Learning Hiragana and Katakana is like walking on a beach, learning Kanji is like climbing the high cliff right next to the beach.

@exdus235

Жыл бұрын

🙄

@marcello7781

Жыл бұрын

@@exdus235 🙃

@PC_Simo

Жыл бұрын

In that case, I must be like the US Marines, in that one video of their landing drill, where all of them just fell over and bumbled on that beach 😅.

@ZachovalZachoval_YT

Ай бұрын

That is true. Learning Japanese kinda feels like that

Japanese learner here. Instantly subscribed after hearing your pitch for the new channel. Very excited to see more Japanese content here. がんばれ！！

I think that it is important to note that many of the "official" kanji lists, such as the jouyou list, should not be assumed to be definitive. For example, IMO, there are many kanji which are hardly used, but are included in the list and there are many kanji which are fairly often used, but which aren't included. Also the idea that the Jouyou list will prepare a person to read newspapers is misleading as there are loads of kanji which one will find in print, but which are not in the list. Also, it's not enough to just recognize a kanji in order to read. Printed Japanese often uses kanji in particular ways which learners dont realize and which aren't often taught. For example, there are loads of regular kanji which are coopted to be used as short-hand for the names of countries in print media or even TV news. Such alternate meanings for kanji are very common, but not all kanji learning resources cover it.

Kind of surprised you didn't mention breaking the kanji down to it's radicals to make them more identifiable. Unless that's a subject for another video and that's more about how to read them versus memorizing them to you. But for me the pattern recognition helps me remember them, like remembering a sequence of numbers or putting a puzzle together.

@PC_Simo

8 ай бұрын

Yes, that pattern-recognition makes e one of the nicest irrational numbers to remember very good approximations of; compared to, say, π or φ (the golden ratio), or √2. Compare: e = 2,718281828459045… π = 3,141592653589793… φ = 1,618033988749895… √2 = 1,414213562373095… Fun fact: The pattern: ”…18281828…”, near the beginning, also gave me a good starting point, to find a good rational approximation, for e (271801/99990). It’s also (sort of), why people (even people, in the know) are often much more fluent with the Fibonacci numbers (0 1 1 2 3 5 8…), than other, related sequences that grow the same way, but start differently, like Lucas numbers (2 1 3 4 7 11 18…); sequence memorization; whereas, with Lucas numbers, etc., people usually have to start adding terms together, much earlier on. Sorry; my inner Maths-nerd kicked in. 😜

I have been using an SRS system to learn Kanji with their related Vocab for 2 years and I am still working though the program (About 2/3s of the way through). I knew going it and the system I use also says that it is not an overnight thing, it will take a lot of time and effort to learn everything. Personally, I am not sure how someone could learn Japanese without knowing at least how to read Kanji.

Fantastic video. I had a friend teaching me Japanese years ago. We got to the point were we could have decent verbal and text conversations without me needing to look things up. Sadly she went back to Japan and I ended up losing most of my vocabulary. I've been toying with the idea of picking it back up again. But half of my "roadblock" is essentially I would have no use for it other than personal enjoyment. Which sounds weird but its a kind of "what's the point of relearning?" thing.

8:57 "fun activites" >shows league of legends gameplay

Excellent recomendations, Metaman. I've been studying japanese formally for four years and as you said, you just have to put the work. One thing I would recommend is to not do isolated kanji repetitions but rather to write down kanji with any of the furigana you like, or full words (2-3 kanji together). I found out easier to remember the kanji if when writing it I associated it with a full word rather than the kunyomi or onyomi. Then you just say "ah, 'drive' uses the 'carry' and 'fell over' kanji" and by asociation, you multiply your vocabulary and accelerate the process.

Thank you for the video, Metatron! I've been learning for a few month and my conclusions about the methodology have been very similar to yours. I LOVE your whiteboard idea, and I'll definitely start using it as of tomorrow.

Thanks for sharing, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Japan while learning Kanji which helped immensly. You learn to recognize words like 出口 入口, Kanji for main station names pretty quickly. If I wasn't there, it would have taken me much more time and dedication.

