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Learning ALL readings of kanji or the most important ones?

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ivankaa

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Hello!

I just started to learn kanji, currently using kanjidamage.com for reference. I noticed that only what is considered to be most common readings are included in the kanji information.

Wondering if I should look to remember more readings or if 2-5 readings per kanji is enough?

Sorry for a very nooby question! ^ //// . //// ^TTT
 
Don't bother learning readings on their own. Learn some common words for each and then you'll know which are useful . Some really only have one reading (駅) some have loads (生).

There are also plenty of words where the reading changes a little in compounds (は goes to ば or ぱ for example) or which don't use on/kun readings at all (今日 is きょう).
 
Indeed, learning readings by themselves is not very useful, not to mention very difficult (you forget them quickly). Instead, learn a sample word for each reading. Kanjidamage already does a good job of providing a word for most readings; in the cases where it doesn't, you can put the kanji in a dictionary like jisho.org to find words with that reading. As an added bonus, jisho.org indicates whether a word is common, less common, or even archaic/obscure, so you can even end up skipping readings provided by KD.

If a kanji has an irregular pronunciation in certain words (like 今日), KD already lists these words with the "FP" tag, which is very useful.
 
Just to add to the posts above, a good method to learn kanjis and words is "reading", not only this but, if possible, rewrite the whole text copying every kanji and try not to translate it to your mother language, make sure you can comprehend every sentence in japanese and read every kanji present in the article.

After some time you will start to recognize patterns in the readings, and develop self confidence to read things by yourself, this exercise is really good because it puts your vocabulary, kanji knowledge and grammar, to test.
 
Sadly enough, if you use the kanji order as presented by KanjiDamage (sorted by visual structure instead of commonness), you pretty much have to learn the entire list before you can start reading even simple texts. Just to give an example, the highly common character 行, which is normally one of the very first that's taught in textbooks, is #1230 on KD.

However, the whole point of this learning order is that it takes less time and effort to learn the entire list (which is presumably what you're planning to do anyway).
 

I completely don't undestand why this is being suggested by many people. What is wrong with translating? Unless you live in an environment always use Japanese (living in Japan eg) reading and listening without knowing don't get you anywhere, no matter how long you try to do it with no matter how large the effort is.
 

There is a difference between translating and "comprehending", whenever a japanese person listens to something, it doesnt need to find equivalents words in any other language.

If someone tells you : "次の駅に、乗り換えてください", you should figure out the meaning without bringing english words to the situation. You just "know" you have to change trains in the next stop.

Thats what I was talking about
 
Translation (as in fully rendering a text in one language into another) is a skill all in itself. When I say "don't translate" I mean it in the sense of sitting down trying to read through manga/song lyrics and make an English version. It doesn't mean never look up the meaning of a word.

The same goes for learning from translations. Unless they've been prepared for that purpose, they're likely to have skipped/rearranged text to make it flow in English, completely rewritten jokes/puns/other untranslateables, and so on. Trying to guess why the translator did what they did is futile - they might have had house style guidelines, length limits, and a looming deadline to contend with.

If you can explain the plot, you understood the book. If you want to break down the grammar/pick apart some of the twistier sentences, or look up some of those words/set phrases , that's not translation. It's the idea that you won't fully understand until you can make it into English that's the issue.

I don't think I'm a good translator. But if someone asks me what the book I'm reading is about I could tell them.
 
In order to translate something, you must first understand it. If you understand it, why translate it?

Translating is a good skill to develop if you want to be a translator.

Translating is an awful habit to develop otherwise.
 
As usual, Mike can say in three lines what takes me three paragraphs.
 
nekojita said:
As usual, Mike can say in three lines what takes me three paragraphs.

Tapatalk を使用して私の C5303 から送信
Click to expand...

My post was three paragraphs.....
 
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