Studying Kanji is a Waste of Time

Summary

This video script challenges the conventional wisdom that mastering Japanese kanji is an arduous task requiring extensive memorization. The speaker argues that traditional study methods are inefficient and suggests an alternative approach: learning kanji through vocabulary acquisition. By focusing on words rather than individual characters, learners can more efficiently and effectively read Japanese. The speaker supports this claim with personal experience and cites a Japanese teacher's advice, emphasizing the importance of context over rote memorization. The script also touches on the complexities of kanji readings and offers strategies for making educated guesses, advocating for a more practical and engaging way to learn Japanese.

Takeaways

• 😨 The fear of learning Japanese kanji is often exaggerated, but it is still challenging.
• 📚 Traditional methods of learning kanji, such as rote memorization of individual characters and their readings, are inefficient.
• 🔍 Many people struggle with kanji because they try to learn each character in isolation, which is not practical for reading real Japanese text.
• 📈 Learning kanji through vocabulary acquisition is more effective, as it allows learners to encounter characters in context and build recognition over time.
• 🚫 There is no need to study kanji individually if the goal is to read Japanese; focusing on vocabulary is more beneficial.
• 💡 The speaker suggests that learning to read kanji should not precede learning to write them, as it is more practical to learn to write characters only after becoming fluent in reading.
• 📝 The speaker's personal experience with dedicated kanji study was not fruitful, leading to a shift towards vocabulary-focused learning.
• 🗣️ A Japanese teacher featured in the script also advocates for learning vocabulary over individual kanji, emphasizing that even knowing all kanji readings does not guarantee the ability to read Japanese.
• 📚 The process of learning kanji through vocabulary involves using tools like Anki for spaced repetition and actively reading Japanese text to reinforce learning.
• 🎲 The existence of games like 'Kanji to Go,' which challenge players to guess kanji readings, highlights the complexity and sometimes arbitrary nature of kanji readings.

Q & A

Why does the speaker believe that studying kanji is often considered a waste of time?

The speaker believes studying kanji is a waste of time because many people use inefficient methods, such as memorizing individual kanji characters with all their readings and radicals, which is time-consuming and doesn't necessarily lead to the ability to read real Japanese text effectively.

What is the common misconception about the number of kanji characters and their readings?

The common misconception is that there are millions of kanji characters, each with numerous readings, making it seem like an impossible task to learn them all. However, the reality is that there are a more manageable number of characters, and the number of readings per character is often exaggerated.

How does the speaker suggest learning kanji more effectively?

The speaker suggests learning kanji more effectively by focusing on vocabulary words as they come up, rather than studying individual kanji in isolation. This approach allows learners to encounter kanji in context, which helps in understanding their usage and readings.

What is the role of Anki in the speaker's recommended learning method?

Anki is recommended as a tool for learning vocabulary words. It helps in memorizing words and their kanji components, which in turn aids in learning how to read kanji without dedicated study.

Why does the speaker argue that learning stroke order and radicals might not be necessary for reading kanji?

The speaker argues that learning stroke order and radicals might not be necessary for reading kanji because if the goal is to read rather than write, these aspects do not significantly contribute to recognizing and understanding kanji in written text.

What is the difference between kunyomi and onyomi readings in kanji?

Kunyomi are readings for native Japanese words, while onyomi are readings for words that were imported from Chinese. The speaker suggests that understanding this distinction can help in making educated guesses about the readings of compound words.

How does the speaker's personal experience with learning Japanese support their argument against dedicated kanji study?

The speaker's personal experience shows that they were able to learn to read Japanese effectively by focusing on vocabulary and not on dedicated kanji study. This supports their argument that learning kanji through vocabulary is more efficient.

What is the 'Kanji Grid' add-on in Anki and how does it help in learning kanji?

The 'Kanji Grid' add-on in Anki generates a visual representation of all the kanji found in one's Anki deck, allowing learners to see the kanji they have encountered and learned through vocabulary. It helps in gauging progress and understanding the kanji one is familiar with.

