Techniques to teach and learn kanji

[BWL]

I remembered my Japanese language teacher in university, Soeda-sensei who, upon teaching a new kanji would try to explain its etymology or at least the various radicals that make up the character it its entirety.

For example for the character for "house" which is "ie" or 家 (sometimes read as "uchi" but this tends to be written in hiragana nowadays), he would explain that it was made up of two characters; 宀  meaning “roof” and 豕 meaning "pig" or "boar". He would then explain how in ancient China people often raised their pigs indoors and that is why the character for "pig" with a "roof" over it became the word for "house", as pork was and still is an important part of the Chinese diet.

Anyone else has interesting stories to share about learning kanji?

[mccanono]

Well, thank you for sharing this with us.

I am still yet to study Kanji but knowing the etymology behind every Kanji would be a nice idea. But it could also be a painful one. Imagine all those Kanjis. Whew!

[Miya]

My professor also shared similar Kanji stories with my class when we first started studying Kanji. The one I remember the most is 男. 田 =  rice fields, 力 = power. So 田 + 力 = 男 (otoko, man).

It's interesting to see how the Kanjis are made, but personally I don't think it helps me remember the Kanji. I do like listening to the stories though

[j_evemstar]

I do not have good imagination like you guys, so I rely on software to aid my memory. I use Anki, a flashcard program to enhance vocabulary. It doesn't have the feature to teach the stroke order, but it does help me familiarize with the radicals!

[czarina84]

I haven't gotten to Japanese yet, but it is so wonderful to hear these kanji stories.  I had no idea that they were two pieces. I always just thought it was one picture represents one word.  I didn't realize that each part of the kanji represented a different part of the word. Very cool, indeed.

[宇崎ちゃん]

It works with a lot of kanji, but it won't work with all of them.
Look at this one:

口 + 玉 = 国
So a ball inside a mouth means "country"? Yeah right!

I hear lots of people new to kanji ask me stuff like "why is there insect (虫) in wind (風)", or "why is there west (西) in wine (酒)"?
There really is no connection between radicals and kanji, radicals are pretty much like "r" and "t" in "pretty much".
That's why you'll need to work with mnemonics.
In the case of "country", it could be something like: "I shot a BALL with my MOUTH widely open to your COUNTRY".

[Teira Eri]

When I was attending a Japanese Language School in Shinjuku, Tokyo, there was no explanation of the radicals.  I thought it odd, because that was the way I shown to learn Kanji in the States.  But basically, my teachers gave us 4-5 kanji each day.  We were to take those kanji, practice writing them, put them in sentences, and memorize them.  At the end of the week, we had a quiz (10 questions) or test (comprised of over 50 kanji).  The difficulty and stroke count of kanji gradually increased the farther up into the Japanese Language School you climbed.  

So yeah, we just CRAMMED kanji.  I remember seeing them in my sleep... 

[linguaholic]

On 20.3.2016 at 10:02 PM, Teira Eri said:

When I was attending a Japanese Language School in Shinjuku, Tokyo, there was no explanation of the radicals.  I thought it odd, because that was the way I shown to learn Kanji in the States.  But basically, my teachers gave us 4-5 kanji each day.  We were to take those kanji, practice writing them, put them in sentences, and memorize them.  At the end of the week, we had a quiz (10 questions) or test (comprised of over 50 kanji).  The difficulty and stroke count of kanji gradually increased the farther up into the Japanese Language School you climbed.  

So yeah, we just CRAMMED kanji.  I remember seeing them in my sleep... 

and how well did that method work for you, if I may ask?

[Teira Eri]

17 hours ago, linguaholic said:

and how well did that method work for you, if I may ask?

Well, at first. But we all know the problem with cramming--eventually you don't retain them long enough to make use of it.  I'd memorize the kanji for the tests but then lose them when writing essays or reading the newspaper.

It's funny, because 4 years after graduating the language school, there are kanji that I remember seeing but have no idea how to read them.