Kanji help.....?

Hello everyone,

I started all my learning later on in life - after schooling, and have always pushed myself to learn complex things in my life, i am an IT proffessional and pick most things up eventually.

My Japanese is very mixed up....listening to audio's from Pimleur, Rosetta stone, Rocket Japanese, Michele Thomas and a few others.

I have settled on learning with rocket Japanese now with flashcards from white rabbit press and have recently learned hiragana and katakana in a very short time.

So i thought, i will order the 300 beginner Kanji cards to practice along with my Rocket Japanese.

I need some help with beginner Kanji....i just don't get it yet.

Most of the things in my life i have learned come eventually but the Kanji is not making sense at the moment.

I need a good teacher to explain please.

Thanks for reading.

Konnichiwa Gary-san,

Are you a visual person? Often, for visual and creative minds, Kanji is best studied using 'mnemonics' (pictograms). So, for example, 山 (mountain) actually comes from a picture of a mountain. In this way, you can create pictures for each Kanji you are learning and will be able to remember them.

Hope that helps!

-Sayaka

www.readthekanji.com

See how this site works for you, for me it does wonders if I have the time/remember to do enough repetitions.

You can also work on your writing skills by writing the kanji as it displays them randomly. Like the kanji is displayed you make your guess at reading it then write down the correct answer in a notebook or notepad or something.

You could also try James W. Heising: Remembering the Kanji vol1,2&3 books. Trust me, they're great, I've just bought them and I have a rate of learning of about 50 Kanji/week and I still remember them pretty well.

I'm still at the first volume where only the meaning and writing are explained. The next volumes teach you how to read them, so it's and excellent combination !

コッド

In volume 1, where it teaches you to write and remember them, it is clearly explained for each kanji how to remember them using primitives (compounds=kanji used for making other kanji). The first volume is really detailed and worthwhile.
On the other hand, volume 2 isn't that good. It only teaches you 1 on-yomi and 1 kun-yomi of the characters, which isn't sufficient. But still, it's better than nothing. For the reading part, I'll probably use flashcards in addition to the book.

I'm glad it helped . I think the compound part is up to the 2nd and 3rd volumes. I'm still on the first one, so I can't give an accurate response right now.

You should check out ..... http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/Kana-Flashcards-p-16159.html

I learned kana in a day or two.....easy to remember.

Once you learn these you will enjoy your Rocket Japanese lessons better.

I bought the book "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters" (Tuttle), by Kenneth G. Henshall while I was in Japan (about 20 years ago!) and that did it for me, as it tells the whole story about kanji, very detailed. Check it out...it covers kanji's radicals, origins, evolution, etc.