What is the game 'Kanji to Go' and how does it relate to learning kanji?

Kanji to Go is a game where players guess the readings of kanji. It is mentioned as a fun way to test one's ability to read kanji and to learn about less common readings, indicating that even native speakers can find it challenging, which supports the idea that learning kanji through vocabulary is a more practical approach.

Why does the speaker suggest waiting until fluency in written Japanese to learn how to write kanji?

The speaker suggests waiting to learn how to write kanji until fluency in written Japanese is achieved because the focus should be on reading comprehension first. Writing kanji without understanding them in context can be less practical and more challenging.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Debunking Kanji Study Myths

The paragraph discusses the common misconception that studying kanji is a daunting task due to the vast number of characters and readings. It argues that traditional methods of learning kanji are inefficient, and suggests an alternative approach of learning vocabulary to naturally acquire kanji knowledge. The speaker shares their personal experience of struggling with kanji until they switched to learning words, which led to a better grasp of kanji readings without direct study. The paragraph also touches on the idea that learning stroke order or radicals is not necessary for reading comprehension and that it's more practical to learn these once fluency in reading is achieved.

05:03

📈 Learning Kanji Through Vocabulary

This section of the script outlines a more practical approach to learning kanji by focusing on vocabulary acquisition. It emphasizes the use of spaced repetition software like Anki and the importance of reading extensively to reinforce learning. The speaker explains that as one learns more words, kanji characters become more recognizable, and one can start guessing readings even of unfamiliar words. The concept of kunyomi and onomi readings is introduced as a tool for making educated guesses about kanji readings. The paragraph also discusses the limitations of this method, acknowledging that there are exceptions and that certainty comes from direct lookup. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about using Anki and the Kanji Grid add-on to visualize their progress in learning kanji.

10:06

🎮 The Futility of Isolated Kanji Learning

The final paragraph reinforces the idea that learning kanji in isolation is not effective for reading comprehension. It mentions a game called 'Kanji to Go' that challenges players to guess kanji readings, indicating the complexity and variability of kanji readings even for native speakers. The speaker concludes by suggesting that a video on reading comprehension is forthcoming and encourages viewers to leave comments with questions. The paragraph ends with a casual sign-off, inviting further discussion on the topic.

Keywords

💡Kanji

Kanji refers to the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system. In the video, the speaker argues that the traditional method of studying kanji is inefficient and time-consuming. The video suggests that learning kanji through vocabulary and context is a more effective approach rather than memorizing each character's abstract meaning and multiple readings.

💡Inefficient Methods

Inefficient methods in the context of the video refer to traditional classroom approaches to learning kanji, where students are given lists of characters to memorize, including stroke orders and readings, often without any practical application. The speaker criticizes this method for being slow and not conducive to actually reading Japanese text.

💡Stroke Order

Stroke order is the sequence in which the strokes of a kanji character are written. The video suggests that focusing on stroke order is not practical when the goal is to read kanji, as it does not contribute to understanding how the character is used in context within words.

💡Radicals

Radicals are the components of kanji characters, often representing the basic meaning or sound of the character. The video argues that learning radicals is not necessary for reading comprehension and can be a distraction from the more effective strategy of learning kanji through vocabulary.

💡Vocabulary

Vocabulary in this video refers to the collection of words that one learns in a language. The speaker advocates for learning kanji through vocabulary acquisition, suggesting that by encountering kanji in words, learners can gradually understand their readings and usage without dedicated study.

💡Readings

Readings are the ways in which a kanji character can be pronounced. The video points out the challenge of learning all possible readings for each kanji, which can be numerous and context-dependent. It suggests that learning vocabulary is a more natural way to encounter and understand the readings of kanji.

💡Anki

Anki is a flashcard program used for memorization and learning. The video recommends using Anki to learn vocabulary, which can indirectly help in learning kanji, as the program helps in memorizing words that contain kanji characters.

