Language

When I first started learning Japanese, I read a few ‘hot take’ articles by casual learners who had advised that one should not or need not learn kanji to become fluent in Japanese. At the time, I scoffed; and, to be honest, now that I have been learning Japanese for nearly seven years I scoff even more. To speak good Japanese you absolutely need to learn kanji. But for English speakers, kanji is by far the most intimidating part of the language. There are about 2136 ‘must-know’ kanji but the average university educated Japanese person will know a few more. However, as challenging, frustrating and intimidating as it is to learn kanji, it is not an optional part of learning Japanese. It is critical to understanding the language. Kanji is an ideographic script imported from China. Kanji, translated, literally means Chinese characters. Unlike phonetic scripts like the alphabet, kanji do not necessarily have an associated sound but rather the symbol or shape embodies a particular meaning. If you see 火 it means fire. The sound it will ‘make’ when you read it depends on the kanji around it or the context of the sentence. For example, 花火、火曜日、小火、or 火花. The first means fireworks and is pronounced hanabi. The second means Tuesday and is pronounced kayoubi. The third means small fire and is pronounced boya. The fourth is the reverse of the first but it means sparks and is pronounced hibana. Thus, one kanji can be pronounced in multiple ways. In other words, when you learn Kanji, meaning is everything. This is what makes kanji so complex. It is largely about recognition before it is about cognition. For the new learner this must seem completely impossible and insurmountable. Seven years in, I can assure you it isn’t. It will take time and effort, but it is not impossible. I believe that learning kanji, although arduous, follows the Increasing-Returns learning curve. This means that it is punishingly difficult to learn at first but the longer you keep at it, the easier it gets. There comes a point where you may sometimes be able to read kanji that you’ve never seen before, in different compound combinations, simply because you understand how they work. Source: Ebbinghaus Theory of Increasing Returns Learning Onyomi, Kunyomi, Rendaku, Reigai and AtejiAt a simplified level, each kanji is read either in its Chinese pronunciation (onyomi) or its Japanese reading (kunyomi). There are some broadly applicable rules that should serve as loose guidelines for reading. Broadly, onyomi are often compound words of two or more kanji. For example: 読書 (dokusho, reading) and 学生 (gakusei, student). Modern Japanese, like many languages, is an unfortunate love child of years of introducing other languages that do not always mesh well together. Japanese people imported Chinese words in the 5th century AD, and proceeded to apply ‘incompatible’ Japanese grammar and speaking patterns on top of those imported characters. Filtered through Japan’s lower phoneme language, Chinese sounds were altered and simplified changing sounds like 家　jia for house to ka in onyomi. 大 went from da in Chinese, to tai or dai in Japanese. While 大家 in Chinese means everyone and is pronounced dajia, the same in Japanese means landlady, expert or large house (depending on the pronunciation ooya or taika). The modern kanji system is like a trojan horse of 5th Century Chinese in a Japanese accent. But it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to speak Chinese at all if you master kanji. Often, kunyomi tend to be kanji that are standing alone in a sentence, such as 花 (hana, flower) or 水 (mizu, water). They also tend to be used for verbs. If you see a verb (which you will know because the kanji should usually be attached to some hiragana) then you should USUALLY pronounce it with the kunyomi reading. Moreover, kunyomi readings are employed in cases of compound proper nouns such as 清水寺 pronounced as kiyomizudera (a famous temple in Kyoto) rather than seisuiji. But this is not necessarily always true, as the cases of 花火 (hanabi) and 火花 (hibana) show. Which both utilise the kunyomi readings of their Kanji. Moreover, as the observant reader may notice in hanabi the 火 is pronounced as bi rather than hi, and in hibana, the 花 is pronounced as bana rather than hana. WHY?! Well, that’s because of rendaku. Rendaku happens when a particular sound is repeated in Japanese. 人々 should be pronounced hitohito but because of rendaku it becomes hitobito. 時々would be tokitoki but because of rendaku it becomes tokidoki. This is usually a very regular process, however, with the addition of Chinese words and kanji in the 5th century, rendaku was applied to these imported words causing some exceptions. Most Kanji have one onyomi and one kunyomi and potentially a rendaku pronunciation for each. But some have more than one onyomi and more than one kunyomi and several reigai (exceptions). These tend to be for more commonly occurring kanji, thankfully, so you should very quickly be able to recognise them when they do come up. There are countless exceptions however. No matter how many broad patterns you learn, there will always always be places where a compound word uses onyomi and kunyomi such as the word onyomi itself which is 音読み rather than ondoku or otoyomi. These are called Juubako-yomi or Yutou-yomi. To summarise the lessons we have learned above we will consider the kanji below, 生, which means life. As is evident, it has many many pronunciations depending on the sentence. Thankfully the hiragana should usually give one a clue of which one it will be read as. Source: Jisho.org SRS and Outpacing the ‘Forgetting Curve’ It takes years even for Japanese people to learn how to read Japanese. The Japanese schooling system introduces Grade Ones to 80 kanji. Grade Twos learn 160 kanji, and these numbers increase as children get older. Once you’re in highschool you will likely be able to read and write all 2136 Jouyou kanji. This is required