It must be frustrating to have to learn two thousand individual characters in order to read your native language... But on the other hand it looks so beautiful. Positives and negatives I guess...
I noticed that compared to tree(木), book(本) has one additional dash. I just think of the book kanji as a tree that got "slashed" (by the extra dash) for its bark to makes pages for a book
Kanji for woods is two trees, the kanji for forest is three trees, the kanji for rest is a person and a tree, the kanji for school has a tree. Hahahaha
imagine learning for like 1 hour and be able to read :O (and then learning for another 10 mins to be able to read in different languages (with latin letters ofc))
Here’s a fun one you may recognize! 日 Sun 本 Book (The book kanji has a secondary meaning, which is origin) A “Sun’s Origin” is a Rising Sun. Japan is the land of the Rising Sun, and that makes the combo kanji “日本” mean Japan. Kana: にほん Romaji: Nihon
@@kefler187 it’s just an alternative meaning. But book is usually more well known and taught initially since it’s more common. It’s not that it necessarily means 元 :) 本 is still different. I use Wanikani to study kanji! I learned it there. It’s very important to be aware of alternate readings for kanji, because it can change the meaning of many vocabulary. Like “book sun” for japan doesn’t make sense. For example, 社長 means company president. But the kanji 長 primarily means long. It has an alternate reading of “leader” though. Connecting your knowledge that company president is made up of the kanji “company” and “long”, doesn’t make much sense and in turn would probably be harder to remember.
@@77ale Pure curiosity since jisho.org makes no mention of this. When my kanji dictionary arrives I'll look it up in that to see if it has it. I've never seen it used to mean origin. It's not to say it isn't used that way, I've just never encountered it. Thanks for the info!
@@kefler187 yeah! I checked jisho too, I was a little surprised it wasn’t there either haha! When your dictionary arrives, let me know if you see it! At this point I just think it’s exceedingly rare to use those secondary meanings. I haven’t encountered more vocab that relies on that meaning since 日本. I know they’re out there tho :) It’s helpful as well since it doesn’t change the reading of the kanji either. But hey, np!!
@@77ale I just asked a Japanese person and they confirmed that kanji can mean "origin". Weird that a dictionary wouldn't have it. Just when you thought you knew a kanji XD
Kanji is actually very easy for me to distinguish because Chinese was my first language and I spoke it for more than 6 years without knowing any other language. I completely became a Canadian when I was around 9 though.
As a Japanese, I can assure you that kanji is the most deep and interesting part of the Japanese language. I think you'll be surprised at the range of expressions once you master them. Good luck!
I've picked up learning Japanese again after watching your 'Fluently in 6 months' video. I've also got a Hiragana & Katakana chart out so I can cross reference the symbols & begin to learn the patterns as well. I soon figured out almost half of the symbols were Kanji & with a little research, that they were like hieroglyphs but made more uniform over time (only just seen the term is logographic). As soon as I knew the distinction between the 3 main characters I was hyped! Nearly every Kanji symbol I've seen so far still holds the original story it's trying to portray for it's meaning & learning them looks like a ton a fun. Definitely grabbing the book, thanks!
Grats. Ive tried on and off to learn Japanese for years...im really really bad at it. The will power of sticking with it constantly till it stays with you is the hardest part.
@@Berstich I do understand you, I've try several times, and eh nos to it I knew my wife, but seem here learn it so easy when I can even remember correctly katakana sometimes, it's a pain
Well now I’ll never forget the kanji for Sad Thanks Update one year later: you’ll all be happy to know that I do, in fact, still remember the kanji for sad.
O... k... I guess, depending on your purposes, you could get by only learning hiragana, but if you want to truly immerse yourself in the language, you're going to get really frustrated not knowing the basic kanji.
People can live in the society and never write or read anything. Speaking is enough. by the way of you live there, you will know basic kanjis in a matter of time.
That's something I never struggled with (except katakana 'shi' and 'tsu'... Those little dashes are so similar but so different). But generally, both alphabets take their shapes from kanji with similar sounds. If you wanted to learn in reverse like that, then finding the kanji that matches 'a' and identifying the visual elements would help.
I wonder what's worse. I'm learning Mandarin. So in the end I'll have to know around 5000 characters minimum. So more than there are kanjis. BUT, in Chinese, characters usually have only one pronunciation, sometimes two, rarely three... BUT Chinese has tones.... so... I don't know... Is Japanese harder? Is Chinese harder? Chinese grammar is definitely easier...
Pronunciation wise, Chinese is harder as tone are very important to it. Japanese also use lots and lots of English loan word so that will make it easier.
ATTENTION EVERYONE WHO WILL USE THIS METHOD: This method is indeed awesome and is the best way to learn kanji. But there's one fatal flaw the book have and which Chris has used, and this is the reason why Chris still after 6 years says he doesn't know kanji well. It's because the book instructs to practise being able to write a kanji upon seeing a keyword. This is wrong, as many people can report that this does not make you able to read. You should instead do as following: 1. Go through the book learning how to write 15 new characters per day (you can change the number to your liking) 2. When you create flashcards put the kanji on front and the definition on back 3. Learn Japanese and practise reading (takes some time) 4. When you feel confident reading Japanese go through the book again but this time do it as Heisig reccomeds, that is flashcards having keyword on top 5. Congratulations you are fluent in kanji
You don't learn to read, because that's in the second book. Heisig specifically says this at the beginning, that first you learn how to write them and then learn how to read them?
@@velocity7173 "Read" in this meaning means being able to recall the meaning. I would advise people to not use the second book (but the third book is good). This is because we're actually not learning the characters in rtk we're just making entries in our brain so we can learn the complete meaning through context . Memorising sounds to characters does not lead to fluency except if you already know Japanese, this is why Japanese school children can do this. I would recommend watching a video by "Matt vs Japan" called "Why 'Remembering the Kanji' is the best way to learn kanji". Matt achieved native fluency in reading Japanese after 4 years. One important thing to mention is that he in the video has corrected the video in a new video. The correction he makes is what I mentioned in my original comment and that going through RTK 1+3 before learning japanese is overkill and its enough to learn the top 1000 used in RTK 1. Furthermore I would recommend the method or "approach" that he has made called Massive Immersion Approach. I highly recommend reading through that website if you actually want to be fluent in a language. Traditional langauge learning methods are obviously flawed as there are countless of stories of people going through 3 years in university learning Japanese and they still can't understand a fraction of normal speech.
@@MarvelRandomiesSome characters do not have the same meaning in japan so probably not. After all Chinese and Japanese is not similar enough to warrant relearning grammar, pronunciation, etc. If you already learned Japanese, most kanji you learn is basically learning Chinese.
@@MarvelRandomies This is old but I will answer anyway, I'm HSK3-4 rn in Chinese and my teacher told me not to learn Japanese until I am hsk5+ because you will get quite confused if you start before. So yes you can learn Chinese first but you have to grind for about 5 years before starting japanese
@@MarvelRandomies Probably not. But if you know Chinese beforehand, learning Japanese will be much easier. Although the pronounciation of the words are different but some of the kanji and Chinese characters share the same meaning. Like 本 can mean 'book' in Chinese and Japanese. But not all share the same meaning, an example would be 青 which means 'green' in Chinese but 'blue' in Japanese. Some kanji can sound somewhat close to the Chinese pronounciation therefore it could be easier to remember the kanji.
@@tacticalpops But Americans have trouble spelling pretty much any word to begin with.. Try asking a European and you'll go a lot further friend. >Dutch, Swedes, Polish speaking better English than the average American. FeelsBadMan
Writing and reading or using ones phone to type and recognize the correct kanji use different types of memory. I am terrible at recall memory, but have pretty okay recognition memory, so I can read kanji and type, but if you ask me to write, not so much.
@@RoadToN1 Well, Japanese has a larger "alphabet" as well as a more "confusing" writing system. Since it is so different from english, it's understandable that people would find it more intresting. Because of how different and forgein it is.
100 characters in 4 days. My memory isn't perfect but I did remember over 90 of them without reference. It really works. The key is to do exactly as it's instructed in the book and to do at least a lesson a day. It's fine if you miss a day here and there but 5 days a week sounds fine. On the days you don't do a lesson, just review what you've already learned, especially the most recent kanji.