I just noticed that you recently started a new channel, that’s great news! I want to hear your opinion about whether to learn the kanji with their on’yomi and kun’yomi or by their abstract concepts and learn their readings in context, e.g. 女 means “woman” and 子 means “child”, 好 represents a woman loving her child thus meaning “love”. In addition to this, some people suggest that one should memorise a considerable amount of kanji just to be able to start learning the language itself, whereas others believe that one better learn the kanji along the language. There are so much advice about this matter that it is difficult not to be too overwhelmed to continue actually learning, instead of constantly searching for a single true answer. I can’t wait for more content (especially about Japanese) on this channel.

@Eldiran1

Жыл бұрын

First of all i know it's a 2 months comments you wrote here. I must say that i find your point very interesting . In fact i was asking the same question during this month and the month before , other and other again . i choose to (re)learn kanji along the grammar instead of just going without kanji . It's a pain in the ass , really , and i've drop learning japanese years ago because of it. They are complex , a lot of them look the same , they are no simplified since ages and the wast amount of different pronuntiation for all of them are RIDICULOUS. But hey , as i like to say , "in rome , do as the romans ". So now that i've travel to japan and intent to come back , i've to rise my japanese level and go trought these boring kanji (at least the 1000/15000 more important one ).Back to the topic i would say that you should learn kanji but skip all of these multiple on'yomi and kun'yomi stuff. Learn the word who are coming from these kanji or how to say the kanji alone. It's easier like that (at least for me but i bet it's also the same for a lot of us ) and learning kanji before learning vocab help a lot to learn vocab itself. I presume your are learning japanese yourself so i'm curious to know what path did youn choose . The hard way with kanji or the soft but what seem more difficult on the long run , with vocab with kanji in it ? PS: i don't intend to learn how to write kanji , i only intend to be able to read and pronunce them (technicaly i wrote a lot of them with my keyboard ) , maybe that's a mystake but i don't think so .

Hi metatron, great video! I’m really enjoying this new channel, I think it’s fantastic. I was wondering how your knowledge of Kanji helped you when learning characters for Mandarin, and if the process for learning Hanzi is similar to how you’d suggest learning Kanji. Thanks!

Hey metatron, you really seem to enjoy and keep puping videos in this channel and im so grateful to you for this For the longest time i have struggled with lenguages and how seeing your videos is kinda refreshing, might even pick up french again

@hyliarmetancanira

Жыл бұрын

Tu devrais carrément t'y remettre! ;) (wish you good time doing it)

@Eldiran1

Жыл бұрын

I hope you can find the strengh to learn french again . Va y , tu peux le faire! try to immerse yourself if possible watch youtube video from french who spoke slowly and putting subtitle can help (it definitivly help me for my english and now my japanese) you can spoke to frenchman on the internet , they love to correct other from their mistake so you can improve . As a french , i like to saw people who are learning my language. I know it's not an easy one (i hate conjugaison and these stupid exception) but if you plan to come in france/belgium/swiss or in a lot of african country ( 120 millions of african spoke french ) , it will come handy. Also in a strange way , french is the 4th most used language on internet , so you may come to explore a new internet with that. (i've done that with japanese , it's amazing and so bizzare )

@maxwell7470

Жыл бұрын

@@Eldiran1 Thank you for your kind words, Les doigts dans le nez

This will come in handy one day.

I say you have great talent in language learning. For me, a native Chinese speaker, I can't even remeder the different pronunciations of one KANJI in Japanese, because they sound quite different from their Chinese version.

I am literally 23 years old right now, and I am have being playing Conan Exiles for a bit. I felt like this video like a javelin. But in all seriousness, great advice. I'll try the notebook technique and I'll try consuming some more media and videogames in japanese to see if that helps.

I'm a (part-time) student of Chinese. This video is deeply appreciated.

I'm learning Hanzi. I don't care a bit about Japanese and this was helpful. Thank you.

For a Chinese native speaker, it is kanji that make me very easy to travel to Japan.

Talking about kanji and games, my suggestion is Simulator Games such as Cooking, Farming, Construction, Driving, Police, etc. since it repeats a lot of vocabularies regarding activities. I used to forget the kanji for 料理 and 野菜, games and manga about cooking helped me put that into my mind without forgetting.

i am not a pro in languiges i broke a 3 insted of using it :) But a story is helpfull to remember, and kanji has a story it self.

