JAPANEXILE

So once again I have to start a post on here with an apology, I haven’t been taking care of my blog as I should do. I at least have a decent excuse about it though. Kanji. For those of you that don’t know Kanji is one of the three scripts the Japanese use in their writing system along with Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji make up the bulk of any Japanese text, for almost all verbs, nouns and adjectives, hiragana is used for verb endings and such, katakana for words taken from foreign languages and names for which the corrrect Kanji is unknown. So in the aftermath of my “half way through the year” panic I have become slightly obsessed with Japanese and in particular Kanji and the wider Japanese writing system. But firstly my little panic - I’m over half way through. Which prompted me to re evaluate what I wanted/want to achieve in the time I have left. And the answer fell firmly on on thing. A deeper understanding of Japanese language. My language skills are sorely lacking in my opinion, I can get by in day to day life well enough, I even talk to my Japanese girlfriend almost entirely in Japanese, though undoubtedly with many mistakes. Like most people involved with foreign languages my passive understanding greatly exceeds my ability to speak, which is fine to a certain extent, though I have become truly frustrated with my inability to express myself.

So following on from that I started researching what would be the best way for me to move forward. I looked at textbooks, in particular the Genki series of books, but then I remembered my intense dislike for textbooks, so that went out. In my searches what I found was that Kanji is something that is going to have to be learned eventually. For every new word I learn I am going to have to relearn the Kanji for it sometime in the future in my quest for Japanese fluency and literacy. But how best to learn Kanji in the shortest time possible? Japanese people start learning from the Kanji from the age of 6 and only finish when they are 18. Students of Japanese take 4 years of full time study. I don’t have that sort of time. What students both native and foreign regardless of age share is their method of Kanji learning; ie, writing the characters out over and over and over and over until they stick. I started down this route, taking making an hour to remember 4 characters, only to forget them by the next day. It wasn’t working, not to mention it was boring as hell. So back to the internet it was to research the problem.

I found an answer.

Or rather, two, firstly a book by James Heisig called “Remembering the Kanji“. This book throws the normal order of learning to the wind and instead breaks the Kanji down into the elements that make each character. Using these elements as many characters as possible are introduced. Then a new element is introduced. Using these elements as protagonists in a story the reader (at first the author does it for you) devises a mnemonic and imagines a story in their mind as a key to remember the writing of the Kanji. Its quite hard to truly explain how well it works. But my own progress is testament to it. In approximately 5 weeks I have learnt the meaning and writing of 1184 characters. Which as pleased as I am with that number it is not to say it has been easy. I spend on average 4.5hrs a day studying. Each new Kanji requires about 5mins to think a solid story through. And of course reviewing is important, which is where the second answer to my Kanji question came. Reviewing the Kanji is a website set up by a reader of the book to aid in the reviewing of Kanji using the tried and true Leitner system. If a card is answered correctly, the system asks you again the next day, correct again, and the interval is increased to a few days more and so on. If a Kanji is failed, it goes back to the start and is restudied. Its simple but there is no way I could have made the progress I have without it. In addition to this system their is the ability to save and share your stories with other followers of the book online, which is invaluable for the more obscure stories you are expected to come up with, for instance, today I struggled greatly with the keyword “brush stroke”. The elements I was given were “ceiling” “sprout” and “shovel”. Good luck making a memorable one out of that.

But in general this system is working incredibly well and I will continue to put everything I can into it. I hope to be finished with the 2042 general use Kanji within a month or so, then I will start (hopefully) with the same fervour toward learning the readings of the characters and other aspects of the language. I do have a plan in place but I will save that for when I have started it properly. But my original point - reason I haven’t updated - Kanji.

None Kanji related Toya news, lets see. Most obvious - its Spring. Without a doubt. Last snow was about two weeks ago and it has all but melted around us. Quite sad, I shall miss the snow, but am nonetheless most definitely looking forward to warmth. Plus its so beautiful here in the sun. Along with Spring has come our Spring holidays which started yesterday, we are heading down to Tokyo on the 26th and then I am heading on to Kyoto on the 31st. Returning to Toya on the 7th. In the meantime we are in the midst of moving house as our current residence is soon to be demolished.

Updates that I have unfortunately skipped over in writing this include…the Yukigassen - a professional snowball fight tournament, his might still get a post someday. The Sapporo and Otaru snow festivals will get a post since they were pretty big events for me. I decided to skip over my Christmas trip to Tokyo, most of the rest of it was eating and drinking anyway, and the trip to Yoyogi park can be included in my inevitable post on temples of Kyoto. The final casualty has been that of Taiko drumming and Yosakoi. Taiko deserves its own post, Yosakoi - not much to say. Coming back to my panic I decided that my time is better spent learning Japanese than dancing. Which I still firmly believe. I will never forgive myself if I come back to England and don’t know as much Japanese as possible.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.