Now that it's the semester break, and encouraged by Kurt's efforts, I pulled out my box of homemade kanji cards and began, tentatively, to go through them. I was surprised that a reading would pop into my mind, even as I would stare at a card thinking "What does this one mean?" Or I'd look at the components: "Fire in a paddy...oh, yes, cultivated field...that's hatake". After a short review, I was almost back to where I left off. What a relief! I really must have learned and not just studied.
I do not have the problem of remembering how to write a kanji that Kurt does. I'm naturally a visual learner, one of those people who remembers a quote because it was two-thirds down the right-hand-side page of a small book with a red worn cover. I make my own cards, by hand, so I learn the stroke order. Throughout the day, I doodle kanji in the air, or simply visualize it while washing the dishes or gardening.
Like Kurt, I try to find as many compounds as possible, either words that I knew but didn't know the kanji for, or new words formed with kanji I'd learned previously. Unlike Kurt, it takes me a long time to make my cards--there's no way I could make "a couple hundred flashcards" in two weeks.
My son and I are now almost at the same point in our studies, so we are doing this together. This is our method for making the cards.
- Select a kanji and write it on the left half of an old business card. We use either P.G. O'Neill's Essential Kanji (which has example character in beautiful handbrushed calligraphy, and pencil-written equivalents) or children's textbook acquired in Japan Kanji no Mori.
- Look up the meaning in a Japanese-English dictionary. I like to find a common word--which are marked in red in our Kodansha dictionary. Write down a sentence containing the kanji.
- Look up the kanji in the Spahn/Hadamitzky character dictionary. Find compounds to write on the right-hand side of the card.
This approach is all rather labor-intensive. Working together, it takes maybe 1/2 an hour to make three cards. Of course, there's lots of talking, comparing notes, and saying, "Isn't this like that thing we learned the other day?" On the plus side, once we learn something, we really learn it.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
December 22, 2002
Comments
Sugoina!!! Konnichiwa! Watashi no namae wa Inaba Guranto desu. Hajimemashite! Wastahi wa nikkei americajin, yonsei desu kedo, watashi no nihongo ga joozu janai yo. Chichi wa nihongo o hanaseru n desu ga haha wa hanasu koto ga dekimasen. Dakara uchi ni zenzen nihongo. Ima san francisco state university de nihongo to chuugokugo o naratte imasu yo. Tanoshii desu yo.
If you want to know difficult kanji try this... Last semester I was taking Japanese conversation where we learn about 15 Kanji a week. Also Kanji writing class where we learn 30 kanji a week. Then there's Mandarin conversation where we learn 30 Chinese TRADITIONAL characters every two weeks!!! Somewhere about 75 characters every week. With just enough similarity to help the association and just enough to confuse the heck outta you. My flash cards are a fire hazard!!
JITSU WA...At SFSU we have an exchange program to OitaDaigaku which I am going to go for the next fall school year. I was wondering if maybe you could tell me a bit about Japan as I gather you might be living in Oita now...
Henji o kudasai,
Grant Inaba
Comment by: grant inaba. Posted December 22, 2002 05:33 PM.
Hey, Grant. Hajimemashite. I used to live in Oita in the 1990s, but now I've returned to Texas. For specific information on Oita, perhaps some of the links I've included on the main page will help. To read about day-to-day life in Japan, I also have links to quite a few great weblogs written by people, both natives and foreigners, living in Japan right now. You might be particularly interested in Jason's blog since he just moved back to Japan from San Francisco. I thought Oita was a wonderful place. I lived in Beppu-shi, which is an old onsen resort town and a little more picturesque the Oita City. Oita has become much more "international" than when I was there. It was one of the sites for the 2002 soccer world cup. I hear that there are many more foreigners living there now. It is in many ways, though, somewhat rural. I hope that when you're in Oita, that you will write to us and tell us all about it as it is now.
Comment by: M. Posted December 22, 2002 09:35 PM.
Hey Grant, I've also got a San Francisco connection, having lived there 14 years before moving to Japan in March of this year.
M-san, with respect to the flash cards, I think the reason why I can build up so many is that for each compound, I write a separate card. From what I gather from #3 above, you are writing the compounds on the right hand side of the original flash card. Personally I find it easier to memorize these compounds when they're on individual cards....So quantitatively I think we're both (or should I say all three of us, you son included) doing the same amount of work.
I like Grant's description of his flash cards as a fire hazard! I think my wife has said the same before. Nowadays, because you can get them so cheaply here in Japan, I use pre-made flash cards that are grouped together with binder rings.
M-san, I love that this is something you are doing with your son. One of my impetuses for my study (aside from functioning in this society, which yeah is kind of important) is so that hopefully when my son/daughter is at that age where they will start studying, I'll be able to help and participate rather than standing by as an observer.
Comment by: Kurt. Posted December 22, 2002 10:21 PM.
Last night M was reviewing another one of her kanji books when she said, "Wow! This guy has a pretty interesting system. This was one of the first books on kanji I bought, but it's only making sense to me now."
She's tried so many systems over the years and is always excited when she comes across a new one. I can't help but think that any system would become somewhat comprehensible after you already know the material...though by then you won't need it.
Comment by: ajm. Posted December 23, 2002 08:54 AM.
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