Wow I'm late. Low intermediate. I can follow dialogue if it's not too complex. TV shows are doable. I've only tried 1 non-subbed anime and I got oh maybe 50% of it a couple months back. Documentaries or Politics are still over my head most of the time. I can make out a lot of words but there are too many unknowns. I can also read maybe 4th or 5th grade level material well enough because the vocabulary isn't complex and the kanji is sparse. You see even though I've got a lot of kanji now, it still might take some time before I know the associated words. I'll get there though. I decided to take my time from now on. Before I was in a rush.
Me: *learning Japanese* My dad: you’re learning a hard language, learn the language I’m currently learning rn Me: but what language? My dad: Chinese Me: の Edit: haha, My dad stopped learning Chinese because he got bored, lol. I’m still learning Japanese but lately, I’m taking a rest.
Exactly how I feel... I finish my daily Japanese lesson, and say: "Hey, I think I'll go talk to some people in Japanese." The same thing always happens: me: こんにちはー some random person: *_KANJI AND ADVANCED N1 GRAMMAR + VOCABULARY_*
Learning kanji is like balancing on the edge of madness and “ah ha” moments while laying in a pile of memory cards and sadness lol. Worse is trying to explain your method to other people and not sound crazy.
There are a lot (a looooot) of videos on TH-cam (particularly I'm speaking of non-Japanese, talking about Japanese culture or how to learn Japanese), with people trying to interject humor into informative or instructional videos, and just failing miserably. It makes the videos not only not funny, but annoying to watch as well. You however, Sir, are both funny AND highly informative and helpful. It's probably in part because you are British, and good humor is just in your 血 (lucky man). But your videos are good. がんばってくださいね？ Do you're best! You're ahead of the rest!~
Samuel Prevost Revenge (usually ending in blood) is a “dish” best served cold. You could say that the line on top of blood is the knife, and so in dish, the knife was taken out, and the dish (revenge) has been completed.
60 Kanji per day is crazy, though. I'm already forced to regularly re-learn old Kanji that I forgot while doing 5-10 new ones per day in the anki droid app and it takes me between 45-60 minutes a day to clear all my cards. I'm currently at Kanji #1312
I'm the same as you, 10 kanji per day and need to re-learn a lot of them, but I think it's somewhat easier for him memorize because he is in Japan, Idk if you live in Japan or not lol
Right now im 14 so im taking it slow. Im planning on taking better lessons in the future. The fact that i know better kanji than katakana concerns me...
Actually its not the original title. The original title is different, because I heard that westerners had trouble pronouncingnit so they just called it the sukiyaki song
it's pretty much the opposite for me Chinese characters are waaayy easier than Japanese 😂 I tend to read the kanji in Chinese first before quickly switching to the Japanese reading.
I've been studying Chinese for four years and I just started teaching myself Japanese and the Kanji reads exactly like the Chinese. My problem now is that I keep saying all the Kanji in Chinese >_
Actually Kanji originated in China because a long time ago Japanese did not have a writing system. So that is why the readings are the same. Or at least that is what I have researched.
Вероника Воронова Note: Since you said “CHINESE reading of kanji”, I wrote it in the perspective of Chinese, which means I don’t know if it works well with Japanese kanji. Most of the Chinese characters are made up of radicals, like “口” (mouth), “氵” (water), “艹” (grass), and “木” (tree, wood). Radicals each convey a meaning, and when a Chinese character contains one, it’s usually related to that meaning. If you recognize one, you’ll be able to memorize the character’s meaning more easily. For example: “吃”, meaning “to eat”, in which the radical “口” shows that it’s related to the mouth. Side note, there’re also radicals indicating the pronunciation of the word. These are called “声旁” (phonetic radical) in Chinese. (Like in “河” (hé, river), radical “可” (ké) determines a part of the character’s pronunciation) Finding them will help you memorize their pronunciations. And as mentioned in this video, you can use your imagination to picture an image in your mind as you read the character. For example: Think the character “目” (eye, btw it’s also a common radical) as a vertical eye. Think “好” (“hǎo” or “hào”, in this case, “hǎo”; meaning good) as a woman (女, nǚ) holding a child (子, zǐ) who just borne. In conclusion, learn radicals and their meaning, use your imagination, and practice writing and reading them!
I was so excited when I went to Japan and could read the Kanji on the toilet. I've only learned 35 Kanji so far. Looking forward to trying this strategy, Chris.
That's true my native language is Spanish and I've still been learning different things about it as time goes same for English and I'm trying to learn kanji now
I'm more or less fluent at 11 languages, there's a point where I think that's enough and move to the next one. Tho yeah, as I do recaps to stay in shape I always learn something new. Tho that saying works for everything, you never stop learning skating, snowboarding, physics, astronomy, photography etc.. unless you quit.
when i first looked at this after finishing hiragana and katakana i thought that this method wouldnt work for me but i tried it out and after 4 days i have learnt 70 the first 70 kanji in the book which i think is absolutely phenomenal
Abroadin Japan I have a question how long do you study one kanji (story)? I'm asking this because this method maybe difficult for me, because I don't really a creative artist kind of mind. So I see this method is being difficult for me however, of the 8 - 10 years of studying Japanese kanji was always so so to me. I know some but I would like to increase that, and willing to try something new in doing so. In fact I was told by many Japanese teachers to don't worry about writing kanji, because of the technology, most kanji's can be written by using the computer. (sorry I'm rambling) Can you please reply to this message on how many hours you spend on one kanji (story) as I would like to call your interesting method? :)
With a bit of experience I can honestly say that everything in this video is true. The book makes learning kanji incredibly easy. I haven't finished the book but I can write 200 kanjis out of thin air without much trouble.
This method is how I learn all my languages, to be honest. Even if there's not a picture to go with it in languages that don't use symbols like japanese, making a story or connection to another concept helps loads
Willyan Kiundharta Japanese have multi readings for each kanji.You need to remember the words’ pronociations reading a character in Japanese is nonsense
"A horse is necessary!" - I have never laughed so hard. I have been watching your videos for a while now, filmed well, very interesting and funny monologues, and great atmosphere (music etc). SUBSCRIBED!
I took japanese for 2 years in high-school and between this channel and duo lingo I have learned more nihongo than I ever did in high school, also I'm moving to okinawa next year so this definitely helps. This channel is funny, entertaining and educational. Keep up the great work!
not to take away from this video, because i do agree that writing it out and memorizing the meanings of the kanji is an important thing, but there's a site called wanikani that uses basically this exact same method of using anecdotes to help you remember the kanji and also the sounds they make and such! it's what i use and it's fantastic
Andrea Rubiño sometimes i think the wanikani mnemonics arent good for certain ones so i make my own for them but for the most part they are pretty good
As an English speaker, I had an extremely hard time learning Spanish (supposedly the easiest language for English speakers to learn) if I can't learn Spanish then I think it will be impossible for me to learn to speak/write in Japanese. I'm always impressed with those who know how to write/speak at least 2 languages (sometimes I get jealous but I'm more often impressed over being jealous). Good on those people and I hope them the best :)
Proximity to a language you know well is important however motivation and your method are also very important. For me so far it's been pretty easy to learn new languages ever since I started self studying instead of being forced by school(with 0 motivation and flawed methods). In my case language learning is just an excuse to binge watch TV shows while saying I'm immersing(which is true, however the begining phase is always hard). And it does get hard when I am not motivated. Now however I'm learning Japanese and while finding immersion that motivated is easier than in any other language so far(because there are tons of resources) the beginning phase has been longer than in my other languages so far(I'm on around my 8th month and still a beginner, that's more than it took me to become fluent-ish in Italian) and I still need to study Kanji are doesn't sound fun because my method is mostly based on listening and I can't listen to Kanji. TLDR: Language Learning can be easy based on motivation, proximity to a language you know well and your method(age is also a factor but not as large as people make it out to be). Immersion is good but that's a bit tricky with Kanji.