I have been learning japanese for around 2 years now (a year on my own, 5 months with a tutor, currently studying japanese in kansai at a 言語学校,) and I have to say its incredibly rewarding but the Kanji is especially tough. one of the hardest things is figuring out a way to search Kanji in an accessible way. Right now I am using a dictionary app with a drawing function and whenever I come across kanji I dont know (I spend a lot of my spare time reading various novels.) I draw them into the app and then write them in my notebook. But it feels so clunky compared to English research methods, And it definitely feels frustrating when I run into characters I have no clue of, and I have to stop dead becaues I cant even attempt to pronounce them like I could with new English words as a child. I really like your videos explaining japanese, Are you thinking of expanding into more indepth videos on Japanese as a language? the grammar, politeness levels, or the organization of japanese sentences? I would also like to hear about your journey as a student

@Eldiran1

Жыл бұрын

Personnaly , i use Jisho since years but my learning path was slow (i only discover yesterday that it mean "dictionary" and i was feeling stupid -.-' ) . It's a great way to find kanji for a multiple of reason but i suspect you already know this website because it's very well know (at least around me so maybe i'm biased ) I also intend to read novel (i love visual novel , behing able to read them in japanese is one of my goal , they aren't always able in my mother tongue or in english and machine translation aren't perfect at all ) , so i'm curious to know what level of japanese should i have to be able to do that. light novel on the other hand , seems harder but who know ? i've haven't try any of these . Good luck with yout japanese , i hope you are living the dream , kansai is a really nice (i went there during march , one of best experience of my life for sure. But vacation and living here aren't the same )

Never expected Metatron to have played Tales of Vesperia!

Thank you noble one

Maybe people are going to disagree. I'm not 100% fluent yet but I've been learning japanese on and off for a long time (usually, when I have to focus on college I spend months without studying japanese). And I guess it depends on what are your objectives.... but I don't bother "learning" or "memorizing" kanji at all and I do just fine. To be fair, I've done Heisig's Remembering the Kanji once, and when I finished I never studied Kanji again in years, I can't say that the time I spent going through the book was useless, I certainly don't remember the 2200 kanjis but it certainly made me more familiarized with kanji. What I do is I just read a lot stuff, when I encounter words I don't know I just look them up in the dictionary and I trust that my brain is going to acquire the capacity to recognize the word if I look it up enough times, and I'm doing just fine without spending time to specifically study kanji. To be clear, it's not one of my goals to be able to handwrite kanji, I think if you want for some reason to handwrite, you'll have to study kanji.

I do almost 1.5 to 2 hours a day of Kanji practice. 40min of pure Kanji and the rest of vocabulary using only Kanji.

4:39 mad respect man! You just inspired me to do just that!

I'm moving to Japan in about 6 months time for an IT job and Kanji is numbing my brain 🤕. Thanks for the tips 😬!

@eraigames

Жыл бұрын

Various organizations have made lists which present Kanji in an order that is (in the organization's opinion) optimized for learning. The JLPT list is an example, but I've had bad experience with that one. When I started teaching Japanese, I made my own guide by looking at how many words use the kanji, grouping kanji by radical, and some other real-world factors. If I can find it, I'll offer it to Metatron and then maybe he'll repost it if he likes it.

@darthykrror

Жыл бұрын

@@eraigames Just offer it to me if that guide is good😀

lol My note books are exactly like that. The most tedious learning ive ever done.

Four squares? I've been squeezing everything into one from the very beginning of my studies.

@metatronacademy

Жыл бұрын

One is too small. 4 squares of your regular Math notebook are what university teacher recommend.

@Metatron, would you apply the same or similar advice in this video for all languages using the Hanzi Character system?

Today is just one of those days, Metatron might be just what I need to cope!

