First Step

Welcome! When in Japan, learning Kanji is a necessity although most common signs and billboards have English translation, it would be nice if we could recognize each Kanji character and associate it with other compound words so that we could have a clearer picture of what it means.

We have a common goal and that is to recognize, understand, and retain as much Kanji so that we could communicate more effectively here in Japan. I know that at first it would be difficult in adjusting to this new way of writing system but if we do our homework diligently, our progress could be astonishing.

As we embark on this journey together, I will share with you my study methods.
It is not a strict discipline that you should follow but rather a guideline or a technique that you could incorporate or improvise to whatever method that works for you.

"A picture is worth a thousand words."
-by Napoleon Bonaparte

Well if you're in Japan and when basic nihongo speaking skills is not enough,
we resort to what our ancestors have done in the past - drawing illustrations.
Inject a few "kore(this)" or "sore(that)" in between and you will instantly hear a "Naruhodo(indeed)" reply from a Japanese. Well, the reply depends on how good you draw and if "kore" and "sore" falls in the right places.

I did a few research on various writing systems and I found out that Kanji, which originated from Chinese characters, is a Logographic type of writing system. A logogram or a logograph is a single representation of a fundamental unit of a written language. A single fundamental character has its own meaning or when combined with other characters could have a new meaning.

Before we dig deeper into our course in learning Kanji, lets start with the first type of the Chinese character classification which are pictograms or the pictorial representation on the smallest unit of the written language. Pictures are more interesting isn't it? I have seen books on how to study Kanji and I prefer those with lots of pictures in it. It's like reading a comic book. So it's that easy? No it's not. It takes a lot of creative mind power, realization of the word, and cultural immersion.

Each article focuses on a single or a couple of Kanji, take your time as you go through them, don't put too much pressure on yourself that you have to study N numbers of Kanji per day. The important thing is, for each Kanji that you encounter, retain and never forget. Make it count!

I was privileged enough that I joined a Chinese school in my early education but since I'm not Chinese and we don't practice Chinese at home, I have forgotten most of the Chinese characters. I can still remember how we studied Chinese during my school days. My classmates and I used to race to finish the repetitive calligraphy exercises. We write on a sheet of paper similar to a graphing paper but with larger boxes enough to fit a single Kanji character which runs from top to bottom. Our "Sian-si or Lao-sher" would then demonstrate the strokes for us to follow but a race is a race so we didn't care hahaha. It is important however to know the strokes, I would suggest taking a calligraphy lesson because it helps a lot in recognizing each characters.

Repetitive writing works! Repetition in martial arts is the key to perfect and instinctive execution. Our teacher once told us to at least write 3 times. First: to familiarize with the character; Second: to internalize the meaning; Third: to review

I guess that some of the visitors of this website are looking for ways to learn as much Kanji in preparation for the JLPT(Japanese Language Proficiency Test). Others might just want to learn much of the language itself. In any case, you are welcome and feel free to look around and digest the articles presented here at your own pace.

Congratulations! You have started taking your first step. But of course it doesn't end here because we'll start learning Kanji on my next article.