Would love to see an update on how well you can recall the kanji now. Over ten years in the country now and it would be really telling of what the most important kanji, in your sphere, are
When I began my Japanese learning adventure many a year ago, I thought about and tried out this method. It didn't work for me. The reason I believe, besides having no creative ability, is the fact that instead of memorizing 2000 things, now you have to remember a story for every 2000 things, consisting of the primitives that make them up, which I imagine can spiral to well over 5,000 things. For the meanings. Then you have to repeat this process for the reading. Then you have to repeat it again for the other reading. Doesn't include stroke order or proper way of writing (which granted is a small one that is learned quickly but nevertheless) Then this doesn't even include any actual WORDS, which are made up of kanji (1-4 of them), so the actual words and their meanings and pronunciations are on top of all of that. (ie: What's the difference between 階段 and 段階?) And of course it wouldn't be Japanese without those sweet, sweet exceptions. 土木 Anyone? For me, It's much slower, but I've found just natural absorption, while possibly taking a fair bit longer, is far less overwhelming and thus I've concluded to be more efficient (ie: Seeing something on the subway Ad, opening up your smartphone dictionary and looking up the spelling and meaning, and being lucky enough to have that piece of information stick well enough that you can recall it the next time you see it). Of course another can of worms is to move from recognition (Seeing a kanji word and being able to correctly identify the meaning/spelling) to Recall (being able to on-the-fly bring up the word spelled and meaning correctly in a verbal or written context where it's appropriately and correctly used). Japanese is a difficult language.
I'm not really one to talk, but I think memorizing 2000 or 5000 things with intertwining, correlating logic is much easier than trying to memorize 2000 arbitrary things.
The thing is, adding a story to it makes it easier for your brain to categorize it into your long-term memory, instead of the short-term memory the brain quickly discards as useless clutter. I am literally useless without this method, and slightly less useless with it
@@CodenameTurtle That's true, up to a certain point. Sure it might make some words easier to remember, but you're not going to remember all 2,000+ stories. I'm approaching my 4th year in Japan, and I've learned maybe 80-90% of the 常用漢字 . After language school, I took a much slower approach to my language learning by assimilation instead of active study. When I see a kanji now, The reading is mostly binary (I know it or I don't) and immediate. Sure you can get there, especially at the beginning, by using these stories techniques to help memorize, but after a certain point of Japanese fluency these stories become impractical. The need to remember the story when recalling makes reading too slow (vs being able to recall it automatically), and memorizing a story for a word or Kanji is much more time consuming and less efficient than if you're able to just memorize the word itself in actual usage context.
@@Stone_624 Hey, you do you. It's not like there's just one method of learning Kanji (if I made it sound like that), so stick to whatever is working for you. I have a condition where my memory is damaged in general, and always had problems remembering things so this method has been really important to me. I tend to shorten the stories down so it's more of a one or two word-thing, but then as time goes by and I keep seeing them I won't need the "stories" anymore, but they will still be remembered. Sounds like you've done great though.
@@Stone_624 The idea is not to spend the rest of your life looking at kanji and remembering the story behind them, this is just a way to get it to stick in your brain. After you learn it well enough you will not need the stories any longer, but the mnemonics actually help a great deal (Wanikani uses a similar method, except you learn readings and vocab as you go along, and it has a built in SRS)
Haha I'm attempting to learn Japanese and I'm Chinese, so the words in kanji are pretty easy for me as I can write them and the meanings are almost exactly the same ;except for the pronunciation which are both so different, it puts me off learning Japanese D: But I'm determined so wish me luck haha
teandcoffee Same for me, except I am not very good at writing Chinese. Technically, the On readings of Kanji came from China, but...that doesn't mean it sounds anything like how you pronounce it in Chinese. For example, the Kanji for in (中: I think if it as "middle") is pronounced as "Chuu" in Japanese, but in Chinese, it is Zhōng. Nothing alike! ;-(
capsule I think it's quite similar. Ch is basically Zh ū is at least closer to ō than ī or ā Since they have multiple readings it can also be "naka", "ata" or "uchi"
teandcoffee haha i'm not chinese (well, i'm a chinese descent) but i can read chinese just fine, i know the meaning when i read it but just can't seem to learn it in japanese, still struggling through hiragana and katakana though...and i have 6 months before moving to japan ;;
I've been studying Japanese for a couple of months now and you have no idea how happy I am to finally learn the phrase "uma ga hitsuyou desu"! Now I can finally take that trip to Japan with confidence. Arigatou gozaimashita, Chris!
漢字は偏とそれ以外から覚えると早いのに（Kanji is easy to understand and learn using the meaning of the polarization） 働く ← 人person が 動くmove （ｲ ＝ 人person） 動く ← 重いHeavy 力power つまり、「人が力で重いものを動かす person moves in the heavy objects with power ＝働くwork」 食eat 屋根の下でUnder the roof 良good（気分Feeling） （Although different from the true origins） 滝waterfall 氵←水water 竜←dragon Water such as dragon これでもう10個の漢字を覚えられるでしょ？You can remember 10 Kanji in this list.
9:32 i'm actually leaving this video with a positive outlet, i started learning kanji a week ago (already knew hiragana/katakana due to a failed attempt to learn before) and i'm currently at 127 vocabulary words, even though i have a hard time remembering half of them, or not remembering some at all, i still got more motivation to learn more thanks to this video! i learned about your channel only something like a year before but never checked out old videos, now i'm finding a lot of "hidden" gems, thanks a lot!
@@sumvs5992 Simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, HongKong, Macau. However only around 300 - 350 characters were simplified beyond recognition i.e 車 --> 车, and around 2000 -3000 are simplified due to radicals being simplified i.e 煩-->烦 ， 語-->语 so are easily recognisable. However, most literate Chinese people can read both no problem, only struggle to write traditional as they are not used to writing them. Chinese has like 85,000+ characters, so think of simplified characters as just having to learn 350 extra characters - not a hell lot different to traditional
I'm Chinese, and when I saw the Kanji characters at first, I sighed a breath of relief, but when I saw that the pronunciations were entirely different, I screamed inside my head. Though, I can still understand what most of the characters mean.
I just started to watch your videos, the cycle challange to natsuki the movie. And decided to check your very first videos. This is much more fun tbh, i'm glad that i've found this channel.
I can't believe I was already lowkey doing this when I started studying. I'm glad that there's an actual book that would help me as a reference. Thank you!
Abroadin Japan Really?! Conversations are already not a problem?! Wow... Congratulations mate, that is huge. Holy crap. I couldn't imagine having a fluent conversation in Japanese.
Abroadin Japan Are you only learning the meanings? Should I leave the readings aside and learn them seperate as Vocabulary? I'm not sure how I should procede in learning Kanji...
stumbled across this video in my recommended. i have no plans to learn japanese any time soon, but i really enjoyed watching this video. thank you for uploading.
For 会, I did a KKK member saying “shh! We’re having a *meeting* !” The top strokes are the hood and the little bottom left stroke is the guy’s finger saying “shh!” ...Just in case anyone was learning that specific kanji. :)
Fun Fact: As the Kanji characters originated in China, many of the Kanji meanings do translate into Mandarin (and visa versa) too! 小 (Ko) in Japanese, is 小 (Xiao)[shao] in Mandarin! 大 (Ō) in Japanese, is 大 (Da) in Mandarin! ...In hindsight, I'm pretty sure everyone knew that anyway.
As a Chinese speaker, learning Kanji is still difficult. Of course you initially know how to read Kanji as it is similar, if not identical to Traditional Chinese characters. However, in Chinese, every character has only one syllable, but in Kanji, you have up to 4 syllables in one character. Also, "Fond" in Japanese, 好, as shown in the video at 4:40, means "Good" in Chinese, and "私", which means "I" in Japanese, is used differently in Chinese. All in all, learning Chinese just makes learning Kanji a slight 10% easier. Reading it is a lot easier if you know Traditional Chinese.
It's all context clues and how you look at it. That's how I learned to understand Spanish in my early 20s, or at least understand what people are saying when everyone is talking very very quickly when you're very suddenly immersed in the language and your only Spanish speaking friend refuses to teach you. I don't remember much anymore, but I knew I could pick up on the gist of everything that was happening from what I just had to learn. It's context clues and correlation. You were correlating what you viewed as pictures into things you can use as a memory. It's a very good way to go about it. Good job.
I am struggling with English as a second language too!! Hope we get together someday to learn the second languages to each other!!! Whenever you come to Osaka, please let me know and let’s have some drink 🍺
But for foreigner, learning chinese is much more difficult than learning japanese. They would prefer to get into a easier way rather than stepping over chinese first.
Just wanted to say thank you for recommending this method! I finished the book in June and haven't revised kanji since then because university got busy. It is now December and I'm back to studying Japanese and I'm recalling kanji with relative ease. Heisig is the MVP!
Even I Japanese had a hard time to memorize kanji characters. I'm so impressed with how foreigner learns Japanese including Kanji Characters.