3:17 ah, good old "えっ、えええ！" anime moment

Hi im actually trying to katakana at the moment using the same teaching method with hirigana but I can't see to get it

Which of the thousands of kanji is on the keyboard? And how do you "write down" the missing one?

hello Metatron, great video! I would like to point you in the direction of a specific book which helped me a lot to memorise kanji, it does it in a very unique and easy to follow way, it's called RTK Book made by James Heisig, there are some videos of people talking about it, mainly, where I learned about it, Chris Abroad.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Based tales player.

I have a question. These techniques work for learning the Chinese characters as well I imagine?

Should Kanji be learned separately, (at a different pace or it's own focus) from the language itself?

IMO it's important to understand that kanji represents meaning. The meaning carries over (often to a large deree) even if the pronunciation changes. For people who reached already 300-500 kanji, it will be useful to already learn the radicals. One shocking video from yuta (a japanese youtuber) challenging Japanese on the street to write kanji, and to a lot of people, it's good to know that kanji is HARD even for Japanese! However, it is very sad to make logical mistakes in a kanji. One of the noun presented in the video was "bribery" 賄賂. Somehow a lot of people know how to write the part on the write, but forget the left and insert something random instead. If you understand radicals, you would know that 貝 radical has somthing to do with money. This is a mistake that people could have avoided had they understand the logic behind the radicals.

@amj.composer

Ай бұрын

There's still an absurd amount of words (especially at the n2 to n1 level) where you could NEVER guess the meaning with the kanji, the kanji is almost completely unrelated. There are also (albeit rare and obscure) words like 破落戸 where the meaning and the reading are completely off from the characters and that's so irritating.

I have such trouble learning kanji I know a few

I've been practicing Japanese writing for a while now, I'm getting pretty alright, but at some point I realized I'm copying the fonts on my computer, and I've seen how people write it in notebooks, there's a lot of simplification that I don't know. I asked a Chinese colleague, he showed me a few examples (which honestly just from that I got a lot), but 1. He's Chinese. It's likely there would be some differences, not to mention that even the print fonts he reads are Chinese simplified. (e.g. I asked him about 書, he recognized it and showed me the Chinese simplified 书, which is cool, but not specifically helpful. He did also show me some very useful Hanzi handwriting so I'm not complaining) 2. I don't feel super comfortable asking him every day. I searched around, but both google and reddit are not that helpful. Do you have any good resources on how to translate print fonts into handwriting?

@metatronacademy

Жыл бұрын

I’m planning on making a tutorial about that anyways, I’ll try to make it sooner rather than letter.

@notrelu

Жыл бұрын

While Metatron makes that video, you can take a look at some semi-cursive examples, the most famous of which is 蘭亭集序 (Lántíngjí Xù), and compare them with print.

Metatron, sorry by my Newbie question, but I thought that Kanji was like "old/formal" language, and is unusual in a daily basis, is that right?

@metatronacademy

Жыл бұрын

No, kanji are used by all Japanese natives. The number of kanji a native is expected to be able to read and write differs with age, but all Japanese use Kanji on a daily basis, and it's the only accepted way to write the majority of nouns, names, verbs, adjectives and more, unless you are a young child. Some words do have an alternative accepted "hiragana only" way of being written, an example is "Watashi" (I), which is actually normally written in hiragana more than in Kanji, but these are very rare cases. Kanji is an essential part of the Japanese writing system.

Is it realistic for a nearly Deaf person to learn kanji? I've got an engineering degree and also know American Sign Language (some proof that I can learn difficult things and a new language). A friend tried to teach me to speak Arabic but I couldn't hear well enough to repeat any sounds.

And for chinese what would you suggest?

@guyfawkes5012

Жыл бұрын

Chinese uses Kanji too, so same thing applies

@ninjasolarteam

Жыл бұрын

Japan borrowed the mandarin characters to japan and altered their own concept to create kanji

It's utterly puzzling how Kanji ever became a thing in the first place. 50'000 Kanji in existence, 4'500 to 13'000 Kanji to manage every day life and 2'000 Kanji to even be considered barely literate. I'll stick to my 26-ish letters, thank you very much.

