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How to be fluent in kanji?

IsaacDavid

Sempai
9 Jun 2019
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How can i be fluent in kanji? here's some of my troubles with kanjis:
there is kanjis that have many readings,so if i see a kanji and i know his meaning i don't know which reading it will use and i have to go to the kanji dictionary.many readings is confusing. sometimes knowing the meaning of a kanji is not enough.I will show you only one example: the kanji 烏 the dictionary says that its meaning is crow,raven and this a compound of this kanji 烏口 the meaning is: ruling pen.so it is obvious that is not easy to deduct this meaning.and i have to use a dictionary to see the meaning of this compound.and one kanji may have SO MANY COMPOUNDS!
 
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Exposure and practice. Once you have enough you reach a tipping point and it becomes easier.
 
You don't need to learn all or most compound words and their readings upfront. You can learn them as you encounter them. For most characters, it is enough to learn and memorize the most common on and kun readings (if there are any), and learn special readings or rarer compound words (or compound words with special readings) only as you encounter them.

Also, it is helpful to understand that most two-character compound words are either of the on-on (the majority) or the kun-kun type. This helps with guessing the readings of newly-encountered words.

Finally, note that "ruling pen" is an uncommon English term. I didn't know precisely what it was, and would have looked it up if I needed to know. Similarly, you can and should do this with Japanese words written with kanji.
 
Joadbres,what you mean by"as you encounter them"?one have to start to study kanji,not when us encounter them..
 
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As you encounter them while studying Japanese, reading things written in Japanese, etc.

"them" is referring to compound words which use kanji, not the kanji themselves.
 
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I have found that learning kanji when we encounter them in the context is much easier and interesting and much better for the kanji to stick in our memory. Learning in the context is also easier to remember which pronunciation and which meaning we should pick. If we learn the kanji just for the sake of knowing the kanji is somewhat like learning the words straight from the dictionary. It is very hard and boring.
 
I love this phrase, coined in 1949: Neurons that fire together, wire together. Learning in context is the most powerful way to study, in my experience.


When studying kanji, my favorite phrase is XYの"X", the following exchange makes more sense if it's being spoken obviously:
感覚の「感」は何の「かん」ですか。漢字の「漢」ですか。
いいえ、「感じる」の「感」ですね。「感触」と同じです。

Using this structure you can take characters you already know in one context, and then connect them to a new vocabulary word, reinforcing the characters you already know while expanding your vocabulary.
 

how about using this apps ?
You can write Kanji by your finger and smart phone decides if it is correct or not.
You can receive questions automatically.
So, my daughter is using it.
 
Pen and paper worked nice for me, As I encountered any new kanji I would write it down, break it down , repeat it.

I feel like muscular memory works very well together with my "brain" memory.
 
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