It must be frustrating to have to learn two thousand individual characters in order to read your native language... But on the other hand it looks so beautiful. Positives and negatives I guess...
@Brea Hogenkamp It takes 9 years for even Japanese to memorize kanji.lol
Brea Hogenkamp with correct learning techniques Kanji won't take you 9 years!
Brea Hogenkamp what apps do you use?
@Brea Hogenkamp we can be japanese partners eheh I'm using duolingo and lingodeer. Also downloaded some japanese books
I noticed that compared to tree(木), book(本) has one additional dash. I just think of the book kanji as a tree that got "slashed" (by the extra dash) for its bark to makes pages for a book
Kanji for woods is two trees, the kanji for forest is three trees, the kanji for rest is a person and a tree, the kanji for school has a tree. Hahahaha
Brilliant
now i'll never forget this. thank you
I just remembered it because the word 日本 (nihon) is literally everywhere. Hon = book.
Jon Stark I think of it as a book under a Xmas tree. Perfect gift. 😂
Japanese: Thousands of characters
English: "26. Take it or leave"
DNA: "I take four! k, thx, bye!" :)
Computers: 01001100 01001111 01001100
@@KristoffDoe 01001000 01100001 01101000 01100001 00100001
@@ranveerchavan23 that hit too close to home bro
engineering student has entered the chat
imagine learning for like 1 hour and be able to read :O (and then learning for another 10 mins to be able to read in different languages (with latin letters ofc))
I great man once said, “there is no shortcut to becoming hokage
Stfu
@@yamum7454 no U
Cory in the house からですか
Big Bongマーカス why
Said the seventh
'I'd end up with the last supper, instead of the healthy delicious salads that i thought i had ordered'
LMFAO LOVE THIS DUDE
1k likes and no comments? hmm.
*2000 basic characters*
*10000 characters overall*
F U C C
Each have multiple readings
*80000 characters in Chinese*
Dis might not be as difficult
Its more than 10k
@@driftingdruid Chinese also don't know all those characters. It's 3000 basic characters in Chinese language. Smart Chinese people know 5000-8000.
Tell that to people who start to learn Japanese; they will know what they are getting into haha
I learned hiragana and katakana easily. I saw Kanji and died internally.
SpyGirl12345 same
me too mate, me too
Me too, Kanji is extremely difficult. It will take a long time to learn them but it will not deter me from learning Kanji.
@@williamjames4031 two weeks later... Are you still at it trying to learn kanji?
@@andy65pr38 yep, this is a long process, it will take 3 to 4 years to learn plenty of kanjis.
Here’s a fun one you may recognize!
日 Sun
本 Book (The book kanji has a secondary meaning, which is origin)
A “Sun’s Origin” is a Rising Sun. Japan is the land of the Rising Sun, and that makes the combo kanji “日本” mean Japan.
Kana: にほん
Romaji: Nihon
I had no idea 本 could also mean 元. Where did you read this?
@@kefler187 it’s just an alternative meaning. But book is usually more well known and taught initially since it’s more common. It’s not that it necessarily means 元 :) 本 is still different.
I use Wanikani to study kanji! I learned it there.
It’s very important to be aware of alternate readings for kanji, because it can change the meaning of many vocabulary. Like “book sun” for japan doesn’t make sense.
For example, 社長 means company president. But the kanji 長 primarily means long. It has an alternate reading of “leader” though. Connecting your knowledge that company president is made up of the kanji “company” and “long”, doesn’t make much sense and in turn would probably be harder to remember.
@@77ale Pure curiosity since jisho.org makes no mention of this. When my kanji dictionary arrives I'll look it up in that to see if it has it. I've never seen it used to mean origin. It's not to say it isn't used that way, I've just never encountered it. Thanks for the info!
@@kefler187 yeah! I checked jisho too, I was a little surprised it wasn’t there either haha! When your dictionary arrives, let me know if you see it!
At this point I just think it’s exceedingly rare to use those secondary meanings. I haven’t encountered more vocab that relies on that meaning since 日本. I know they’re out there tho :)
It’s helpful as well since it doesn’t change the reading of the kanji either. But hey, np!!
@@77ale I just asked a Japanese person and they confirmed that kanji can mean "origin". Weird that a dictionary wouldn't have it. Just when you thought you knew a kanji XD
木: tree
本: book
The tree has a line cutting through. Then the leaves are turned to paper. With paper, you can make a book. Easy
Big Brain
日本人じゃない hope it was helpful
.....
That's how I remember it
Kanji is actually very easy for me to distinguish because Chinese was my first language and I spoke it for more than 6 years without knowing any other language. I completely became a Canadian when I was around 9 though.
But the original meaning of 本 is"root" or "inherent"
"People who have nothing better to do"
Felt that one.
*and now, quarantine.*
Euna C lol
God, he picked me out like a dark stain on a white shirt
I think he called us out specifically
How do you pronounce your name???
As a Japanese, I can assure you that kanji is the most deep and interesting part of the Japanese language. I think you'll be surprised at the range of expressions once you master them. Good luck!
Thx
idk why but this gave me encouragement, thank you.
kanji’s hard 😔
ありがとう
@@isamarysanguinety312 I can relate
I've picked up learning Japanese again after watching your 'Fluently in 6 months' video. I've also got a Hiragana & Katakana chart out so I can cross reference the symbols & begin to learn the patterns as well. I soon figured out almost half of the symbols were Kanji & with a little research, that they were like hieroglyphs but made more uniform over time (only just seen the term is logographic). As soon as I knew the distinction between the 3 main characters I was hyped! Nearly every Kanji symbol I've seen so far still holds the original story it's trying to portray for it's meaning & learning them looks like a ton a fun. Definitely grabbing the book, thanks!
WOW I didn't think I'd see lord spink here - I LOVE YOUR APEX CONTENT - and living the japanese content too!
How's it going
Grats. Ive tried on and off to learn Japanese for years...im really really bad at it. The will power of sticking with it constantly till it stays with you is the hardest part.
@@Berstich I do understand you, I've try several times, and eh nos to it I knew my wife, but seem here learn it so easy when I can even remember correctly katakana sometimes, it's a pain
Well now I’ll never forget the kanji for Sad
Thanks
Update one year later: you’ll all be happy to know that I do, in fact, still remember the kanji for sad.
Kanashii.... :'(
悲しい😭
actually i'm impressed i remember 10 minutes after watching the vid
2,000 *basic* characters
a really educated person is supposed to know 10000 kanjis lol
O... k... I guess, depending on your purposes, you could get by only learning hiragana, but if you want to truly immerse yourself in the language, you're going to get really frustrated not knowing the basic kanji.
That's a good starting point, though.
People can live in the society and never write or read anything. Speaking is enough. by the way of you live there, you will know basic kanjis in a matter of time.
i guess u never read haha
How to learn kanji:
Learn Chinese
How to learn Japanese grammar:
Learn Korean
How to learn hiragana &/or katakana:
p f f t
That's something I never struggled with (except katakana 'shi' and 'tsu'... Those little dashes are so similar but so different). But generally, both alphabets take their shapes from kanji with similar sounds. If you wanted to learn in reverse like that, then finding the kanji that matches 'a' and identifying the visual elements would help.
I learned hiragana and katakana in a week as of today. No problem. Now kanji....AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH...
@@amandasmith7210 shi: smiling face look at rigth
tsu: smiling face look at left
I'm studying Korean and Japanese lmao
LOL, great someone like me... but I'm dying soon with kanji
2013: "Kim Jong Un has no heart"
2020: 😳
This made me scream lmao 😂😂
What did he do?
@@pernille7662 I heard he is at death door.
@@pernille7662 heart attack
He's alive LMAO
I'm 1500 kanji in and you LIED TO ME CHRIS!
OH GOD THIS IS BORING
AND IT TAKES SO LONG
BUT I CANT STOP NOW CAN I
I wonder what's worse. I'm learning Mandarin. So in the end I'll have to know around 5000 characters minimum. So more than there are kanjis. BUT, in Chinese, characters usually have only one pronunciation, sometimes two, rarely three... BUT Chinese has tones.... so... I don't know... Is Japanese harder? Is Chinese harder? Chinese grammar is definitely easier...
@@jdfromparis6230 Since Japanese has 3 writing system, it def harder than Chinese.
