Help me with Kanji Please - any suggestions?

Dear all
I just found out your web forum by googled and have to say that you guys really rocks!!! this is such a great resource for nihongo. Well, my problem is I'm now a new resident in Tokyo with just a fundamental knowledge in Japanese. I found out that everytime I see a strange kanji word, I try to find it in the elec-dict. But it turns out that it's too hard to understand especially when it compounds with other character. I dont know how to input that kanji!! and also the counting of strokes is too tough! e.g. in the supermarket I always gave up after 30mins looking up that kanji in the dictionary!! do you have any suggestions? Do you have any dictionary recommend (I haven't bought it though but I sometimes use my friend's Canon Wordtank)? or any technique using it? please help me!!!...

Looks like there are some pocketable kanwa-jiten.
Please visit the following sites:

三省堂-必携 漢字辞典
大創出版ホームページ

I think they would be more useful than any electronic kanwa-jiten dictionary.
Probably at a BOOK-OFF shop you could find the one cheaper.

In order to be able to count strokes and more efficiently look up characters that you don't know, you need to be able to break them down. Seeing 購 for the first time is certainly intimidating, but when you can break it up into 貝 on the left and 冓 on the right it makes things a bit easier (although the right side is still tough). This gets easier the more you see them, because you will become familiar with the right side from characters like 構 and 講.

A big part of breaking up the characters is knowing the radicals. There are 214 of them traditionally. There's a list of them WWWJDIC: Word Search page. That page lists the full forms for some of them, and not for others, though, so you have to be a bit careful. For example, 齊 is listed instead of it's abbreviated form 斉, but 艹 is listed instead of 艸.

After the radicals there are the phonetic components. 冓, from above, is an example. All of the characters I listed above, including the phonetic itself, are read こう. Some 85% of the characters are constructed by having a radical and phonetic. This can be helpful when coming across a new character. For instance, the other day I came across 楊枝, and while I had never encountered the first character before, I was easily able to remember its reading (although this particular phonetic isn't so neat as the one given above). Looking it up is no problem either, because I can see that it's made up of 木 and the phonetic 昜.

Of course, I'm assuming you can look up characters in your dictionary by components. If that's not the case then you'll just have to guess at readings, but I think most electronic dictionaries nowadays have that option.

Now, there's a book that teaches the writings and one key-word meaning only for each character, and it goes through 2042 of them by starting with small parts and building characters from them. Some people don't like this method, and others do, but the apathetic person seems to be rare. If you search the forum for "Remembering the Kanji" and "James Heisig" you can find discussions on its merits and demerits. There's also "Kanji and Kana" that's a widely sold book, and others as well that deal with kanji and how they're used.

That's a little bit of advice, not knowing how much you know. I hope it helps somewhat.

Glenn said:

A big part of breaking up the characters is knowing the radicals. There are 214 of them traditionally. There's a list of them at Jim Breen's WWWJDIC page.

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I don't think those are the traditional radicals at all.

Multi-Radical Kanji Selection

The Multi-Radical Kanji Selection feature does not use the 214 classical radicals. Instead it uses a slightly different set which included more basic shapes. Note that the identification of the kanji is based on the visual appearance of the elements; not on their classical radical.

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Also the traditional system only has one 部首 per kanji, not at all like the multi-radical system which, as the name suggests, allows you to select multiple "radical components" in order to narrow down the possible kanji.

WWWJDIC: Multirad Kanji does consist of the traditional ones.
You'll find them in Japanese Wikipedia.

PaulTB said:

I don't think those are the traditional radicals at all.

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There are some that aren't radicals on there, it seems, but the vast majority correspond to the ones given in the 部首索引 in the 新漢語林.

ポール;422609 said:

Also the traditional system only has one 部首 per kanji, not at all like the multi-radical system which, as the name suggests, allows you to select multiple "radical components" in order to narrow down the possible kanji.

Click to expand...

All of the characters are only classified under one radical, but that doesn't mean they don't have more than one of the shapes in them.

Just out of curiosity, what do you consider the traditional radicals?

[Edit] I see undrentide beat me to it.

undrentide said:

WWWJDIC: Multirad Kanji does consist of the traditional ones.
You'll find them in Japanese Wikipedia.

Click to expand...

The 214 部首 radicals can be found at the wikipedia link as you say, but it is misleading to suggest that the WWWJDIC radicals are the same. If somebody wants to learn the traditional radicals they should learn the traditional radicals not a set that has a large overlap but some differences.

I only saw four or so that weren't actually radicals. True, it is misleading to suggest that they all are, but don't you think saying "I don't think those are the traditional radicals at all," is a bit of an overstatement?

Yes, it is nanny-state, but it sort of became necessary thanks to our monthly Korean troll who would post pictures of and links to sites with pictures of people who'd been decapitated and whatnot. Don't worry, it doesn't last too long.