Sat, 11/28/2009 - 17:36
Hi Sensei/everyone, I noticed a few books showing you how to remember the Kanjis. However I've no problem remembering how to write the Kanjis but instead have a major problem in remembering the different on/kun readings. Do you have any good techniques?
Further I watched your podcast with the first kanji lesson... it's very good. You mentioned in there when to use on and when to use kun (as a general rule)... could you give some examples and explanation with the kanjis featured in lesson 3 Kanji podcast please.
BTW I am a self study user and have not had any formal Japanese lessons.
Thank you!
Hi, pingu!
Personally, I think that it's a mistake to try to remember just the readings of individual kanji. Most kanji (especially the ones that you're likely to study first) will have more than one reading, but some readings will be much more common than others. Learning a kanji reading that you aren't going to use is a waste of time, so there is absolutely no need to learn every reading for every kanji as you come across them. The problem is, when you're first learning a kanji you probably won't know which readings are useful, and which aren't.
I suggest that when you learn a kanji, you try to learn at least 2-3 common words that use that kanji, if possible words with different readings. For example, the kanji 時 can be read とき (kun-yomi) when used alone, or じ (on-yomi) when used in combinations. So you should probably learn the phrase 〜の時, meaning "when," as in こどもの時 ("when (I) was a child"), and also how to tell time （一時、二時、三時, etc.) It's difficult at first, because you might not know other kanji that can be used in combinations, but in my podcasts at least I do my best to combine new kanji with previously learned kanji so that you can reinforce your knowledge of both. Keep watching the kanji videos, and you'll see me doing that more and more.