Pronunciation wise, Chinese is harder as tone are very important to it. Japanese also use lots and lots of English loan word so that will make it easier.
@@Vysair Yeh, although the 2 writing systems are actually pretty easy depending on your work ethic.
So true.... And sad.
ATTENTION EVERYONE WHO WILL USE THIS METHOD:
This method is indeed awesome and is the best way to learn kanji. But there's one fatal flaw the book have and which Chris has used, and this is the reason why Chris still after 6 years says he doesn't know kanji well.
It's because the book instructs to practise being able to write a kanji upon seeing a keyword. This is wrong, as many people can report that this does not make you able to read. You should instead do as following:
1. Go through the book learning how to write 15 new characters per day (you can change the number to your liking)
2. When you create flashcards put the kanji on front and the definition on back
3. Learn Japanese and practise reading (takes some time)
4. When you feel confident reading Japanese go through the book again but this time do it as Heisig reccomeds, that is flashcards having keyword on top
5. Congratulations you are fluent in kanji
GogL0L ありがと！😁😁
You don't learn to read, because that's in the second book. Heisig specifically says this at the beginning, that first you learn how to write them and then learn how to read them?
@@velocity7173 "Read" in this meaning means being able to recall the meaning. I would advise people to not use the second book (but the third book is good). This is because we're actually not learning the characters in rtk we're just making entries in our brain so we can learn the complete meaning through context . Memorising sounds to characters does not lead to fluency except if you already know Japanese, this is why Japanese school children can do this.
I would recommend watching a video by "Matt vs Japan" called "Why 'Remembering the Kanji' is the best way to learn kanji". Matt achieved native fluency in reading Japanese after 4 years.
One important thing to mention is that he in the video has corrected the video in a new video. The correction he makes is what I mentioned in my original comment and that going through RTK 1+3 before learning japanese is overkill and its enough to learn the top 1000 used in RTK 1.
Furthermore I would recommend the method or "approach" that he has made called Massive Immersion Approach. I highly recommend reading through that website if you actually want to be fluent in a language. Traditional langauge learning methods are obviously flawed as there are countless of stories of people going through 3 years in university learning Japanese and they still can't understand a fraction of normal speech.
What if you dont even have the book and cant get it without paying way too much money
LOUDER FOR PEOPLE AT THE BACK
Funnily enough, kanji is just mandarin with a DLC
Mandarin is kanji with a dlc
yes
Kanji is the Mandarin DLC for Japanese.
*hanzi with DLC
@@nofood1 in chinese, one kanji usually has one meaning and one reading. In japenese fjkodlfjkd;lfjdlkfd
Other people: kanji is difficult and we can only read hiragana and katakana
Chinese: kanji is the only thing we could read
So should I learn chinese before kanji?
@@MarvelRandomiesSome characters do not have the same meaning in japan so probably not. After all Chinese and Japanese is not similar enough to warrant relearning grammar, pronunciation, etc.
If you already learned Japanese, most kanji you learn is basically learning Chinese.
@@MarvelRandomies This is old but I will answer anyway, I'm HSK3-4 rn in Chinese and my teacher told me not to learn Japanese until I am hsk5+ because you will get quite confused if you start before. So yes you can learn Chinese first but you have to grind for about 5 years before starting japanese
@@MarvelRandomies Probably not. But if you know Chinese beforehand, learning Japanese will be much easier. Although the pronounciation of the words are different but some of the kanji and Chinese characters share the same meaning. Like 本 can mean 'book' in Chinese and Japanese. But not all share the same meaning, an example would be 青 which means 'green' in Chinese but 'blue' in Japanese. Some kanji can sound somewhat close to the Chinese pronounciation therefore it could be easier to remember the kanji.
@@yukiko_akiyama about the "green" kanji, japanese centuries ago refered 青 as blue and green so its partially correct
Every time when i'm stuck with Kanji, i watch this video "Can Japanese actually write Japanese kanji?" It's kind of a relief 😄.
Short answer: no
Long answer: Yes but actually no
@@tacticalpops It's more like asking them to draw an entire map of the U.S with all the states in the right places.
@@aweik4937 If you gave me an outline of the whole country I could probably do that with moderate accuracy
@@tacticalpops But Americans have trouble spelling pretty much any word to begin with.. Try asking a European and you'll go a lot further friend.
>Dutch, Swedes, Polish speaking better English than the average American. FeelsBadMan
Writing and reading or using ones phone to type and recognize the correct kanji use different types of memory. I am terrible at recall memory, but have pretty okay recognition memory, so I can read kanji and type, but if you ask me to write, not so much.
I'm studying for a spanish test, why am I watching this?
japanese is more interesting
They are both equally interesting
@@RoadToN1 Well, Japanese has a larger "alphabet" as well as a more "confusing" writing system. Since it is so different from english, it's understandable that people would find it more intresting. Because of how different and forgein it is.
Lo aprobastes?
😂😂😂😂
100 characters in 4 days. My memory isn't perfect but I did remember over 90 of them without reference. It really works. The key is to do exactly as it's instructed in the book and to do at least a lesson a day. It's fine if you miss a day here and there but 5 days a week sounds fine. On the days you don't do a lesson, just review what you've already learned, especially the most recent kanji.
hahaha, so did i, with the same experience!!! %^^
How far along are you in your Japanese?
Wow I'm late. Low intermediate. I can follow dialogue if it's not too complex. TV shows are doable. I've only tried 1 non-subbed anime and I got oh maybe 50% of it a couple months back. Documentaries or Politics are still over my head most of the time. I can make out a lot of words but there are too many unknowns.
I can also read maybe 4th or 5th grade level material well enough because the vocabulary isn't complex and the kanji is sparse. You see even though I've got a lot of kanji now, it still might take some time before I know the associated words. I'll get there though. I decided to take my time from now on. Before I was in a rush.
Me: *learning Japanese*
My dad: you’re learning a hard language, learn the language I’m currently learning rn
Me: but what language?
My dad: Chinese
Me: の
Edit: haha, My dad stopped learning Chinese because he got bored, lol. I’m still learning Japanese but lately, I’m taking a rest.
lmao
Hahahahaha の😂😂
我 铺 明 拍
I'm not sure if that how it's written
Edit: I haven't done Chinese for over Six years
The only japanese word i can read..
do you mean
*いいえ？*
"Kim Jong-Un has no heart. SAD"
- @realdonaldtrump
Asado honey B
Asado omg
NAILED IT
The fact that this mnemonic even works is what makes me sad.
Covfefe
Me: *"I'm so good at Japanese."*
Me: **Hears people talking and writing Japanese**
Also me: *"Oh. Nvm."*
早まるな
Exactly how I feel... I finish my daily Japanese lesson, and say: "Hey, I think I'll go talk to some people in Japanese." The same thing always happens:
me: こんにちはー
some random person: *_KANJI AND ADVANCED N1 GRAMMAR + VOCABULARY_*
That happens to me xD
@@ei-on4eb i feel you
Me and Korean.. (sigh)
Learning kanji is like balancing on the edge of madness and “ah ha” moments while laying in a pile of memory cards and sadness lol. Worse is trying to explain your method to other people and not sound crazy.
haaa yes...
I felt that 😤
I hate when I find the most helpful and interesting videos at midnight
Y’know what’s funny, I’m watching this at midnight
Put them in a playlist or something for reference
Me too
Midnight? Gosh that's early.
"5 kanji a day, keeps your sanity at bay." - グレース
(I literally just popped up in my head lol)
There are a lot (a looooot) of videos on TH-cam (particularly I'm speaking of non-Japanese, talking about Japanese culture or how to learn Japanese), with people trying to interject humor into informative or instructional videos, and just failing miserably. It makes the videos not only not funny, but annoying to watch as well.
You however, Sir, are both funny AND highly informative and helpful. It's probably in part because you are British, and good humor is just in your 血 (lucky man). But your videos are good. がんばってくださいね？ Do you're best! You're ahead of the rest!~
KuroNeko I’ve learned 血 thanks to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s その血のさだめ lol
Also, while 血 is blood, for no fucking reason 皿 is a dish, total wtf
Samuel Prevost
Revenge (usually ending in blood) is a “dish” best served cold.
You could say that the line on top of blood is the knife, and so in dish, the knife was taken out, and the dish (revenge) has been completed.
@@11leap why did this help me so much
His attitude is great I love it
た: That’s funny. Is that the Parthenon?
