Kanji

It is one of the 3 Japanese writing systems.

…Kanji act as symbols.

We can look at this 🍩 and know it means ‘doughnut’… or maybe ‘treat’.

…but for thousands of kanji.

…you need to learn roughly 2000 Kanji.

Let’s go!

Kanji can have multiple meanings. Rather than thinking of this as 'the translation', think of it as 'what the kanji represents'.

All kanji have a stroke order, it's the most efficient way to write the kanji. When studying kanji, try to learn the stroke order as best you can! It makes learning future kanji easier, as many kanji have similar elements.

Each 漢字 has it’s own reading/s, like how the numeral 1 is read ‘one’.

Most kanji have more than one reading. The characters they’re combined with can affect how they're read. This could be compared to how combining ‘1’ and ‘st’ changes the reading from ‘one’ to ‘first’.

Most kanji have more than 1 reading, sometimes 5+! It's difficult to know how to read words you have not encountered before.

There are 2 categories of reading for Kanji. On’yomi and Kun’Yomi. On’Yomi are readings that originated from Chinese. Therefore when studying kanji, you often see these readings written in Katakana.

It’s common for on’yomi readings to appear in words that use more than one Kanji.

Kun’yomi readings originated in Japan, therefore they’re displayed in hiragana. Kun’yomi are often seen in stand alone, single kanji words.

However, this is more a ‘common pattern’ than a rule and I wouldn’t rely on its accuracy. There’s a lot of times it doesn’t work.

…helps you build a solid understanding of kanji. But personally, I don't put a lot of focus on learning onyomi/ kunyomi.

In this section, you'll see a selection of words written in the kanji you've learned. Section 5 & 6 have a teal background, which means the following:

Words in this section are words that have appeared in previous or current lesson word lists. They are made up of kanji you have previously or are currently studying. You can click on the kanji in section 6 to see the hiragana (and until lesson 10, the romaji) reading of the kanji word.

This section is similar to sections 5 & 6, however you are not expected to know how to write these words in kanji yet. Words in this section are vocabulary you have already studied, but they may have one or two kanji characters you have not yet studied. They are just on the chart for reference.

For example: ‘本’ on its own means ‘book’.

This is a 本.

This is a book.

You usually need to have studied (or seen it used before) to have an idea of how it works.

I can’t just look at the Kanji ‘日’, see it represents ‘Sun’ and use it to write…

…and hope I’m writing ‘the sun is hot’.

…however it means ‘day’.

Some have 5… 6…7+

How would you know which of the 7 readings to use without studying?

This is called a kanji compound!

Note: Some compounds are made up of more than 2 kanji.

日本 means Japan.

Literally: ‘Origin of the sun’.

You have to learn Kanji compounds, not make your own.

日曜日 means Sunday, and includes the kanji 日 twice. However…

This means the first ‘日’ is pronounced ‘Nichi’, and the last is ‘Bi’.

Study kanji!

…is also learning the readings as onyomi/ kunyomi.

…where as kun’yomi are often seen in stand alone, single kanji words.

It’s reccomeded that you learn whether a reading is onyomi or kunyomi as it helps you build a solid understanding of kanji. However...

Furthermore, as most kanji have more than one reading, and sometimes multiple onyomi/ kunyomi readings, it's difficult to know how to read some words you have not encountered before.

This isn't to say it should be ignored completely, it's more to say... dont worry if you can't recite each kanji reading and catagorise it into onyomi and kunyomi.

…i’ve always learnt best through seeing the kanji in use.

In short, some readings are more common than others, especially for beginners.

or you can just learn the readings that are useful to you now.

In fact, some kanji readings are rarely used.

When we come across them in the future, we can look at them then.

Why spend time learning a reading you won’t be using for months?

My preference might not be yours, therefore all the readings are still available upon click!