NIHONGOCENTRAL | How NOT to Learn Kanji

How NOT to Learn Kanji

I have several issues with the way Japanese (and other languages) are taught in the classroom settings. The first issue is covered the in my article on studying grammar. The second applies specifically to character based languages. In the case of Japanese, kanji instruction is so insufficient that virtually no foreigner will ever become literate in reading Japanese.

In Japan it takes 9 years for students to learn 2000 kanji. The kanji are broken up into grades, starting from first to ninth grade. At the same time, students are flooded with thousands of examples and uses on a daily basis. Now try to imagine how long it would take for the average foreigner to learn the same amount of kanji, especially if s/he is living outside of Japan. The problem has to do with the way kanji is taught. Follow me for a bit, as I try to explain.

Kanji textbooks for foreigners are based on Japanese books that use the following logic:

The smallest orthographic units in Chinese are strokes. There are six basic strokes, a dot (丶), a horizontal line (一), a vertical line (丨), a diagonal line falling from right to left (丿), a diagonal line falling from left to right ( ), and stroke with a change in direction (乚). These basic strokes have varied formats, such as different dots (e.g. in 氵, 丷, and 灬), different diagonal lines, (e.g. in 爪, 彡), lines with different curves (e.g. in 乙, 阝), and lines with hooks in different positions (e.g. in 乛, 勹). According to the analysis of 2,570 characters explicitly taught in Chinese elementary schools, the number of strokes within one character ranges from 1 to 24, with the majority having 7 to 12 strokes (Shu, Chen, Anderson, Wu & Xuan, 2003). Many characters are visually similar e.g. 申 (express) – 甲 (first), 未 (future) – 末 (last), 勿 (do not) – 匆 (rush) and 防(prevent) – 邡 (the name of a city in China). Chinese characters can be divided into simple characters and compound characters. Simple characters refer to the characters with a single meaningful component, such as 刀 (knife), 马 (horse), while compound characters refer to characters with two or more components, such as 加 (add), and 矗 (standing). These patterns are formed by combinations of strokes and are used recurrently in different characters, e.g. 厶 in 去 (go) and县 (county), 爫 in 妥 (ready) and采 (pick). The numbers of such components is relatively large, amounting to over 640 in the Chinese orthography.

(SOURCE: http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/research/gradstudentconference/DGSRC_2007_Full_Conference_Proceedings.pd)

Next, kanji are grouped into lessons by their related meanings (or by no relation to each other). As you can clearly see from the following sets there is no visual similarity between the individual kanji. These were taken from the first chapters of each respective textbook.

紹介、友達、加藤、宿題、池田、僕、趣味、興味、隣、家族

SOURCE:　An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

運賃、客室、観光旅行、切符、空港、券売機、見物、時刻表

SOURCE:　Yookoso! Continuing with Contemporary Japanese

The problem with this approach is that there is no relation between the appearances of the individual kanji, or the components that construct each kanji. Therefore, in order to learn these words you need to learn (1) how to write each kanji, (2) how to read each kanji, (3) how to read each compound. The biggest challenge by far is remembering the subtle differences in individual strokes when faced with dozens of kanji that looks virtually the same. This becomes increasingly difficult the more kanji you learn.

How to Learn Kanji

The first step to learning kanji is realizing that each character is composed of components called radials and primitives (Heisig). Many radicals are themselves kanji. Further, kanji that are not radicals are used as components of other kanji, some of which are used in more complex kanji still.

In order to learn kanji you have to symptomatically learn them in order of complexity. This way you will learn all of the simple kanji that become components of complex kanji later on.

Examples:

十・日・月 → 水・朝 → 潮

一・口・日 → 曲・豆 → 豊・色 → 艶

By leaning kanji systematically you will learn the radicals (and primitives) as you progress. By learning radicals (and primitives) you will link specific meaning to each. Finally, you will be able to see any kanji as a set of components, and easily be able to construct/deconstruct/write/recall them from memory.

Versus Traditional Methods

Comparing this method to the traditional method of learning kanji (memorizing thousands of combinations of strokes), is like memorizing shapes in a kaleidoscope.

see Excerpts from the Introduction of ‘Remembering the Kanji’ for details

	Traditional Approach	Radical / Primitive Approach
門	gate	gate
問	gate + box	gate + box/mouth
閲	gates + 2 line + box + 2 curved lines	gate + demon brother (horns+brother)
閥	gate + bunch of lines	gate + fell (mr.T+fiesta)
間	gate + day	gate + day
簡	gate + 3 lines 2x	bamboo + gate + day
開	gate + 2 lines + 2 lines	gate + two hands
閉	gate + 3 lines	gate + genius
閣	gate + 3/4 lines on box	gate + each (walking legs+box)
閑	gate + tree	gate + tree
聞	gate + overlapping lines	gate + ear
潤	3 short lines + gate + 4 lines	water + gate + king
欄	tree + gate + wth	tree + gate + east
闘	gate + wth 2x	gate + beans + glue