と: Yes, and it’s bleeding.
た: Why is it bleeding?
と: I have no idea. Marble can’t bleed, can it?
た: No.
60 Kanji per day is crazy, though. I'm already forced to regularly re-learn old Kanji that I forgot while doing 5-10 new ones per day in the anki droid app and it takes me between 45-60 minutes a day to clear all my cards. I'm currently at Kanji #1312
I'm the same as you, 10 kanji per day and need to re-learn a lot of them, but I think it's somewhat easier for him memorize because he is in Japan, Idk if you live in Japan or not lol
@@simonrojascaceres2761 he is forced to do it... it's survival to know kanji in japan
Yeah, that must be hard
Right now im 14 so im taking it slow. Im planning on taking better lessons in the future. The fact that i know better kanji than katakana concerns me...
That sounds more like a memory issue
3:32 If anybody is wondering the song is kyu sakamoto - sukiyaki
from up the poppy hill
Yang baju merah jangan sampe lepas
Actually its not the original title. The original title is different, because I heard that westerners had trouble pronouncingnit so they just called it the sukiyaki song
@@m.l.2871 I believe it was called ue o muite arukou or something like that...
I laughed my ass off AND learnt something. Thank you man, this was absolutely amazing!
BrightonDestiny fuck my life you're gorgeous. Are you actually from Brighton?
Lol whot. No, I'm from Norway, haha
omgXhealXdoch *awkward silence*
Fraser Craig Cringey memory.
wow that's unexpected. Since when are you interested in Japanese Annika?
lol i'm chinese and kanji is easy for me
i fail at all my chinese tests
I agree that, while Kanji is possible for me to learn, Mandarin and Cantonese are freaking terrifyingly difficult.
I've heard of a chinese man struggling with Kanji because he didn't know which Hanzi characters we actually in Kanji or not
it's pretty much the opposite for me Chinese characters are waaayy easier than Japanese 😂 I tend to read the kanji in Chinese first before quickly switching to the Japanese reading.
As a Chinese person, I tend to read all the kanji characters in Mandarin and then read the rest of the sentence for context...
Emily CJW sameXD
I've been studying Chinese for four years and I just started teaching myself Japanese and the Kanji reads exactly like the Chinese. My problem now is that I keep saying all the Kanji in Chinese >_
Actually Kanji originated in China because a long time ago Japanese did not have a writing system. So that is why the readings are the same. Or at least that is what I have researched.
Can you share to me how you remember Chinese reading for kanji? This is the most hard part for me in Japanese
“Yeah I like mao-
DAMNIT NOT AGAIN”
Big oof
Вероника Воронова
Note: Since you said “CHINESE reading of kanji”, I wrote it in the perspective of Chinese, which means I don’t know if it works well with Japanese kanji.
Most of the Chinese characters are made up of radicals, like “口” (mouth), “氵” (water), “艹” (grass), and “木” (tree, wood). Radicals each convey a meaning, and when a Chinese character contains one, it’s usually related to that meaning. If you recognize one, you’ll be able to memorize the character’s meaning more easily. For example: “吃”, meaning “to eat”, in which the radical “口” shows that it’s related to the mouth.
Side note, there’re also radicals indicating the pronunciation of the word. These are called “声旁” (phonetic radical) in Chinese. (Like in “河” (hé, river), radical “可” (ké) determines a part of the character’s pronunciation) Finding them will help you memorize their pronunciations.
And as mentioned in this video, you can use your imagination to picture an image in your mind as you read the character. For example: Think the character “目” (eye, btw it’s also a common radical) as a vertical eye. Think “好” (“hǎo” or “hào”, in this case, “hǎo”; meaning good) as a woman (女, nǚ) holding a child (子, zǐ) who just borne.
In conclusion, learn radicals and their meaning, use your imagination, and practice writing and reading them!
I was so excited when I went to Japan and could read the Kanji on the toilet. I've only learned 35 Kanji so far. Looking forward to trying this strategy, Chris.
You learn kanji thoughout your life.
You never finish learning a language, even your mother tongue.
That's true my native language is Spanish and I've still been learning different things about it as time goes same for English and I'm trying to learn kanji now
same
I'm more or less fluent at 11 languages, there's a point where I think that's enough and move to the next one. Tho yeah, as I do recaps to stay in shape I always learn something new. Tho that saying works for everything, you never stop learning skating, snowboarding, physics, astronomy, photography etc.. unless you quit.
*cries in Japanese bc I have to review and memorize 1000 漢字 over the summer*
when i first looked at this after finishing hiragana and katakana i thought that this method wouldnt work for me but i tried it out and after 4 days i have learnt 70 the first 70 kanji in the book which i think is absolutely phenomenal
That's amazing! Best of luck to you on the journey!
thank you
Abroadin Japan I have a question how long do you study one kanji (story)? I'm asking this because this method maybe difficult for me, because I don't really a creative artist kind of mind. So I see this method is being difficult for me however, of the 8 - 10 years of studying Japanese kanji was always so so to me. I know some but I would like to increase that, and willing to try something new in doing so. In fact I was told by many Japanese teachers to don't worry about writing kanji, because of the technology, most kanji's can be written by using the computer. (sorry I'm rambling) Can you please reply to this message on how many hours you spend on one kanji (story) as I would like to call your interesting method? :)
when i did it i just wrote out the story and kanji then moved on, then tested myself after 50 or so
IAmNateDogg oh ok thanks
Kanji?!?, Kanji is one of my favourite characters from persona 4!
GET BENT
You saying I like dudes?
I think you mean Kakashi
I'm gonna RENOVATE YOUR ASS!!!
Katawa Shoujo's Kanji's ftw
上を向いて歩こう. Classic song. Really set's the tone.
"and i was very excited to learn all 25 characters,
but there's not 25." i cRACKED UP
When you get yeeted by life
duolingo: *do your lessons or you will not see you waifu*
JUST TEACH ME THE KANJI AND PRESENT IT WITH FURIGANA DAMIT
*M O T I V A T E D*
@@lekhapratap1652 ye S
Lol, exactly
XD
Albus Yodabond, I salute you!
With a bit of experience I can honestly say that everything in this video is true. The book makes learning kanji incredibly easy. I haven't finished the book but I can write 200 kanjis out of thin air without much trouble.
This method is how I learn all my languages, to be honest. Even if there's not a picture to go with it in languages that don't use symbols like japanese, making a story or connection to another concept helps loads
I'm crying oh my god. When I go to Japan I'm just gonna go around saying "The horse is necessary!".
I learnt Chinese first, and learning Japanese afterwards made studying a lot easier!
That's exactly what I was thinking. I need to improve my Chinese first, then learn Japanese.
But how you memorize the word to read
Cause not all of them is same right?
Willyan Kiundharta Japanese have multi readings for each kanji.You need to remember the words’ pronociations reading a character in Japanese is nonsense
Personally I'd prefer to learn one language instead of two though
The only thing about that is some characters in Chinese have slightly or completely different meanings from how they’re used in Japanese.
Started using this book just recently and it's fun to see how much our experiences with it are the exactly same!
Okay. Not only is this pure comical genius, but this is genuinely the best video I’ve found on Kanji throughout all of TH-cam. Thanks!
"A horse is necessary!" - I have never laughed so hard. I have been watching your videos for a while now, filmed well, very interesting and funny monologues, and great atmosphere (music etc). SUBSCRIBED!
"Kim Jong-Un and heart, which don't really go together" sentence of the month
Man you're telling me 😬
It's kinda funny given some of the news lately-
I took japanese for 2 years in high-school and between this channel and duo lingo I have learned more nihongo than I ever did in high school, also I'm moving to okinawa next year so this definitely helps. This channel is funny, entertaining and educational. Keep up the great work!
I can speak 2 languages
and all my needs are satisfied
if i learned japanese , then subs will feel like dubs
and then those subs will bother me
You can always watch the original with no subs.
😂😂😂
Can't argue with that logic tbh
i speak 3 languages but one more cant hurt can it. Also you can just watch the non sub version
I watch Hollywood movies subtitled in English
not to take away from this video, because i do agree that writing it out and memorizing the meanings of the kanji is an important thing, but there's a site called wanikani that uses basically this exact same method of using anecdotes to help you remember the kanji and also the sounds they make and such! it's what i use and it's fantastic
I forgot about this site! Thank you so much!
