the Kun Yomi AND the stroke order AND... well you know.

It took me a full day to learn the numbers 1-10 (and 100 and 1000) and now I'm doing 20 kanji in less than an hour.

So it's a really good method if you have a good imagination (for the stories).
I've been recommendig it to everyone.

yea same here
i finished about 206 kanji
my pace was a lot faster ( the first 100 in 3 days)
but as uni started i cant find much time
amari jikan ga arimasen

phew ! im now done with 500 kanji! thanks to the heisig method and the revision website!

Well, I just thought I'd give my two cents on my experience so far learning kanji in an effort to gain fluency. I've come to realize I'm lacking something in my kanji studies, that doesn't seem to be coming to me from mere memorization and recognition of the kanji in question along with their on and kun readings. In particularly, I think I'm lacking context for certain words.

I mean, even though every kanji I learn to write, read, and understand comes with two sentences ... I find I still have trouble differentiating japanese words not only audibly but also deciphering meaning from written texts. I mean, for example, how many kanji are there that have shi as a reading?

Furthermore, if no one ever told you, how would you know that 大阪 is the kanji for Osaka, and not just a reference to a large hill?

As to remedying the first problem, I suspect my only recourse is to just immerse myself in japanese speech and learn the way a child does when learning a new language. Which probably means countless Jdramas in the near future.

As for problem two, unfortunately, I'm not too sure how to remedy it other than to pester people here on this website or by reading my dictionary religiously. I have decided that a more amusing way would probably be attempting to translate the yotsuba manga into english, panel by panel. I hear it's about a child who discovers the wonders of things like escalators and such. Which, to me, I think is perfect for my given level at the moment.

Anyway, all this just tells me I need to re-evaluate my strategy for learning.

Just my two cents. Your milage may vary