Difficult Kanji: How To Learn Hard Kanji Fast
ByMany Japanese learners have to take on the task of learning kanji. It is an inevitable step in the process of learning Japanese. Even if you are not aiming at mastering all 1,945 joyo kanji, you still will probably come across a few kanji which you find particularly hard to remember or write. There are a few varieties of difficult kanji and I will teach you right now how to deal with them so that you will never forget them and will always be able to write them.
Some kanji are difficult to learn because they are too complicated. If this is the case, what you want to do is break the kanji down to its radicals. Make an association for each radical, maybe there is the “water” radical and the “person” radical in the kanji. You can make up whatever association you like depending on what the radical looks like to you. After you have broken the kanji down, make a story that incorporates all of these associations for the radicals as well as the meaning of the entire kanji itself. In this way, the story that you create will hold all of the pieces of the kanji together. The crazier or stranger the story, the better. These types of stories seem to be the easiest to remember. You will find that the next time you try to write the kanji, it will be much easier to remember, after having done this process.
Another type of difficulty Japanese learners have when learning kanji characters is confusing similar looking kanji. Again, in this case, what you’ll want to do is take the similar looking kanji and break down each one. What is most likely is that the two kanji are different by only one or two radicals. If that is the case, simply make a different story for each character involving the respective radical that is different. If you do this, you will have no trouble at all the next time you need to write one or the other.
If you are having trouble creating stories or attaching meanings to the radicals in the kanji, a great resource to go to is James Heisig’s kanji books. You can find these books on amazon.com and they are terrific because not only does Heisig introduce all of the characters but he does it in a systematic fashion so that you learn all 1,945 joyo kanji in an organized manner. It is truly a great book if you are interested.
Also, if you are trying to learn Japanese to an advanced level, I highly recommend taking a look at the book I’ve writte on language learning. It will cut down your study time significantly and have you learning Japanese faster than ever, so do yourself a favor and definitely check it out.
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