When should I start learning kanji?

Knittius · 1 Jul 2015

Hello there
So, I bought the Genki text- and workbook and I am now on page 102 in the textbook. However, I haven't really been studying kanji as much as I could have done. I guess I know about 40 kanji or something but if I seriously tried I could learn each kanji that appears in the book, for example when something like 図書館 or 音楽 or 映画 shows up I could basically sit down and learn about each kanji in those words. Should I begin doing that now or wait until page 300 or something where there is more kanji practice?

Elsa · 1 Jul 2015

I'm not the text- and workbook kind of guy, so maybe it's messing with the routine, but seriously start with kanji as soon as possible, because they will give you enough trouble later on and the sooner you start the better. I'm still ditching the kanji practice way too often (I'm just not a fan) and it's doing me nothing good. Just making the way longer and harder.

lanthas · 1 Jul 2015

Presumably it won't take all too long to reach page 300, so in the end it won't make much difference whether you start now or later.

Personally I'd say, don't sink too much time into learning kanji from the lists in Genki. It doesn't present radicals at all (the basic building blocks from which kanji are composed), even though knowing these makes it much easier to remember the characters. It also doesn't point out similar-looking characters (e.g. 年 <-> 午 <-> 牛, leaving you to figure this out yourself) or kanji that are composed from other kanji (e.g. it teaches 道 but not 首, even though knowing the second makes the first one trivial). Of course, you'll need to know the characters to be able to follow the lessons and do the exercises, but be aware that there are more efficient ways of learning them - like KanjiDamage and WaniKani, just to name a few.

Knittius · 1 Jul 2015

lanthas said:
Presumably it won't take all too long to reach page 300, so in the end it won't make much difference whether you start now or later.

Personally I'd say, don't sink too much time into learning kanji from the lists in Genki. It doesn't present radicals at all (the basic building blocks from which kanji are composed), even though knowing these makes it much easier to remember the characters. It also doesn't point out similar-looking characters (e.g. 年 <-> 午 <-> 牛, leaving you to figure this out yourself) or kanji that are composed from other kanji (e.g. it teaches 道 but not 首, even though knowing the second makes the first one trivial). Of course, you'll need to know the characters to be able to follow the lessons and do the exercises, but be aware that there are more efficient ways of learning them - like KanjiDamage and WaniKani, just to name a few.

Thanks for the answer. I'm thinking that I will finish the book in order to get better at writing sentences and using different phrases and so on and then I'll check out KanjiDamage.

When should I start learning kanji?

Knittius

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