I wonder if it work best if you use your own imagination to create stories instead of learning other people stories or of it's equally useful 🤔
Andrea Rubiño sometimes i think the wanikani mnemonics arent good for certain ones so i make my own for them but for the most part they are pretty good
I love Wanikani, but it's subscription models are crazy for my liking.
1 - Monthly
2 - Yearly
3 - Lifetime
Where's the 3 or 6 month subscriptions? 😒
I came for Albus Yodabond.
As an English speaker, I had an extremely hard time learning Spanish (supposedly the easiest language for English speakers to learn) if I can't learn Spanish then I think it will be impossible for me to learn to speak/write in Japanese. I'm always impressed with those who know how to write/speak at least 2 languages (sometimes I get jealous but I'm more often impressed over being jealous). Good on those people and I hope them the best :)
Well... I know Filipino and English
If learn Japenese I might be a trilingual ( if I can )
Proximity to a language you know well is important however motivation and your method are also very important.
For me so far it's been pretty easy to learn new languages ever since I started self studying instead of being forced by school(with 0 motivation and flawed methods). In my case language learning is just an excuse to binge watch TV shows while saying I'm immersing(which is true, however the begining phase is always hard). And it does get hard when I am not motivated.
Now however I'm learning Japanese and while finding immersion that motivated is easier than in any other language so far(because there are tons of resources) the beginning phase has been longer than in my other languages so far(I'm on around my 8th month and still a beginner, that's more than it took me to become fluent-ish in Italian) and I still need to study Kanji are doesn't sound fun because my method is mostly based on listening and I can't listen to Kanji.
TLDR:
Language Learning can be easy based on motivation, proximity to a language you know well and your method(age is also a factor but not as large as people make it out to be). Immersion is good but that's a bit tricky with Kanji.
This video is actually wonderful and makes it feel like my studies are somewhat more doable and less totally, horrifically daunting. Thank you!!
I literally said NOOOOOO.... :O when i heard, "each kanji has multiple readings", WHYYYY :L
LOL no, there are on-yomi and kun-yomi, but there can be multiple of either. I would say very little kanjis have just one reading (or even two).
+DY4Y I agree
This is fabulous. And hilarious.
This is art.
Would love to see an update on how well you can recall the kanji now. Over ten years in the country now and it would be really telling of what the most important kanji, in your sphere, are
I was so happy too the first time I understood 大 and 小 at a restroom!
Captain Jack Sparrow... that's who you remind me of... I love your humour and I think you're absolutely brilliant. :)
Haha, thanks I'm delighted! I always wanted to be a pirate and now I feel a step closer :-D
When I began my Japanese learning adventure many a year ago, I thought about and tried out this method. It didn't work for me. The reason I believe, besides having no creative ability, is the fact that instead of memorizing 2000 things, now you have to remember a story for every 2000 things, consisting of the primitives that make them up, which I imagine can spiral to well over 5,000 things. For the meanings.
Then you have to repeat this process for the reading.
Then you have to repeat it again for the other reading.
Doesn't include stroke order or proper way of writing (which granted is a small one that is learned quickly but nevertheless)
Then this doesn't even include any actual WORDS, which are made up of kanji (1-4 of them), so the actual words and their meanings and pronunciations are on top of all of that. (ie: What's the difference between 階段 and 段階?) And of course it wouldn't be Japanese without those sweet, sweet exceptions. 土木 Anyone?
For me, It's much slower, but I've found just natural absorption, while possibly taking a fair bit longer, is far less overwhelming and thus I've concluded to be more efficient (ie: Seeing something on the subway Ad, opening up your smartphone dictionary and looking up the spelling and meaning, and being lucky enough to have that piece of information stick well enough that you can recall it the next time you see it).
Of course another can of worms is to move from recognition (Seeing a kanji word and being able to correctly identify the meaning/spelling) to Recall (being able to on-the-fly bring up the word spelled and meaning correctly in a verbal or written context where it's appropriately and correctly used).
Japanese is a difficult language.
I'm not really one to talk, but I think memorizing 2000 or 5000 things with intertwining, correlating logic is much easier than trying to memorize 2000 arbitrary things.
The thing is, adding a story to it makes it easier for your brain to categorize it into your long-term memory, instead of the short-term memory the brain quickly discards as useless clutter. I am literally useless without this method, and slightly less useless with it
@@CodenameTurtle That's true, up to a certain point. Sure it might make some words easier to remember, but you're not going to remember all 2,000+ stories. I'm approaching my 4th year in Japan, and I've learned maybe 80-90% of the 常用漢字 . After language school, I took a much slower approach to my language learning by assimilation instead of active study. When I see a kanji now, The reading is mostly binary (I know it or I don't) and immediate. Sure you can get there, especially at the beginning, by using these stories techniques to help memorize, but after a certain point of Japanese fluency these stories become impractical. The need to remember the story when recalling makes reading too slow (vs being able to recall it automatically), and memorizing a story for a word or Kanji is much more time consuming and less efficient than if you're able to just memorize the word itself in actual usage context.
@@Stone_624 Hey, you do you. It's not like there's just one method of learning Kanji (if I made it sound like that), so stick to whatever is working for you.
I have a condition where my memory is damaged in general, and always had problems remembering things so this method has been really important to me. I tend to shorten the stories down so it's more of a one or two word-thing, but then as time goes by and I keep seeing them I won't need the "stories" anymore, but they will still be remembered. Sounds like you've done great though.
@@Stone_624 The idea is not to spend the rest of your life looking at kanji and remembering the story behind them, this is just a way to get it to stick in your brain. After you learn it well enough you will not need the stories any longer, but the mnemonics actually help a great deal (Wanikani uses a similar method, except you learn readings and vocab as you go along, and it has a built in SRS)
this man is just too funny, whenever I have a breakdown while I'm studying I just come here and watch him and I swear I feel better
Haha I'm attempting to learn Japanese and I'm Chinese, so the words in kanji are pretty easy for me as I can write them and the meanings are almost exactly the same ;except for the pronunciation which are both so different, it puts me off learning Japanese D: But I'm determined so wish me luck haha
teandcoffee That's awesome - you've definitely got a great advantage though! Good luck
teandcoffee Same for me, except I am not very good at writing Chinese. Technically, the On readings of Kanji came from China, but...that doesn't mean it sounds anything like how you pronounce it in Chinese. For example, the Kanji for in (中: I think if it as "middle") is pronounced as "Chuu" in Japanese, but in Chinese, it is Zhōng. Nothing alike! ;-(
capsule
I think it's quite similar.
Ch is basically Zh
ū is at least closer to ō than ī or ā
Since they have multiple readings it can also be "naka", "ata" or "uchi"
teandcoffee haha i'm not chinese (well, i'm a chinese descent) but i can read chinese just fine, i know the meaning when i read it but just can't seem to learn it in japanese, still struggling through hiragana and katakana though...and i have 6 months before moving to japan ;;
me too! it's really easy to understand some words though they have different uses. we have a great advantage :)
I've been studying Japanese for a couple of months now and you have no idea how happy I am to finally learn the phrase "uma ga hitsuyou desu"! Now I can finally take that trip to Japan with confidence. Arigatou gozaimashita, Chris!
漢字は偏とそれ以外から覚えると早いのに（Kanji is easy to understand and learn using the meaning of the polarization）
働く ← 人person が 動くmove （ｲ ＝ 人person）
動く ← 重いHeavy 力power
つまり、「人が力で重いものを動かす person moves in the heavy objects with power ＝働くwork」
食eat 屋根の下でUnder the roof 良good（気分Feeling） （Although different from the true origins）
滝waterfall 氵←水water 竜←dragon Water such as dragon
これでもう10個の漢字を覚えられるでしょ？You can remember 10 Kanji in this list.
