I have a question about learning japanese, I started learning the Hiragana and Katakana 2 weeks ago.
I am now very slowly starting to follow the lessons in Japanese here at LingQ and I find it very entertaining to listen and read, however I have a little bit of an issue with the kanji… I really DO want to learn the Kanji but the most ideal situation for me would be to learn the Kanji that I find in the lessons at LingQ so that I have them in context already. Are there any programs out there that can help me to learn those Kanji or any tips from other Japanese learners in general?
I haven’t any tips to help you I’m afraid, but I must say good luck learning it. I’m going to start Spanish and Czech then hopefully once I’m advanced, move onto Swedish and German.
You’ve probably heard of these resources, but I like the book “Remembering the Kanji” by James Heisig, and the website “Reviewing the Kanji” which was set up to complement the book. If you study the kanji that way, you’ll pick up their pronunciations from seeing them in context.
Yes Bortrun I’ve heared of that book but I just wanted to know how people at LingQ combine studying their Kanji with the lessons you have in the LingQ Libary…Can I combine this book for studying Kanji with the lessons I follow at LingQ?
(if so is there an e-book version aswell that I could buy to study on my ipad? I haven’t found one so far)
There are 2 ways to use the book. You can power study it full-time before you actually getting into studying the Japanese language much. If you’re disciplined, you can get through it in a couple months. Or you can study it alongside your study of Japanese. I would probably recommend studying the book alongside your study of Japanese and taking it easy.
What happens is that, as you learn kanji, you begin to recognize them in what you’re reading. However, Heisig doesn’t organize the kanji according to frequency or usefulness or anything. He assumes you’re going to learn all the kanji, so he organizes them into the order that makes sense according to his system. So some common kanji will be learned later, and some rare kanji will be learned early on. But, if you go through the kanji this way, by the time you finish, you’ll actually know a lot of the readings without having deliberately studied them. And when you learn common kanji later in the Heisig book, you’ll already half know them from having seen them many times in your reading.
I don’t think there’s any specific way to combine the book with study at LingQ. I would just read on LingQ with furigana until you make your way through the book.
Unless LingQ’s beginner lessons are organized according to some sort of kanji frequency system (JLPT levels, elementary school grade, etc.), it wouldn’t really make sense to do that anyway as you’ll be encountering a broad range of kanji. Some relatively simple and common vocabulary can involve some complicated kanji. There are books that teach you kanji by JLPT level, or by elementary school grade order, so there’s that option if LingQ has lessons organized that way.
If you use firefox, you can also use plugins like perapera to provide furigana for what you’re reading.
Basically, learning Japanese is a long-term project. You’re going to be at it for several years, so there’s no harm in spreading the kanji over the first year or so while you also study the language. The only thing is that, for a variety of reasons, some people just don’t like the Heisig system. The first part of his book is actually available as a free PDF download on his website. I’m sure you can find it if you google it. You can try it and see if you like it.
