Don't forget to sing your heart, in place of me your song forever

みんな！元気！？

Hello there! How are you?

Today's topic is about something I get a lot of questions about. The evil that is known as KANJI DUN DUN DUN!!!!! For those of you that are new to studying and don't know anything about Kanji let me teach you about it. Kanji (漢字) is the Japanese word for "Chinese Characters" What Kanji literally means is "Han Characters" as Kanji was introduced to Japan from China during the Han Dynasty. Because the Japanese didn't have a writing system they adapted the Chinese way of writing for hundreds of years. A question that I get asked often is "Can Japanese people read Chinese?" Keep in mind that the Chinese writing system has gone through many changes over thousands of years but to some extent they can. Its much like if a native English speaker is looking at a Spanish or French document. You might recognize a few words because they look very similar to English because of their Latin roots.

Because the Chinese simplified their characters many Japanese can't read them in their simple form. Example: 車 is car in Japanese "kuruma" When the Chinese simplified the kanji it turned into this 车 Which is very different. Some characters where simplified by the Japanese but not Chinese. 佛 means Buddha in Chinese but in Japanese its 仏. Some characters were simplified in both languages but not the same. 氣 use to mean air in simplified Chinese it is 气 but in Japanese 気 its the ki in "genki". Some kanji simplified both ways and created lots of cognates 國 use to be country but it has been simplified to 国 (read as "kuni" in Japanese) in both Chinese and Japanese. Click here to see a better explanation on the differences and similarities of Chinese and Japanese characters

Another question I get a lot is "How important is it for me to learn Kanji?" The answer is "VERY!!!" I've met people that have said "I'm not going to worry about learning Kanji until I'm better at speaking." I can't say this point enough. "DO NOT BLOW OFF KANJI!" After you master Hiragana and Katakana I suggest that you immediately work on learning Kanji. The truth is that Kanji is part of the everyday language and I think that a lot of foreign classrooms ignore it until upper levels. Which I feel is a mistake.

What rate you learn Kanji is up to you but what I find is best for me is to learn 5 a week. One a day more or less then giving you the weekend to review them. THIS ALSO APPLIES TO PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T LEARN HIRAGANA OR KATAKANA!!!! You can learn one sound a week. "a i u e o" "ka ki ku ke ko" "sa shi su se so" and so on. If you use this method you can learn up to 250 kanji a year!

How many Kanji do I need to learn? There are three lists and I don't want to go into TOO much detail about them so here are the lists and explanations of them. Kyouiku, Jouyou, and Jinmeiyou

Tools: Here are some good kanji tools for you.
Online:
http://japanese-kanji.com/ - You can drill yourself on the kanji (allows for different lists to be selected)
DS: If you have a DS and understand hiragana I suggest getting the game なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習(nazotte oboeru otona no kanji renshuu) There are three versions and it teaches you how to write the on-yomi and the kun-yomi as well as stroke order. Each version adds another mini-game as well as updates the list of kanji.

Well this was a long post. I'll make another one about on-yomi and kun-yomi and talk about Kanji (without references to Chinese) at another time.

SEE YOU NEXT ROUND!

~Lala~