Recently, I stumbled upon this page written by a Japanese woman who left Japan when she was 5, lived in England up to age 10, and returned to Japan: The Best Way To Learn Kanji Is Not Online
Some time when she was 10, her family planned to return to Japan. Her mother realized that she was basically illiterate in Japanese, and forced her to practice writing until she hated it-- even threatened to jump out the window several times, lol. When she moved back to Japan, she realized that all this studying paid off. The point of her post is that she was able to learn most elementary kanji in a few months (maybe about a thousand), and that the best way to learn it is through good old-fashioned writing practice.
I read this page maybe over a year ago, remembering how much I disagreed, and I stumbled upon it again, and I still disagree. But there are a few things I agree with. (Her post is old, 2009, so the comments have been long disabled and I couldn’t add my two cents over there.) The purpose of this post isn’t to discredit Maki-san, but to give some opinion on what I think are the best ways to remember kanji, to remember foreign words.
Obviously, she was able to remember so much kanji in a matter of a few months because she’s Japanese. lol. Even if she was not literate in Japanese, she still had extra tools to supplement her memorization process that we non-Japanese don’t.
I went to Vietnamese school once a week for about 2 months when I was about 10-12 years old. That was somewhere between only 8-10 days of schooling in all. I could read, write, and guess a lot of Vietnamese as a teen. Why? Though I grew up American, I am also Vietnamese, my parents speak Vietnamese to me, so I have the ability to acknowledge word encounters, recall them, make sense of them in text, and therefore lock them into my memory longer. And through this support system, I remembered them. I would never tell someone learning Vietnamese that the best way to remember written Vietnamese is to write it a bunch of times! Even Heisig’s “Remembering the Kanji” stresses creative meaning-making elements in kanji writing practice.
You should write whatever language it is you’re studying many times to not only be good at it, but to be able to differentiate it from the other characters that look similar. Like Maki mentioned, muscle writing memory is really important. What she left out is the support of oral and aural memory with grammar in context.
The difficult part is that, unless you’re Japanese, you probably don’t have your grammar and speaking abilities underneath your belt in the first place, to support your literacy excercises.
So what is the best way to study kanji? And how important is writing?
First, how much time do you have and what are your priorities?
If you have a lot of time, (and can follow a college or textbook program) study it holistically: reading, writing, speaking, listening. This way, you’re exposed to vocabulary in many different ways. The problem with this is that seems to be a slow process. At first. Eventually, if you master the building blocks of RWSL, one at a time, you'll be able to support your learning in many way. It’s worked for so many people.
If you have even more time in the world, and you prioritize writing, do Heisig’s method. Yes, I think this strategy takes longer, but has some merits. But you’ll have some sort of kanji knowledge and find that the writing part isn’t such a hurdle when you dive into holistic learning. Not only that, but you’ll probably have a good eye for not confusing it with other similar-looking kanji. Think of yourself as a Chinese student who’s going to study Japanese.
If you have zero time and are boarding a plane to Japan tomorrow, focus on the oral communication and grammar studies. This way requires memorization of a lot of vocabulary, you'll get early satisfaction with communication. When you do begin reading and writing, you’ll find that you already know a lot, and can make many connections to lock it into long-term memory. An analogy would be a 5 year old entering kindergarten and learning how to read and write easier because he already can speak the language. (Versus a 5 year old entering who’s from an immigrant family.)
Let's not forget good old fashioned flashcards. Yes, flashcards. If you're not at a level where you can read Japanese texts well enough to get frequent exposure to it, then flashcards will provide that.
Notice in the end, it all points to holistic learning, the first method I mentioned. (And Hard Work.) This is what textbooks are modeled under; this is what college courses do. No matter how well you think you’ve memorized kanji, whether by writing it or sight recognition (I’m looking at you, Heisig’s RTK users), other components are needed to support your memory and build connections around the words you're learning. Do you really know it if you can’t recall it in it’s multiple facets and in context?
Some time when she was 10, her family planned to return to Japan. Her mother realized that she was basically illiterate in Japanese, and forced her to practice writing until she hated it-- even threatened to jump out the window several times, lol. When she moved back to Japan, she realized that all this studying paid off. The point of her post is that she was able to learn most elementary kanji in a few months (maybe about a thousand), and that the best way to learn it is through good old-fashioned writing practice.
I read this page maybe over a year ago, remembering how much I disagreed, and I stumbled upon it again, and I still disagree. But there are a few things I agree with. (Her post is old, 2009, so the comments have been long disabled and I couldn’t add my two cents over there.) The purpose of this post isn’t to discredit Maki-san, but to give some opinion on what I think are the best ways to remember kanji, to remember foreign words.
Obviously, she was able to remember so much kanji in a matter of a few months because she’s Japanese. lol. Even if she was not literate in Japanese, she still had extra tools to supplement her memorization process that we non-Japanese don’t.
I went to Vietnamese school once a week for about 2 months when I was about 10-12 years old. That was somewhere between only 8-10 days of schooling in all. I could read, write, and guess a lot of Vietnamese as a teen. Why? Though I grew up American, I am also Vietnamese, my parents speak Vietnamese to me, so I have the ability to acknowledge word encounters, recall them, make sense of them in text, and therefore lock them into my memory longer. And through this support system, I remembered them. I would never tell someone learning Vietnamese that the best way to remember written Vietnamese is to write it a bunch of times! Even Heisig’s “Remembering the Kanji” stresses creative meaning-making elements in kanji writing practice.
You should write whatever language it is you’re studying many times to not only be good at it, but to be able to differentiate it from the other characters that look similar. Like Maki mentioned, muscle writing memory is really important. What she left out is the support of oral and aural memory with grammar in context.
The difficult part is that, unless you’re Japanese, you probably don’t have your grammar and speaking abilities underneath your belt in the first place, to support your literacy excercises.
So what is the best way to study kanji? And how important is writing?
First, how much time do you have and what are your priorities?
If you have a lot of time, (and can follow a college or textbook program) study it holistically: reading, writing, speaking, listening. This way, you’re exposed to vocabulary in many different ways. The problem with this is that seems to be a slow process. At first. Eventually, if you master the building blocks of RWSL, one at a time, you'll be able to support your learning in many way. It’s worked for so many people.
If you have even more time in the world, and you prioritize writing, do Heisig’s method. Yes, I think this strategy takes longer, but has some merits. But you’ll have some sort of kanji knowledge and find that the writing part isn’t such a hurdle when you dive into holistic learning. Not only that, but you’ll probably have a good eye for not confusing it with other similar-looking kanji. Think of yourself as a Chinese student who’s going to study Japanese.
If you have zero time and are boarding a plane to Japan tomorrow, focus on the oral communication and grammar studies. This way requires memorization of a lot of vocabulary, you'll get early satisfaction with communication. When you do begin reading and writing, you’ll find that you already know a lot, and can make many connections to lock it into long-term memory. An analogy would be a 5 year old entering kindergarten and learning how to read and write easier because he already can speak the language. (Versus a 5 year old entering who’s from an immigrant family.)
Let's not forget good old fashioned flashcards. Yes, flashcards. If you're not at a level where you can read Japanese texts well enough to get frequent exposure to it, then flashcards will provide that.
Notice in the end, it all points to holistic learning, the first method I mentioned. (And Hard Work.) This is what textbooks are modeled under; this is what college courses do. No matter how well you think you’ve memorized kanji, whether by writing it or sight recognition (I’m looking at you, Heisig’s RTK users), other components are needed to support your memory and build connections around the words you're learning. Do you really know it if you can’t recall it in it’s multiple facets and in context?