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Memorizing radicals before Kanji
Does this method work? Has anyone tried it? Does memorizing all of the radicals really boost how fast you pick up kanji? Are there any good websites for this?
Thank you for your time! :pinkbow: |
I would not recommend it. Simply because the forms of kanji, hence the types of radicals that "build" them, underwent many modifications and changes throughout the history of evolution of Chinese characters. Also, 85% of the characters are semasio-phonetics, so it will only confuse you. If anything, I would suggest learning major radicals while studying characters. For instance, a presence of 草冠 ("grass crown", i.e. grass radical) on top (crown) of the character usually leads to a conclusion that given character is associated with plants, etc.
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^ If your first language is outside the Eastern Asian language system, I think it's best to just pick up new words whenever you read something and memorize them eventually, rather than trying to learn radicals or separate kanji at a time. I have never tried to learn radicals so far, and my vocabulary is still being built at a pace that I feel comfortable. The method of learning separate kanji does work for me, though. My first language has many words originated from Chinese, rendering me possible of understanding certain new words (not all of them, of course) just by remembering the kanji forming those words. I believe Chinese and Korean people have even greater advantage since their languages are closer to Japanese, not just the similarity in word-sounding. |
I can`t see how this would be useful for anything other than writing... And even then, a pretty convoluted way to improve.
Most kanji are so far removed from the meaning implied by the radicals - if they haven`t been simplified and are now no longer using the original radicals at all - that it won`t be of much help with meaning. Occasionally, a radical can proivide a hint about the reading of the kanji, but again, it`s hit and miss as there are more that don`t take a hint from the radicals. With writing, I admit it will probably be a bit easier to write properly if you are familiar with the stroke order of the radicals (and later helpful with reading messy handwriting), but I don`t think it will really help you learn the kanji to begin with. |
Plus there's like 214 radicals..you memorize those there's no guarantee you'll still be able to read any kanji..but if you instead memorize ~214 kanji you'll be doing very well.
I know the advantage you're talking about by knowing the radicals, but that's also something you pick up passively as you learn more and more kanji, you don't necessarily need to go out of your way to learn the radicals one by one. |
Knowing certain parts of kanji often helped me with the reading of a kanji (but 99.9999% of the time not with the meaning—I think there was a single, solitary case where I was able to figure out a kanji's meaning by looking at radical+context, and that may have been in Chinese text, not Japanese) in my prep for learning all joyo kanji. That being said, these parts were rarely radicals; rather, they were the other parts of the kanji!
That being said, the patterns did not become useful until I was far more advanced than you are now. You'll just start noticing, at some point, that a lot of kanji with 票 in it have a reading like ヒョウ. 漂流 (drift) has a ヒョウ, 投票 (vote) has a ヒョウ, 標本 (specimen) has a ヒョウ, etc. On the other hand, none of the kanji (漂票標) are semantically related—one has to do with drifting or floating (but see its radical indicates a relationship with water), another with votes, and another with a symbol or sign. Another set of examples like this is 苗 (ビョウ), which shows up in 猫恐怖 (I assume that is read びょうきょうふ and not ねこきょうふ, ailurophobia—fear of cats), 描写 (びょうしゃ) (depiction/description) 錨泊 (びょうはく) (anchorage), 苗圃 (seedbed, びょうほ). They all have the same sound, ビョウ, but unrelated meanings (猫描錨苗 meaning, respectively, "cat," "draw," "anchor," and "sapling"). I've found knowing one can help me remember the readings for the others. Or, at the least, it gives me an educated guess to start with. When I was more intermediate, I spent a few hours a couple of times compiling every kanji in Japanese that has 青 in it with a separate radical to see how many I could learn to understand and pronounce. It basically turned into a waste of time. It is better to learn kanji in context (which is why I so often recommend people buy the book(s) Kanji in Context and learn that way). |
Ok, I feel an urge to ask, what's your opinion on James Heisig method? Because that's the one I've been using so far, and it teaches radicals first and then the kanji formed by the latter.
I've seen cases of people that have spend years learning the kanji... it's creepy. |
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2. You realize native Japanese spend about ten years learning kanji before they know 2000, right? Grades 1–6 gets them a thousand, and then they have until college entrance exams to learn the other thousand, basically. Now, just like with us speaking English, they continue to learn kanji (as we learn words) throughout adulthood, forgetting some, learning others, depending on level of education and profession/specialty. Regardless, I think it's very possible for an adult to learn all joyo kanji in four years with serious study. Few people can muster that level of dedication for four straight years, though. I, for example, could not. |
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the only problem I've found is that it is repetitive... because all you do is kanji and more kanji... I need to re start and continue until I finish all of the joyo... it feels bad to lack motivation... for some reason... Nevertheless, I've read grammar here and there and it was easier than I thought, are kanji really the hardest part of Japanese? |
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Doesn't help you at all when it comes to speaking/listening though..so is it the hardest part of Japanese in general?? that all depends on the person and their strengths/weaknesses |
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