Chinese influences while learning Kanji

[Ronbo]

Hi all!
I'm fairly new to learning Japanese (my grasp on Katakana is still a little shaky), but I'm wondering if I should avoid doing something I tend towards.

My native language is English, but I also speak Chinese fluently. However, since Chinese characters are the same as a lot of Kanji, I tend to skip over Kanji that I recognize in Chinese and just assume they have a similar meaning to their Chinese counterparts. For example, I can recognize the Kanji for the colors black, white, and green easily, because they're exactly the same as they are in Chinese, but if I were to hear the same words I would only understand kuro.

Similarly, when I came onto this forum, I was able to immediately recognize 一般的なフォーラム as a General Discussion section because 一般的 means "typical/normal" in Chinese and I could read フォーラム. However, in my mind I'm reading 一般的なフォーラム as "yi ban de na foramu", where "yi ban de" is the Chinese pronunciation of 一般的. Basically, I don't know how to say the phrase fully in Japanese, but I can kind of understand it.

Is it alright for me to continue this for now, while I strengthen my general vocabulary and grammar, and only learn the Kanji pronunciations later, or should I try to not fall behind on learning the actual pronunciations of Kanji? Right now, pretty much the only Kanji I can recognize and pronounce are 私, 君, and 何...

Thanks for your advice
Ronbo

 

[Glenn]

Learn the Japanese readings, otherwise you aren't learning Japanese. Imagine how strange it would sound if someone read 我喜歡他 as が きかん た. It would make no sense at all.

It's いっぱんてき, by the way.

 

[Morphling]

Learn all the 音読み for all 2000 常用漢字. This shouldn't take too long. Half of the vocab is safe but there are many many subtleties for the rest. I would be weary.

E.g.
吸引
J suction
C suction, attraction (惹かれる)
意思
J thought
C meaning (意味)
妖精
J fairy
C monster (化け物)

The list goes on and on.

The next step is to remember the 訓読み which is somewhat even more important. This is the Japanese that is used most often in everyday speech.

Also 訓読み is based on 文言 not 現代中国語 so don't used your 口語 knowledge to derive meaning.

走 is to run not walk
這 is to crawl not 'this'
蠢 is to crawl, not 'stupid'

Etc. Be vigilant otherwise u will not improve.

 

[danki]

Hi^^ I have a similar problem. Well, actually I started learning Japanese before Chinese (I'm studying them both at university) and I don't feel fluent in neither of the two, but I happen to have a far broader vocabulary in Chinese, so many times I see a word in Japanese and I know what that means, but I have no idea on how to pronunce it. However, even if sometimes I can answer correctly in "read the text and choose the sentence that best fits it contents" tests, it's definitely not good. One thing I would suggest (unfortunately I have not so much time to do it, but when I do I feel it very useful) is to grab a grammar book that has Chinese also, and force yourself to read aloud, focusing on the different pronunciation.