aaa : Japanese basics (N5-N3) : How to study Kanji effectively?

What is the best way to learn kanji?

Don’t write kanji!

If you are just starting to learn Japanese,

DO NOT WRITE KANJI!

It’s not recommended at all.

Let’s dive in!

3 reasons why we should not learn kanji by writing in the first place

Why shouldn’t we learn kanji by writing when we’ve just started learning Japanese?

Here’s why:

1. Kanji don’t have pronunciations (because they are characters).
2. If you don’t have a Japanese sound in your head, the default sound is your native language.
3. Writing kanji and memorising their readings will increase your incorrect Japanese pronunciation.

So if you want to speak Japanese fluently, do not practice writing kanji until you are familiar with the Japanese sound.

3 steps to effective kanji learning

The best way to learn kanji is to

1. Familiarise yourself with basic Japanese phrases and vocabulary by sound
2. Read with Kanji
3. Practice writing Kanji that you can understand by sound and reading

If you follow these steps, you will have learned how to listen (and preferably speak) and read by the time you start practicing writing Kanji.

Let’s start learning kanji by listening.

One of the best ways to learn Japanese by listening is to use

NHK Easy Japanese conversation lessons 

*NHK is a Japanese public service broadcaster.

3 steps to follow :

1. Listen and practice the phrases with English subtitles.
2. After you have learnt the phrases by sound, use the Japanese subtitles to learn the kanji used in the sketch.
3. Once you’ve learnt how to read them, write and practice (individually and as a whole sentence).dy Hiragana & Katakana effectively?