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Questions about Kanji

Dante17

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3 Dec 2013
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Hi there, I've only recently started kanji and as such, had a few questions.

1. When is it proper to use Kanji over hiragana?

2. Multiple Kanji seem to sometimes bare the same readings. E.G: 五 , 後 and 午 can all mean ご so would that mean that I could say ごぜん with all of them as so?;

午前 , 五前 and 後前.

Alternatively, can they only be used in certain patterns? I've only seen 午前 used as ごぜん and not any other kanji for ご such as 五 or 後

3. Should I focus on the meaning of each kanji or the kana that they represent?


Thank you.
 
If the Kanji is a Joyo Kanji, use Kanji over hiragana, except in some pronouns, adverbs, expressions and other situations where kana is more customary.
 
Each word is written with a specific set of kanji; you can't simply go and replace these with other kanji that have the same pronunciation. "Morning" is always written as 午前- after all, the first means "noon" and the second means "before". If you changed this to "five before" or "after before" it wouldn't make sense anymore, would it :)

When learning kanji you need to know the pronunciation of course, but it also helps a lot to know the meaning. Even if it's just because there are over a hundred kanji that are pronounced こう.
 
Hiragana is phonetic, each character corresponds to a sound and has no meaning on its own. Hiragana is generally used for grammar structures (particles, verb conjugations, etc), but it can also be used to write words phonetically in place of kanji.

Kanji carries meaning, and might have several readings. You can't switch two kanji just because they have the same reading, because it changes the meaning of the word.

So you can write 午前 or ごぜん. The kanji, 午前, carries the meaning, and ごぜん is how it's pronounced. The first is completely unambiguous in its meaning, and it's easy to read and understand the second one because there aren't many homonyms for "gozen."

If you don't know the right kanji, just use hiragana and the reader should be able to understand the word from the context. Do not try to substitute one kanji for another based on a shared reading.
 
Thank you for all the replies. Very informative but yet I still feel uncertain about when I should be using Kanji over hiragana... :/ is it dependant on the actual word or context? It's so hard to define...
 
And if I l've understood, Hiragana is used to say how the kanji is pronounced but does not bare meaning. E.g: one pronunciation can have multiple meanings dependant on the kanji used. So wouldn't this mean that hiragana is irrelevant in text other than as a use to show how to orally pronounce kanji symbols? I'm very, very confused.
 
Hiragana is used for much more than indicating the pronunciation of a kanji (i.e. furigana). It's also used inside actual text, alongside kanji, for grammatical particles (は, が, と...), verb endings (-ます, -させる...), okurigana, and of course words for which no kanji exists.

Even for words that do have a kanji writing, it's not necessarily always used. Depending on the word, in practice it's sometimes or (almost) always written in hiragana instead (some kanji learning websites like KanjiDamage indicate this when listing example words). The target audience of the text also influences this: children's books will have a lot more hiragana than, say, a tax form.
 
It might help to actually look at some text written in mixed kanji and kana. And by text I mean blogs about cats, the highest form of all internet communication. (Or because I'm lazy and have it open in another tab).

source.
またこんな場所で寝てる

また can technically be written 又, which is joyo but not that often used (maybe in very formal/stiff writing).
こんな doesn't have kanji. で doesn't either, as a particle.
寝てる = a conjugated verb. Kana which follows a kanji in a word (adjective, verb, etc) is called okurigana. Part of knowing how to use kanji is knowing the correct okurigana, e.g. たべる becomes 食べる not 食る.

In the comments you'll see ネコ and 猫, 綺麗 and きれい, 可愛い and かわいい. These are all acceptable (yes, even though 綺 is non-joyo, 綺麗 is much preferable to 奇麗 in my opinion).

If you are trying to type in Japanese and you see more than one option in your IME, and you're not sure which is correct, just use the kana (unless you have time to look up the differences). Better to use ごぜん than to put in 御膳 when you're talking about what time you eat breakfast. Some IMEs have built in hints about which to use (in Japanese, though).
 
there are many words that combine the use of kana and kanji, mainly verbs and adjectives that get their meaning from the kanji, but are conjugated using kana. almost all kanji also have more than one pronunciation, and the context (characters surrounding it) serve as the only indication of what reading to use.

For instance, 私 is read "watashi" by itself, and means "I," but it's the "shi" in 私立 (shiritsu), and means private.

Sometimes kanji are even used as part of more than one verb or adjective. 食べる is taberu/tabemasu, but 食う is kuu/kuimasu; both mean to eat (though each has their own slightly differentiating nuances...)

行く is iku/ikimasu (to go), but 行う is okonau/okonaimasu (to perform/take place). So sometimes the context changes not only the pronunciation, but the meaning as well.

...but you get used to it
 
Are you actually learning the Japanese language or are you one of the large number of poor misguided souls who is teaching himself the Japanese writing system and mistakenly thinks he is learning Japanese?

Good learning materials will teach you this as you go along and remove most or all of the confusion. You have to have a certain minimum basic familiarity with the language before any explanation regarding the nature of kanji usage will make much sense to you. Unfortunately, these days everybody who expresses an interest in learning Japanese gets bombarded with advice to "first learn hiragana and katakana, then immediately dive into kanji".

Get some decent textbook that will gradually and sensibly explain it to you and you'll save yourself a lot of unnecessary anguish and make better progress.
 
I can recommend the learning books Genki. Seem to be available in most countries and is introducing different "modules" the Japanese language gradually. Is working pretty good for me for selfstudy. Please give it a try!
 
Well, I've been using Genki and it's workbook for months now... My kanji workbook is currently ' 250 essential Japanese Kanji characters ' and I've purchased volume 2 so I intend to have learnt 500 Kanji characters by the end of my books...
 
Ah, forget it. I just sound like an I diot at this point. I think I'll progress a bit more into Genki and then pick up Kanji again.
 
Are you actually learning the Japanese language or are you one of the large number of poor misguided souls who is teaching himself the Japanese writing system and mistakenly thinks he is learning Japanese?

Well, whilst I am currently focused on Kanji, I have indeed already learnt all of Hiragana and Katakana, self study with Genki 1 - second edition to learn the language aspect and how to apply it whilst supplementing this with my Kanji book: ' 250 essential Japanese Kanji '. I should also note that I go to a private Japanese tutor who also clears things up for me. However, I've just had a few problems with Kanji but I believe I'm starting to understand.
 
Well, whilst I am currently focused on Kanji, I have indeed already learnt all of Hiragana and Katakana, self study with Genki 1 - second edition to learn the language aspect and how to apply it whilst supplementing this with my Kanji book: ' 250 essential Japanese Kanji '. I should also note that I go to a private Japanese tutor who also clears things up for me. However, I've just had a few problems with Kanji but I believe I'm starting to understand.

Fitting the Chinese characters onto the Japanese language was very much a matter of forcibly pounding square pegs into round holes. Attempting to do too much of them too early is like trying to learn to play Monopoly by sitting down and reading the rules first, when everybody knows it is much easier to learn them gradually as you play the game.
 
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