💡Kunyomi and Onyomi

Kunyomi and onyomi are the native Japanese and Chinese-based readings of kanji, respectively. The video explains that understanding the origins of a word can help in guessing its reading, but it also acknowledges that there are many exceptions, making it difficult to be certain without context.

💡JLPT

JLPT stands for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, a standardized test for non-native speakers of Japanese. The video mentions sorting known kanji by JLPT levels as a way to gauge one's progress in learning kanji through vocabulary.

💡Kanji to Go

Kanji to Go is a game mentioned in the video where players guess the readings of kanji characters. The video uses this game as an example to illustrate that even native speakers can struggle with uncommon readings, reinforcing the idea that learning kanji through vocabulary and context is more practical than individual study.

Highlights

Fear of Japanese kanji is overblown, but it's still challenging.

Many struggle with kanji due to inefficient learning methods.

Classroom curriculums are often too slow for effective kanji learning.

Popular resources like 'Remembering the Kanji' have a fundamental flaw.

Learning kanji individually is time-consuming and not necessary.

Focus on learning words that kanji are used in, rather than individual kanji.

Learning to read kanji is more practical than learning to write them.

Stroke order and radicals are not helpful for reading kanji.

Personal experience suggests dedicated kanji study is not effective.

Learning vocabulary through Anki helped overcome difficulties with kanji.

Reading and memorizing vocabulary complement each other for learning kanji.

As vocabulary increases, kanji become more recognizable and readable.

Guessing kanji readings becomes easier with a larger known vocabulary.

Kunyomi and onomi readings can help make educated guesses on kanji readings.

Exceptions to reading rules are common, especially in names and places.

Learning vocabulary as they come up helps steadily learn to read kanji.

Anki's kanji grid add-on visualizes progress in learning kanji.

Kanji to go game is a fun way to test kanji reading skills.

Dedicated kanji study is not necessary for learning to read Japanese.

