GoldCoinLover said:
However I don't understand why each one has 3 meanings, could someone explain this?
Kanji came into Japan from China around 800 CE. (At least this seems to be the current consensus). You have two linguistic forces at work here; the use of Chinese characters to represent Japanese words (
kun-yomi) and the import of Chinese words, also represented by Chinese characters (
on-yomi). Since Chinese kanji have a one to one representation, and they are being used in two contexts, that's one way a single kanji can have multiple readings. Add into this the fact that the language developed over several hundred years without standardization and you would get this kind of diversity.
GoldCoinLover said:
How would I know which meaning from a next? How would I know which instances to write one?
By 'meaning' are you refering to the reading (see above) or the actual meaning of the kanji? Some kanji, usually very common use ones, do have multiple meanings. 日 for example has the 'meanings'
day,
sun and
Japan (日本,
Sun,
Origin, Land of the Rising Sun, harhar), but its more a question of knowing your vocabulary than knowing the meaning of the kanji when reading. I don't think you will have much luck trying to 'read' Japanese by understanding the meaning of the kanji.
GoldCoinLover said:
Why does "stroke order" matter?
Its one way kanji are indexed, and it helps them to be written legibly. One look at Japanese calligraphy tells you its not a hard rule.
GoldCoinLover said:
How are kanji classified? Do japanese people know more than 2,000? How long does it take to learn 2,000 kanji? A few more questions:
A kanji in example:
Let's look at this kanji. 鬮
According to JWPce:
Type: Kanji(uncommon, II)
JIS Code: 722D(F2AD)[r-]
shift-JIS E9AB
Unicode: 9B2E
Strokes: 26
Bushu: 191
Nelson:52736828
Halpern: 3-10-16
Spahn:8e18.1
Four corners: 7711.7
Morohashi: 45659X12.0663
PinYin: jiu
Korean: gu, gyu.
Meanings: lottery, lot, rafflle
On-yomi:
キュウ
Kun-yomi:
くじ
What does all this mean?
Thank you
Kanji are indexed in many ways. Since its such a complex system, having multiple ways of looking up a particular kanji is helpful. Knowing that you can always count strokes & get to a kanji that way is also nice
Kanji are usually 'classified' by radical, a sub-component of a particular kanji. In the word 'ji', meaning 'time', 時, the component:日 is a radical, and its general sense of time (day, sun up & down) has meaning here. In addition there is the radical 寸 meaning 'measurement'. So, radical analysis can eventually get to the 'meaning' of a kanji, but just learning the most common kanji is a whole lot easier.
BTW, learning to look up kanji by radicals is handy, but learning how to tell the 'dominant' radical in a kanji can be difficult for beginners. Personally, now that I have a lot of practice under my belt I can usually zero right in on the dominant radical, but you will need to practice to get this kind of 'second nature' feel down. I recommend the
Kanji Learners Dictionary, as it has a good radical lookup index and is not too large or expensive.
As for learning, several months to several years, depending on your time & method.
Yes, Japanese people 'know' more than 2,000, but there are some 2,000 kanji in 'daily use', such that knowing them you could read the paper, etc. This is assuming you know the kanji & its compounds (vocabulary).
Most of those items in the list are indexing schemes. Helpful depending on your dictionary.