[Kanji Master N4 Pdf 116
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Learning kanji is often considered one of the more challenging aspects of learning the Japanese language. Heck, I've been a student of the language for over two decades and I still struggle with kanji...(泣)
While kanji textbooks are generally good at helping students understand what each kanji means, I haven't come across many that suggest strategies that help learners actually memorise them. Typically, kanji are listed in order of their stroke counts or grouped together based on subject matter. As such, students often rely on rote learning while attempting to master the 2,136 daily-use (joyo) kanji.
The Kanji Code, by Natalie Hamilton, employs a unique systematic approach to learn the Chinese or ON readings of kanji based on three methods: the first which looks at the relationship between kanji and the two native Japanese scripts, hiragana and katakana, the second which focuses on the phonetic components of kanji, and the third which groups kanji based on similar visual features.
The Kanji Code attempts to list 150 phonetic compounds, each with their own unique name, as a way to make an informed decision on the correct pronunciation of kanji, based on the author's extensive experience as a non-native learner. By naming the phonetic components, it makes it easier for learners to understand their relationship with radicals and adds the ever-important fun element to learning, as many of the names are humorous and memorable. Some of my favourites include craft letter F, nosy neighbour, crying baby, and christmas tree.
The second way the author attempts to group kanji is through similar visual features. The use of these visual cues to infer pronunciation is an innovative way to approach kanji learning. Once again, the author uses fun names for different visual styles -- fishtail, kicking leg -- and has grouped them into 8 distinct categories. I can see how this approach to learning kanji would be attractive for people who admire kanji as a form of art and have a strong sense of imagination and creativity. Personally, I feel like the former list of 150 phonetic compounds is more suited to my learning preferences, but that's the great thing about this textbook: it gives you two different ways to go about learning the ON readings of kanji.
Overall, the textbook is well researched and written in a very logical and easy-to-understand way. Natalie also makes great use of complementary colours, clean illustrations and white space, making it easy for readers to take in all the information presented. It's a fun, innovative and creative way to dissect and analyse kanji and as such, it is a useful resource for people looking to further their understanding of kanji and the Japanese language in general. Highly recommended!
New edition of Kanji Master N2, a book with which to learn kanjis belonging to level 2 of the JLPT official test. Kanjis are presented by level of difficulty. The book contains 539 kanjis.
Kanjis are grouped by theme, once you have learned them, there are many exercises to practice: write their possible readings, write a certain kanji, fill the gaps or write a certain kanji in a text, which is helpful to practice reading comprehension. All answers can be found at the end of the book.
Kanjis are in tables with all possible readings, and squares to practice. However, there are no English translations.
You're sitting there staring at this (probably ancient alien origin) kanji character, and you have no idea what it means. Like nada. Nothing. Zilch. No matter how deep your probe your brain nothing will come out. Congratulations. You have successfully failed at identifying a kanji. Don't worry, though. It happens to the best of us. I mean, everyone except me, of course. Ever since using WaniKani I've basically become a kanji master (warning: obvious self-promotion alert), but whatever, you don't have to say I'm hoopy frood or anything on Twitter unless you really want to.
Anyways, I digress. Not being able to identify a kanji. It's a rough problem, though there's different levels to it. Sometimes the problem is easy to solve. Sometimes it's not. Let's start with easy and move our way down.
This is by far the easiest. If you need to identify a kanji that's accessible via your computer you just copy it (that's ctrl+c or cmd+c after selecting said kanji) and then past it (that's ctrl+v or cmd+v) into the dictionary of your choice. For me, when it comes to simple stuff like this, my dictionary of choice is jisho.org.
Upon pasting a kanji into the kanji section, you'll get lots of information about it, including it's meaning, reading, name-readings, number of strokes, and so much more. Basically, everything you need in order to identify a kanji.
