掲示板 Forums - Question about learning Kanji on Renshuu and radicals.

Not sure if this has already been asked, I scrolled through recent posts and found something similar, but it doesn't fully answer my questions.

Kanji, How would you recommend learning them? There are many ways, I had an app that was helpful, but I only had it for free because the app bugged so I don't have it anymore because I can't buy it and am now struggling to learn Kanji. I'm hoping to be able to buy the app, but for now I can't. It was the only thing that I could actually learn Kanji on, so I'm struggling to pick up learning Japanese again. I've decided to pick up Japanese study again, and therefore need to find a new way to learn Kanji. It's my favorite part of Japanese, I find the kanji characters to be so beautiful.

I know some people learn Japanese first just learning hiragana, then add kanji in later, others learn the radicals then kanji, others just memorize the kanji, there's neumatics? is that the word? the pictures and words that sound like other things and stuff, they never work for me so I don't pay much attention.

I'm wondering if I should take time to learn the radicals, to help remember how to write kanji because I love sitting and writing Japanese for hours. So, would you recommend learning the radicals? And if so, does this website have a lesson for radicals? like how it has ones for N5 grammar, N5 kanji, all those little lessons? Is there one somewhere with all the radicals? How do I find it if there is? I found a part of the website that lists all the radicals, but I want one of the quiz like lessons on the home page for it, but I get so lost looking for lessons in the lesson centre or wherever it is where you find lessons to add to the home page/dashboard.

Hello, what is the name of the app you are speaking about? I used to use kanji tree and now I use kakugo on my phone, although both apps use a flashcard-based learning system similar to anki. It has helped me a lot to familiarize myself with many kanji and vocabulary. A Japanese dictionary like jsho is also useful. They are for free.

Renshuu is extremely flexible in letting you study the kanji in the way you want, and it also provides great tools for creating mnemonics, so this is a great place to learn kanji.

Here's the general approach I followed for learning Kanji. It may or may not work for you.

First off are the basic N5 kanji. These tend to be the simplest kanji, and many of them make up the building blocks ("parts") for other more complex kanji. Since many of them can't be broken down into smaller simpler parts mnemonics, which make up stories based on the "parts" of the kanji, aren't that effective. So these basic kanji are more brute force memorization.

I suggest learning them by logical groups e.g.

Numbers:
一二三四五六七八九十,百,千,万 (1-10,100,1000,10000)

Days of the week:
月火水木金土日 (Monday-Sunday)

Time:
時日月年, (hour,day,month,year)

People:
男女子,(man,woman,child)
母父, (mother,father)

Directions:
北東南西 (North,East,South,West)

Opposites:
小大, (small,big)
中外,(inside,outside)
上下,(up,down)
前後 (before,after)
左右,(left,right)
入出, (enter,exit)
来行, (come,go)
書読,(write,read)
話聞 (speak,listen)

Once you have those kanji under your belt, you will start to encounter more complex kanji. I would strongly recommend breaking down the kanji into "parts" (these parts may correspond to radicals, kanji, or other recognizable groups). If you use mnemonics, that tell a story based on those parts, it should make learning those much easier. There are thousands of examples of user created mnemonics on Renshuu that you can use, or you can create your own (I feel that the mnemonics that you create yourself tend to be the ones that are most effective).

One decision you'll want to make is whether you learn the readings of the kanji at the same time as the meanings. Personally, I like to learn the readings at the same time, and I even incorporate them in my mnemonics (My theory is that mnemonics that have more "hooks" to grab on to tend to be easier to remember. The parts, the readings, and a word that use the kanji make nice hooks. Plus I feel like it saves a lot of time learning it all at the same time ) .

But most importantly, choose the method that works for you.

Sorry, I think I did not express myself well. The apps that I mentioned before are just some of the ones that helped me the most to get a first glimpse of the Japanese language and its kanji, they were my first step to say it in a way. But I didn't know renshuu existed before. Only a few months ago I began to study regularly on this site and I have verified that renshuu far exceeds those apps. I feel that I can deepen my knowledge, learn the onyomi and kunyomi of the kanji and its multiples meanings, as well as increase my vocabulary by studying new words in context with sentences and some grammar as well. I am very grateful for the site and its creator and I regret not having discovered it years ago. So I encourage any beginner to the language to take advantage of the enormous potential that this site offers as a Japanese language learning tool.

PS: excuse me if I express myself badly, English is not my native language.

For your initial question of whether there are radical lessons on Renshuu, the answer is yes. In the menu under "Resources", go to the Lesson Centre and type "radical" in the search box, then switch to the kanji tab of results. Find the lesson you want (or you could make one) and click the calendar button next to it to add it to a schedule to study.

As Anonymous123 mentioned, most "beginner" kanji lists introduce simpler components first anyway. But if you start a test-based curriculum like N5 or Kanken 10級, those are focussed on teaching you what comes up in an exam and not learning in the most logical order. So you would need to supplement with radical lessons if that's how you want to learn.

The alternative is to look for (or make your own) topological kanji order to study, meaning kanji won't be introduced before the components that make them up. There's something called RTK (Remembering The Kanji) that's famous for this and should have Renshuu lessons made already, but it doesn't teach kanji in order of usefulness, so you would be learning some pretty obscure kanji at the start that aren't helpful for your level. This site and this site have several lists made already which ARE sorted by usefulness (either grade order or frequency), which you can just copy into a Renshuu lesson and make a schedule from.

I also made a lesson set accomplishing something similar, but excluding radicals that aren't used as kanji on their own and kanji that are super rare; search "optimized" in the Lesson Centre for it.

To avoid that problem: when you are introduced to a kanji and see the list of readings, you're able to click on each one and uncheck the "I know this reading" box. That will tell Renshuu not to quiz you on that reading, so you don't need to struggle with getting questions about readings you haven't seen in context yet.