Kanji is said to be the most difficult part of learning Japanese. The most common reasons for this are 'there are a lot of them,' or 'they are complicated,' or even 'they are hard.'

Remembering kanji has always been my weak point. After getting through 3/4 of this book I understood the 'meaning' of many kanji. But had no way to pronounce them as this is not taught in this book. It was a lot of effort, but looking back on it, it has made learning the readings a lot easier. Most kanji have a straightforward meaning. The popular resource, Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, focuses mainly on learning the meanings of kanji. It sure feels like you 'know' a lot of kanji when you finish this book, but the meaning of a kanji is only about one-fourth of the equation. Kanji Koohii comes with built in flashcards for Remembering the Kanji. Show example words and readings (optional). Review on desktop and mobile. Mar 03, 2020 Remembering The Kanji Volume 1 4th Edition PDF – Nihongo Ebook – Remembering The Kanji Pdf. Hiragana chart is a very popular tool for finding out Japanese. This chart is produced to assist the pupil of Japanese in finding out the pronunciation of the alphabet. Hiragana manuscript is one of the oldest kinds of Japanese writing, which is.

But if you know how to learn kanji, it doesn't need to be so hard. You don't need to spend 10+ years studying kanji to reach a decent level of Japanese literacy. One or two years will do, if you've got the right technique.

Around five years ago, Tofugu made the kanji-learning application WaniKani to fix the 'learning kanji' problem. Since then, we've seen students learn all 2,000+ jouyou kanji (not to mention 6,000+ vocabulary words) in just over a year.

You don't need to spend 10+ years studying kanji to reach a decent level of Japanese literacy. One or two years will do, if you've got the right technique.

In this article, we're going to give you the recipe to our secret sauce so you can do the same, no WaniKani necessary.

Even if you think you're 'bad at kanji,' you'll see a five to tenfold increase in your kanji learning speed the moment you get to the bottom of this page. A pretty good reward for fifteen minutes of reading time, don't you think?

Now, you may be wondering: 'Why would you give away WaniKani's secret sauce? Won't that decrease your WaniKani customers?' The answer is 'we have no idea.' But here's why we're giving it all away:

Not everyone can afford to pay for WaniKani (around $7-9/month). We want to give these people another option. If someone wants education, they should be able to get it.
If you create a free WaniKani account, you can use WaniKani levels 1–3 for free (that's 100+ kanji, and 300+ vocabulary words). By that time, you've learned everything in this guide and more. People don't stick with WaniKani because we keep the method a secret. They stick with it because it's hard to quit (some say 'addicting'), it's simple (sit down, follow the instructions, and you will make progress), it has a huge community of like-minded Japanese learners (though sometimes they're a bit weird), and it's an all-in-one solution (SRS, ordering, and more).
We want more people to know about this method. It's existed in various forms for nearly 50 years, but very few people are using it. Tofugu has a unique opportunity to spread the word and help out teachers, students, and everyone in between. We want to move the Japanese language industry forward, because it's been stagnant for a long time.

That being said, what do you get from this guide?

If you're a student, you'll discover the secret to learning 2,000+ kanji in one to two years. If you are extremely motivated and have a lot of free time, maybe even less than that.

If you're a teacher, you'll learn how to teach kanji in your class using this method. We'll provide reference materials for you to use, so you can build a kanji/vocabulary teaching method tailored to your teaching needs.

Ready to get started? There's a lot to cover, and we're sure you're excited to see some results.

Radicals + Mnemonics = Easy Kanji Memorization
Kanji + Kanji = Vocabulary?

Radicals: The Building Blocks of Kanji

First, you need to learn what a radical is. There's a chance you've heard of radicals before – perhaps in reference to looking up kanji in paper kanji dictionaries – but those aren't quite the radicals we're talking about.

In this guide, radicals are patterns and symbols that appear inside each kanji. Each kanji consists of 1–3 (sometimes four) individual radicals. Think of them as 'building blocks' for creating kanji.

I think the best explanation of why using radicals like this is important comes from Kanjidamage. Warning: this website is… explicit, so allow us to paraphrase for you:

When thinking of radicals and their usefulness, you need to think of them as though they were the individual letters of the English alphabet. What did you learn before you learned how to read English words? You learned the letters of the alphabet.

Now, try to imagine attempting to learn to read a word in English without having the knowledge of the alphabet at your disposal. It's insane, right? Yet, that is exactly how most people are learning kanji.

Learning kanji stroke-by-stroke is like learning how to read the word 'stupid' without knowing any of the individual letters. You would have to memorize the spelling as 'that snake shape, plus that cross shape, plus…'

You get the picture. It's stupid. Multiply that by thousands of different words, and you will understand how inefficient this method is.

Learning radicals is like learning the letters of the alphabet, in that they get your brain away from individual lines and into repeating patterns and symbols that you can use again and again. Let me show you what I mean:

The kanji is 町, which means 'town.' As you can see in the image above, 町 is made up of two radicals:

田 (rice paddy)
丁 (street)

To learn this kanji using the radicals mnemonic method, you need to know the names of these two radicals first (we'll teach you how to learn kanji radical names later on in the guide).

See the two radicals? Okay, good. Let's move on to the next example.

The kanji is 電, which means 'electricity.' The radicals used to build this kanji are:

雨 (rain)
田 (rice paddy)
乚 (umbrella)

In this case, we need three radicals to build this kanji. Usually we try to prevent a kanji from having more than three radicals, though occasionally you'll see a kanji made up of four or (very rarely) five radicals.

See where all the radicals are? Great. Next example.

It's also possible for kanji to have only one radical, which means the radical and the kanji are the same! The kanji 大 means 'big.' And in this case, the radical 大 also means 'big.'

There are cases where the radical name and kanji name are different. We'll talk about that later on.

Strokes vs. Radicals

Through the radical mnemonic method, we'll essentially skip the short-term memory step, putting kanji directly into your long-term memory.

For this section, I want you to remember the number seven. Why? Humans can typically remember 6–8 things in their short-term memory. A lot of kanji have well over eight strokes.

Traditionally, when people learn kanji, they try to memorize the individual strokes then write them over and over again. Learning this way puts kanji in your short-term memory. By writing it over and over again, it's put in your long-term memory. Sometimes. It's pretty hit or miss.

Through the radical mnemonic method, we'll essentially skip the short-term memory step, putting kanji directly into your long-term memory. It won't be a strong memory, but it's much better than short-term, which disappears the moment you stop thinking about it.

Let's dig a little deeper: I'm going to compare memorization via strokes and via radicals. It will highlight just how simple the radicals mnemonic method is (and how inefficient learning by strokes is).

We'll start with 大, because it's only made of three strokes. That's not so hard, and it falls well within the seven things a typical human can keep in their short-term memory. Three strokes is only three things to remember.

But, compare this to the number of radicals needed to build this kanji: one. If you learn via radicals, you only need to remember one thing.

The difference is more obvious as kanji gets more complicated. 町 is seven strokes, or seven different things to remember; right at the edge of your short-term memory's capacity. It's doable, but a little more difficult (and it requires your full concentration).

With radicals, you only need to remember two things: 田 and 丁.

Finally, let's look at the most complicated kanji we've intr