Transcripts

you read the title yes studying kanji is

a waste of time let me explain now why

is it that most people are terrified of

Japanese kanji yeah everyone's scared of

kanji you've probably heard people be

like oh Japanese yeah that language is

crazy they have like 9 million

characters or something and each of

those characters can be read in like 80

different ways I heard it takes like 212

years to learn and that's just to a

basic level it seems like the fear

around specifically learning Kani is

just a little bit overblown and I'm here

to tell you that it's still pretty hard

actually but it's not as hard as you

think it is the reason why so many

people struggle with kanji specifically

is because they've been told to use

methods which are just straight up

inefficient like if you've ever been to

a Japanese class then they probably gave

you a sheet of paper with a list of

individual kanji on it and all of their

stroke orders and readings and then the

teacher said learn these by our quiz

next week now this is an extreme example

and if you've spent any time

self-studying then you know that

classroom curriculums are super slow and

honestly if you're going to try to rely

solely on a class you would probably

never actually get to the point of being

able to read real Japanese at least not

without looking up every other word even

with some of the resources that are

popular nowadays like remembering the

kanji or Wan Connie which I know a lot

of people will swear by there's a

fundamental flaw that makes most people

who study kanji waste way more time than

they need to look at this kanji it's

notorious for having tons of readings to

the point where Japanese people like to

use sentences like this to quiz

foreigners this is one of those things

that makes people say ja Japanese is

such a hard language even Chinese which

is where Japan got all of these

characters from in the first place at

least for the most part has consistent

readings for each individual character

so once you learn a character you should

know how to read it pretty

consistently when learning kanji in

Japanese so many people will go to learn

an individual character learn all of the

radicals used in the character learn the

abstract meaning of it learn all of the

readings for the character and then see

a new word that uses it and still not

know how to read it so you might be

thinking okay how are you supposed to

know which reading of the character to

use then here's the thing you don't you

just have to know it which begs the

question why are people still studying

individual kanji when they could just

learn the words that the kanji are used

in like if you think about it for a

second if instead of spending all of

your time memorizing the abstract

meaning of a single character and all of

its different readings and radicals and

then doing that thousands of times for

each character and instead just learned

words as you came across them then

you're going to get to the same end goal

just a lot quicker and a lot easier and

without so much pointless

memorization if you want to actually

become able to understand written

Japanese at some point then you're going

to have to learn tens of thousands of

words anyway so why not just skip the

dedicated kanji study and just memorize

vocab from the start I should also

mention really quick that this is about

learning how to read the characters not

learning how to write them it's not

really the most practical idea to spend

all of your time and energy learning how

to write kanji which you can't even read

yet in most situations so you're going

to save yourself a ton of time and

effort if you just wait until you're

already fluent in the written language

before going back and learning how to

write this is why you shouldn't spend

your time learning stroke order or

radicals because if you're just trying

to read the characters then they're not

really going to be that much help to you

maybe knowing a radical might help you

distinguish one kanji from another one

but honestly the payoff for learning

specific radicals isn't really that much

when you're considering just learning

how to read the characters so if you're

only learning how to read then I

wouldn't bother messing with stroke

order or radicals yet so one of the

reasons that I came to this conclusion

iion is that I actually tried doing

dedicated kanji study towards the

beginning of learning Japanese and I was

using rtk for this it felt like no

matter how many kanji I tried to Brute

Force into my head nothing was sticking

it was really boring it didn't feel like

it was helping and eventually I just

gave up and started learning vocabulary

with Ani I found that just memorizing

words by themselves and spending enough

time with the language was enough for me

to learn how to read Japanese eventually

and I sort of had this realization that

studying kanji individually is just a

huge waste of time now I can already

hear the keyboard of the people in the

comments typing but wait a minute you

can't just say study and kanji is

useless my Japanese teacher said this or

I learned kanji like this you can't just

say that your method is better than

everyone else's what proof do you have

so other than the fact that I literally

learned to read kanji without ever

studying it take it from this guy he's a

Japanese teacher who's gotten pretty

popular on YouTube recently and I

actually think his videos are super

helpful specifically for people who are

in that intermediate stage who know a

lot of Japanese but maybe haven't picked

up on a lot of the nuances is Yet now a

while back he made this video oh

there's so many Kani thousands of kanji

and each kanji usually has more than one

reading how can I remember all the Kani

dude you don't need to study Kani to

learn Japanese just learn vocabulary

even if you memorized all the readings

of all the kanji there you still

wouldn't be able to read Japanese a

reading of the first Kani

is and second one is and last one

is yeah so even if you learn all the

kanji out there it's useless you still

wouldn't be able to read a word when I

saw this video for the first time I was

honestly thinking oh my God somebody

finally said what I've been thinking

this whole time so if you don't believe

me when I say don't study kanji then

take this guy's word for it okay so I've

talked a lot about words and using

vocabulary as a means to learn kanji but

what does this process actually look

