Why do japanese learn kanji

This instills knowledge of natural Japanese and the wider patterns of how words fit together. The textbooks used in schools are distributed free of charge to children and are not available for sale. There are, however, many other materials for learning kanji in Japanese bookshops or online, including the popular series of preparation books for the Kanji Kentei certification, although these can be difficult to find outside Japan.

Some free Internet resources also provide simple worksheets that support basic kanji practice. The best of these is Chibimusu Doriru , which even Japanese beginners will find relatively easy to navigate. More adventurous souls can try the quizzes for elementary school students or explore the idioms, proverbs, or four-character phrases a little further down. Navigate around the Chibimusu Doriru site using the sidebar on the left. Japanese language education Kanji. Is Kanji necessary to learn though?

Why do Japanese even still use it? Should Japanese speakers just use Hiragana instead? Let me share with you the answers to those questions and more from what I have learned looking it to the subject and studying Japanese in college.

Unfortunately, considering the alluring prospect of abandoning Kanji altogether will be a useless endeavor since Kanji plays a vital role in the Japanese writing systems. Kanji plays a vital role in the Japanese language in numerous ways.

It reduces complex or long sentences, by giving much needed structure as opposed to only Hiragana or Katakana usage.

Kanji can make phrases and concepts that otherwise Hiragana or Katakana would be limited in doing. Even though learning Kanji can be a difficult goal to achieve, it is certainly a necessary requirement to be able to live in daily Japanese life comfortably. That being said, they are some exceptions in where Kanji is used sparingly. Why not just use Hiragana or something like that instead?

Some Japanese language learners wonder why Kanji exists in the first place. In every language, including English, there are plenty of silly and unnecessary confusing phrases or rules. For instance, the English language includes idioms, which are sayings that mean something entirely different than what one actually means to say. Yet, many people learn English everyday just fine despite idioms being a foreign concept to some people of different languages and cultures.

Definition from Merriam-Webster dictionary. So, just because Kanji might be hard for you to learn, it does not mean it should change. Interesting fact: Languages develop first. Romanized Japanese using the Kunrei system see What are the systems of romanization of Japanese? Twenty kanji were added to the list of characters to be taught in elementary school in See How does the Japanese addressing system work? The names of the prefectures were taught to children in the fourth year of elementary school, but until , since not all of the kanji were taught, furigana was used.

See What is furigana? So you can go to japan to soak it up. Japanese culture will teach you the first Japanese characters you need to know, but also the original words, to learn a Japanese word, then a Japanese phrase, and then finally, to speak fluently. Even the abbreviated list of 2, characters can seem daunting. If you want to read and write in Japanese , that's what it takes. But getting around town doesn't require so much effort. If you're worried about reading maps or menus, here are some kanji essentials that you need to familiarize yourself with.

Onyomi are pronunciations japanese original Chinese words. In most cases, the word was adopted from Chinese so long ago that the modern word onyomi is not very similar to the modern Chinese word. The kunyomi are the japanese words native characters that match the cited characters. Keep in mind that these are just the roots and often there is a conjugation or other declension based on Japanese grammar.

Children Japanese start learning kanji in elementary school. It is about learning to read and write complex characters. Although they start with the phonetic alphabet kana , they end up studying all the subjects with characters corresponding to their level of knowledge. Often when children start to learn the kanji , they study texts with the phonetic kana characters and Chinese characters side by side to see the transliterations.

School programs typically break this list down by grade, teaching about 80 characters in first grade, in second grade, in third grade, in fourth grade, in fifth grade, and in sixth grade. At any age, learning to kanji essentially involves memorization. Sometimes there is an obvious similarity in the characters which can help people remember. As you can see, they are quite similar, reflecting the relationship between ice and water. One of the most important parts of learning kanji , and which is widely used in Japanese schools, is real-world, in-situ learning.

Although students use index cards to memorize characters by heart, it is just as important to see their context in other texts such as fictional stories or science books. The universe of manga in particular can be inspired by it, and help to retain much better.