Well, seeings as it has been so damn long since I have actually written anything on this blog I figure I’d kill some time because it appears I woke up too early to go to the shops and avoid the Christmas shopping crowds. Unfortunately for those reading, I have decided to write about Kanji!! Yes, everyones favourite chinese characters used in one of Japanese’s 3 writing systems, you know you love them :D…
Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Japan’s 3 writing systems <3
So obviously being crazy about all this I have decided when/if I go to Japan I want to go as if I’ve already completed Intermediate Japanese at university, because at that stage I would have only done Intermediate I and not II. This means I’ll of course have to spend my breaks studying where possible…and so this is kind of what I’ve done/been doing, though not so productively so far I might add. But even so, with what little things I’ve been studying (at the moment I’m just learning stuff that is outlined for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, starting at level 4 working my way up) I have seen how frustrating it can be learning vocabulary and kanji for Japanese in a way that the University deems to be best. Because it has ended up being that I have learnt kanji, and I have learnt vocabulary that is used with that kanji, but for some strange reason they never tought us that the kanji can be used for that vocabulary. So in a way, I suppose I don’t like the pace they are taking on learning these things, and I’m kind of hoping for a jump up in pace from beginners to intermediate (though when the jump comes I’ll probably complain about that being too much for me to handle…).
I think this is mostly frustrating to me because kanji once you begin to learn it, gives so much more meaning when reading and writing Japanese, and I think its stupid we are taught to use kanji only partially even though we know other places where they could be used…for example learning the kanji for above/top ue 上, and learning the verb to give (honoring the receiver) agemasu あげます、but for some reason not learning that the kanji 上 can be used as 上げます. So for anyone learning Japanese, whats your experiences with learning kanji in Japanese? Are there bits you find you end up finding out yourself? How do you learn kanji? (I just sit and write them, and write them reading it in my head over and over as if the different hiragana/kanji that are usually used with it were written beside it so I get used to its different readings). and while I’m at it, what are the things you find hardest in learning Japanese, and what do you find most important in learning Japanese effectively?
じゃ、ピース! Peace
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