like so first you need to find some way

to reliably learn words and I highly

recommend using Anki for this but if you

really don't like Anki to the point

where it just makes you want to give up

and quit then it's not necessary and a

lot of people commented on my last

videos that they don't like Ani so if

you don't want to use it then you don't

have to but I think the benefits

strongly outweigh the negatives so I

would highly recommend it while you're

learning words you're also going to want

to be reading as much as you can because

reading is really what's going to

solidify your knowledge these two

activities really complement each other

other so you're going to be making a lot

of progress if you're practicing reading

and memorizing vocab on the side at the

same time not literally while you're

reading you're doing your ay reps but

you know what I mean when you first

start looking at kanji they're going to

look like a bunch of random scribbles to

you and you're not really going to be

able to tell the difference between them

that easily but the more words you learn

and the more time you spend trying to

differentiate kanji they're going to

become more and more clear to you when

you've picked up a few thousand

vocabulary words and you're becoming

more and more familiar with the written

language you're going to automatically

notice yourself being able to guess the

readings of kanji in words that you've

never even seen before just because you

know those same characters from other

words which you've already learned at

the point I'm at now with Japanese most

of the new words that I learn are

composed of kanji which I've seen many

times already so it's usually not

difficult to guess how they're read

despite never having seen them before so

now you're probably thinking wait a

minute hold on just a second ago you

said that you just have to know it or

else you don't know how to read a kanji

so how are you guessing how they're read

what's up with that well what I said is

still true you can never be 100% sure

without just looking it up in a

dictionary but there are some things you

can do to drastically increase the

chance that you guess the reading of a

word all right now it's time for class

everybody sit down and look at the

Whiteboard kanji have what's called

kunyomi and onomi which are essentially

just specifications for which reading is

used based on the origin of a word

kunyomi are for reading native Japanese

words and onom are for Words which were

imported from Chinese for example if you

stuck two Kani together like this

there's a high likelihood that it's a a

Chinese lone word and will be read with

the onomi reading if you see a word with

Okana which is just when a word itself

has grammar inflection built in then

it's almost always going to be read with

the kunyomi reading as it's almost

certainly an original Japanese word

knowing this can help you make educated

guesses on how a word is going to be

read but there are many exceptions to

this rule so you can never be 100% sure

without confirming it for yourself look

at this word meaning tone of voice now

if you're like me and you're learning

Japanese and you come across this word

for the first time you might make the

reasonable assumption that oh this could

be read

as because grammatically it's treated

the same as a Chinese import word so it

most likely uses the onomi reading right

yeah it's actually pronounced as kaol

which uses two kunyomi readings the

first of which is not even how the word

in isolation is pronounced this sort of

thing isn't super rare with normal words

but it is really common with the names

of people or places so even Japanese

people will often not know how to read a

name that they've never seen before

because kanji were invented by the

Chinese then brought into Japan over a

thousand years ago and forced into the

Japanese language then underwent tons of

changes due to historical events

learning kanji is kind of convoluted to

say the least but if you take the

approach of just spending a lot of time

with the language and learn vocabulary

words as they come up then you're

steadily going to learn to read kanji

without having to study them at all okay

to show you what I mean let's look into

my Ani deck I currently have 15,000 244

words in my deck and there's actually

this really cool add-on called kanji

grid which will generate a grid of all

of the kanji found in your ankey deck

and by looking at this you can kind of

gauge how many characters are in the

words that you know how to read this

isn't really that helpful on a

pragmatical level because really the

only way forward is to learn more words

but you can sort your known kanji by

jlpt level kanji kente level grade level

and so if you're trying to gauge where

you're at then it can be a little bit

helpful I think to be honest I think

it's just cool to see a big grid of all

of the kanji that are in your deck right

in front of you and think wow I really

learned to read all of those just by

learning words there's alsoo this game

that got popular on Japanese YouTube

like a year ago called kanji to go which

is essentially just a game where you

guess kanji readings and the farther in

you go the harder it gets so much to the

point where Japanese people even

struggle on the harder levels

I think the fact that this game even

exist in the first place is a telling

sign that you shouldn't be learning

individual kanji to learn vocabulary

words honestly I played this game way

too much sitting in the back of my

college classes when I should have been

taking notes but that's not important

what's really important is that hey this

game is pretty cool if you're trying to

learn how to read some unorthodox kanji

and test yourself then maybe go give it

a shot it's kind of neat anyways if

you're trying to learn how to read

Japanese don't bother studying kanji now

originally I was going to make this a

huge comprehensive guide on how to read

but I realized that the contents of a

video specifically about kanji and the

contents of a video about learning how

to read novels are probably not that

similar so I decided to split them into

two videos so if you have a bunch of

questions about specifically learning

how to read then I'm making a video

about it don't worry anyways that's

about it leave any comments you have in

the question oh my God leave any

questions you have in the comments and

I'll try to answer them okay bye