Here's where it starts to get fun. You have yourself some kanji that's not typed out. Perhaps it's a handwritten letter. Perhaps it's manga. Maybe it's Japanese subtitles. Whatever it is, you're not going to be able to copy/paste yourself to kanji identification victory. So now what do you do? There's a few options, some more free than others.
Back to Jisho, again. On Jisho there's a radicals search option. Now, keep in mind that the radicals that jisho uses may be different from the ones you've seen in other places. Jisho uses the official radicals plus a few extra. For the most part you should be able to find what you need to look up any kanji, though.
Wow, that's still a lot of results! But, you can see that we've narrowed down the radicals at least. Now you can see all the radicals that never show up in a kanji with the 日 radical have grayed out. This means there are fewer radicals to choose from, making it easier. At this point you have two options. 1) You can find the kanji in the list results down below (count the strokes and find the corresponding number to make the search faster) or 2) you can put in another radical. Let's do option number two, just for the sake of practice.
The next radical is up in the top right. It's there twice, but you only need to click the ヨ radical one time in jisho and it counts for both. When you do that, you'll find the kanji you're looking for. No other kanji uses the 日 and ヨ radicals together in one kanji, meaning it's the only result.
When it comes to paper kanji dictionaries, you only get one shot at choosing the correct radical. With every kanji there's a single official radical. Although this is completely different to how we teach it here (sorry for being confusing now), this is the way most people do it. In fact, when talking about "radicals" most normal people think of it this way. Just one radical per kanji, and its only real use is to look up said kanji in a paper dictionary (whereas we use the radicals to learn the meaning of the kanji and to create a more solid memory).
A lot of this also comes down to experience as well. The more you look up, the easier it will be to identify radicals. Most kanji dictionaries will list all the radicals somewhere and order them by stroke order. Then, you find the radical, see what page it starts on, then jump to that page in the dictionary. Once there, you flip through the kanji that use that radical and find the kanji you're looking for (usually these will be ordered in terms of stroke order as well).
Also in a kanji dictionary is the ability to look up a kanji via its reading. In the case you know a kanji's reading (or are able to guess it based off the radicals it uses), you can look up a kanji in a kanji dictionary via the reading-lookup section. This will have various readings and then list out the kanji that use that reading. You can then simply scan through the listed kanji to find what you're looking for.
The last way to identify handwritten kanji is to write it in yourself. There is unicorn powered software out there that will take what you write and then try to identify it. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't work at all. It really depends on what you're using and how good your kanji looks. Let's look at a few options, though this certainly isn't all that's available.
This website lets you write in a kanji with your mouse. It actually doesn't do too bad of a job figuring out what you're writing, so long as you don't butcher the kanji too badly. Stroke order is taken into account too, so be sure you know the basic stroke order rules. One particularly nice feature is the "look ahead" check box. This means it'll spit out kanji that you could be writing well before you're done writing it. For example, you can see I was writing 品 in the box, but kanji like 嵒 also come up, just because I could have been writing that kanji too (but the best result, 品 still shows up first).
If you happen to have a Nintendo DS, this is a pretty sweet "game." Well, actually it's a kanji dictionary, but whatever. Besides just being a dictionary, it also lets you write in kanji to look up what it is you're looking for. Using the stylus and the stylus pad, this is actually really good experience, definitely one of the best "write in kanji" apps out there.
It is however a Japanese game (will still work on your non-Japanese DS) so it's harder to come by. You can get it on Amazon or Play-Asia (currently sold out). If you already have a DS of some kind this is cheaper than shelling out for a "real" electronic dictionary, though less full-featured.
You can add new input keyboards onto your iPhone or iPad in the settings section. Just go to Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboard. Although it's not a Japanese input, technically, adding the Chinese Handwriting keyboard will allow you to actually write in any kanji using your finger. Then, when you write it in you'll be able to input it into whatever app you're writing on (let's say Notepad for this example). This is a nice easy way to identify a kanji you don't know if you're an iPhone owner. Just copy the kanji you've written into a Japanese dictionary and you'll have your answer.
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