+TheMakoyou それ、私も思ったのですが、ただ基本的に英語の構造と、日本語の構造では、
「言葉の流れ方・方向」 が異なるので、「これなら簡単でしょ」 と言いづらい部分があります。
英語の基本的な構造は、ご存知の通り S V O で、流れ方もそのまま S → V → O と流れますが、
日本語の基本形は S O V。 ※倒置など特殊な形を除く※
ただしいつでも S → O → V な訳でなく、単語の間に登場する "が" , "は" や "を" などによって、
（英語の感覚から見ると） 意味の流れが変わるように見えてしまいます。
つまり、何が言いたいかと言うと 「人 が 力 で 重い物 を 動かす」 とは読めないかもしれない
ということです。 その原因が、説明中にある "が、で、を" の部分。
日本語話者が自然に受け入れて意味の流れを把握しているのは、この "が" や "で" や "を" の所を
自然に受け止めて流れを感じているからで、その前提が無い場合、簡単だとは思えない可能性があります。
試しに、文中の 「が、で、を」 を入れ替えて見るとわかります。そしてなんで日本語話者が 「それを自然に選んだか」
を考えてみると、言語の違いの難しさを感じられると思います。
簡単に覚えるには、まず 『文章の構造』 を知る事が、結局近道だと思います。
悠々彼方 i already know bunch of kanji’s but i need to learn the 中学校 level because i’m in 中学校 right now
9:32 i'm actually leaving this video with a positive outlet, i started learning kanji a week ago (already knew hiragana/katakana due to a failed attempt to learn before) and i'm currently at 127 vocabulary words, even though i have a hard time remembering half of them, or not remembering some at all, i still got more motivation to learn more thanks to this video! i learned about your channel only something like a year before but never checked out old videos, now i'm finding a lot of "hidden" gems, thanks a lot!
“Come in here look at this!”
...
“Oh yea I live alone....”
Haha my future
@Eyob Tezera Nice
You sir, you are my hero! just ordered the book and it works. Before that I was about to carve them Kanji in my skin with a spoon to memerize them.
how do you set up your notebook? i'm trying to keep one and keep it organized but it's a mess 0.0
I think this was the first video of your channel i stumbled upon. Must have been at least 5 years.
if you can’t remember every characters, don’t worry.
i’m chinese and even i can’t remember all of them.
Best username
Didn't Mao simplify the language? Or am I just remembering something wrong?
@@sumvs5992 he simplified hanzi and looks... weird...
@@sumvs5992 Simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, HongKong, Macau. However only around 300 - 350 characters were simplified beyond recognition i.e 車 --> 车, and around 2000 -3000 are simplified due to radicals being simplified i.e 煩-->烦 ， 語-->语 so are easily recognisable. However, most literate Chinese people can read both no problem, only struggle to write traditional as they are not used to writing them. Chinese has like 85,000+ characters, so think of simplified characters as just having to learn 350 extra characters - not a hell lot different to traditional
I thought you were Korean.....
I'm Chinese, and when I saw the Kanji characters at first, I sighed a breath of relief, but when I saw that the pronunciations were entirely different, I screamed inside my head. Though, I can still understand what most of the characters mean.
Hiragana and katakana: How many characters do you want?
Kanji: *Yes.*
Kanji: oh I'll take your whole stock, please and thank you.
Whenever I’m reading a Japanese sentence, I’m so glad there’s kanji as it makes the whole thing more comprehensible.
I just started to watch your videos, the cycle challange to natsuki the movie. And decided to check your very first videos.
This is much more fun tbh, i'm glad that i've found this channel.
Burak Suat Görgün same here. Marathoning his videos in my free time.
I can't believe I was already lowkey doing this when I started studying. I'm glad that there's an actual book that would help me as a reference. Thank you!
omg i love that 'from up on poppy hill' whistling OST in the background
idk if this still matters but the song is called ue wo muite arukou !
I'm learning norwegian at the moment and ost means cheese in norwegian so I was a bit irritated when reading your comment
every time I finish one of your videos I do get a more positive outlook while laughing out loud! you're awesome man.
I lost it at " A horse is necessary!" =))))) You need more subscribers...
Yea, studying kanji tends to be a tad bit more relaxing with Southern Comfort. I feel ya there!
I love this guy, he's hilarious. But crap, wish I'd seen this earlier, would've saved some coin. 👍👍
Better late than never ;)
THANK YOU FOR THE SUGGESTION!!!
I have a problem with Kanji, and I'm really happy I found this video!
After about a year, I've finally finished the book.
I am just wondering. *WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BACKGROUND MUSIC?*
i rlly want the name lol
It’s the music version of what learning kanji feels like
Nobody I don’t know if this helps now but it’s called Ue o Muite Arukou
TMI_Shreddialon tysm
Nobody np
Sick video dude. Useful and entertaining! Are you able to speak Japanese fluently as well?
Yeah getting there mate - conversations not a problem these days
Awesome man. You remind me of Christian Bale for some reason xD
Abroadin Japan Really?! Conversations are already not a problem?! Wow... Congratulations mate, that is huge. Holy crap. I couldn't imagine having a fluent conversation in Japanese.
Abroadin Japan Are you only learning the meanings? Should I leave the readings aside and learn them seperate as Vocabulary? I'm not sure how I should procede in learning Kanji...
Abroadin Japan How long would you say it took you to get to that point? How much would you say you study Japanese on average each week?
stumbled across this video in my recommended. i have no plans to learn japanese any time soon, but i really enjoyed watching this video. thank you for uploading.
For 会, I did a KKK member saying “shh! We’re having a *meeting* !” The top strokes are the hood and the little bottom left stroke is the guy’s finger saying “shh!” ...Just in case anyone was learning that specific kanji. :)
Elizabeth Why the KKK? Lol
He just explained why.
@@daten__ because of the hood
what the actual fu-
Fun Fact: As the Kanji characters originated in China, many of the Kanji meanings do translate into Mandarin (and visa versa) too!
小 (Ko) in Japanese, is 小 (Xiao)[shao] in Mandarin!
大 (Ō) in Japanese, is 大 (Da) in Mandarin!
...In hindsight, I'm pretty sure everyone knew that anyway.
+Snakebloke Actually, 猫 (neko) in Japanese is also "mao" (same character) in Mandarin. Both mean cat. :3
As a Chinese speaker, learning Kanji is still difficult. Of course you initially know how to read Kanji as it is similar, if not identical to Traditional Chinese characters. However, in Chinese, every character has only one syllable, but in Kanji, you have up to 4 syllables in one character.
Also, "Fond" in Japanese, 好, as shown in the video at 4:40, means "Good" in Chinese, and "私", which means "I" in Japanese, is used differently in Chinese.
All in all, learning Chinese just makes learning Kanji a slight 10% easier. Reading it is a lot easier if you know Traditional Chinese.
I'm straight, but I’m now wishing I kept taking traditional Chinese lessons that I started when I was 5 :,)
Going back to these videos are just wholesome...
Ikr?
Humble beginnings
Chris went through character progression.
Easier to learn Kanji when you know Basic Chinese
*Basic*Chinese has 2000+ words
SHIET
SHIEEET
(I’ve never watched The Wire, but I remember the quote from Suits)
No swearing on the internet allowed
9000paperclips chill out, it was just a quote
Clarissa De Simoni who u tellin to chill out fam
Clarissa De Simoni respect ur elders innit
4:22 there's a MISTAKE in the subtitles, it says "I" instead of "eye" (目)
If anyone could fix it that'd be great
5:45 "kim jong un had a heart"
not anymore
LMAO
👀👀👀👀
bruh
Lol. But he actually says "and a heart" I believe
It's all context clues and how you look at it. That's how I learned to understand Spanish in my early 20s, or at least understand what people are saying when everyone is talking very very quickly when you're very suddenly immersed in the language and your only Spanish speaking friend refuses to teach you. I don't remember much anymore, but I knew I could pick up on the gist of everything that was happening from what I just had to learn. It's context clues and correlation. You were correlating what you viewed as pictures into things you can use as a memory. It's a very good way to go about it. Good job.
Who's here during the quarantine.
Lol same
Quarantine isn't over yet
I am struggling with English as a second language too!!
Hope we get together someday to learn the second languages to each other!!! Whenever you come to Osaka, please let me know and let’s have some drink 🍺
Oh no, English as a second language? I send my prayers, English is a mess of a language hahah.
Still, your English is really good!
The base is different and we are trained in different way.
But i think english is much easier because it uses 26 characters as base although phonemes may vary.
Being able to read chinese really helps with learning japanese. You don't know how to read them in japanese, buy at least you'd know what it means :)
But for foreigner, learning chinese is much more difficult than learning japanese.
They would prefer to get into a easier way rather than stepping over chinese first.
Just wanted to say thank you for recommending this method! I finished the book in June and haven't revised kanji since then because university got busy. It is now December and I'm back to studying Japanese and I'm recalling kanji with relative ease. Heisig is the MVP!