@adriangrana1239

Жыл бұрын

This just really shows how you have no clue about Kanji, 50k is such a stupid number, it's as if an English learner would say "The English language has 600k words, that's totally ridiculous". No one knows 50000 Kanji in Japan (or anywhere), also 4500 to 13000 to manage everyday life??? Where the fuck did you get these numbers from? I can't speak for Mandarin or Cantonese, but in Japanese most people can read 3k+ Kanji (and can write A LOT less) and in school in Japan you get thaught the 2136 常用漢字 (Common use Kanji). The most difficult Kanji Test (kentei level 1) covers about 6300 Kanji, and 99% of Natives did not attempt/pass this exam (the failure reate is 90% for those who do take it), this just shows that bearly anyone knows 13500 Kanji as you suggest "to manage everyday life". As an example I know about 2300 Kanji but the hardest problem I have when reading, is new vocabulary and not Kanji I've never seen.

@cahallo5964

Жыл бұрын

Skill issue

Not gonna lie, I'm quite intimidated by Kanji as I am about to start learning Japanese. Never learned a language with a writing system that's as different as this one.

Your friend called you gaijin?

I find it so bizarre that Japan has not one but TWO writing systems perfectly suited to it's language, yet it continues to primarily use a complicated imported system that isn't at all suited.

@lunalui

10 ай бұрын

I used to think the same, but Japanese has an awful lot of homophones and, among other things, kanji come handy to distinguish them. Of course, all those homophones were also imported with the cumbersome writing system, but I guess now it's too late to go back...

Most Japanese can’t write Kanji… they just use their smartphones. 😊 Same thing in China. I used to hate Kanji but I’ve come to appreciate it and realized that reading Japanese without it is horrible. The more I learn the more I like it.

Don't forget that you can read manga and magazines because they have furigana (hiragana) which is written above kanji characters which will help you learn as well. Just remember though that you should not attempt to speak to someone using manga as a guideline because they use rude and offensive language.

only 2000 can be typed in computers

Being publicly suggested a kanji you can't remember by a gaijin is quite the loss of face for a Japanese...

@yorgunsamuray

Жыл бұрын

And a common one at that too.

I've discovered one unusual system a month ago, and ,mates, this is something!! You should try it. I'm talking about the James W. Heings's book "Remembering kanji...". To begin with, I must say: I decided not to learn the readings of characters at all (I mean, purposely), and learn WORDS. This is a big deal, guys - especially when we talk about the speed of learning kanji. If I know the meaning of kanjis of compound, I can remember the meaning of this word (almost) immediately, and it will only remain to remember the pronunciation. So I wanted to learn all of 2200 characters as fast, as possible... And James W. Heings's system focuses you on writing only: no readings, no words/compounds (actually, there is the second book about readings, and the 3rd about another kanjis not included in 2200-list). If someone did tell me, that I can learn writing of 2200 kanji for 4-5 months, I wouldn't believe, but now - after 28 days - I can write 550 kanji by their keywords! I've studied for 2-3 hours a day (40-60 mins for review with Anki, and 60-90 mins of learning new kanjis) every day, and the process itself is pretty funny imo. Before my eyes, the most complex kanjis became simple and easily remembered combinations of already known primitives. I don't know what else to say, mates. Check it out!

@bonfire7042

Жыл бұрын

forgot to say thx to for the video (not only for this one), but of course I appreciate it! Thanks )

Hiragana and katakana is my basic Japanese speaking. I only write Kanji for a name. Reading in Kanji looks like its Mandarin, since japanese or nihongo actually comes from Mandarin Edit: i also read Furigana. furigana is a hybrid between kanji, hiragana and katakana

@tohaason

Жыл бұрын

Japanese doesn't come from Mandarin. The languages are so totally unrelated that you can easily argue that Finnish is closer to Japanese than Mandarin is. There are tons of loan words, but the languages have basically nothing in common otherwise. The writing system is what came from China. As the languages were so extremely different the original Chinese characters had to be co-opted and changed to accommodate the language, and Hiragana and Katakana came out of that as well. As for furigana - it's not a hybrid between anything. It's simply hiragana written small, above kanji, to describe the sound. There's nothing hybrid in there.

The answer is simple: watch anime😌

@ninjasolarteam

Жыл бұрын

Or learn Kyokushin karate or kendo

It’s a miracle for Barbarians to be able to learn kanji. It’s the first step towards being civilized.