How to Study Kanji

Once you realize the only goal of kanji study is to build kanji-meaning association so you can recognize kanji, how to study kanji may seem straightforward. After all, studying means just looking at a kanji and trying to recall its meaning, right?

Sure, learning that “水” means “water,” and that “火” means “fire” is not complex. But the problem is that building simple and straightforward kanji-meaning associations is usually not so clear cut.

Take for example “月.” If you look up “月,” you’ll see it can mean “moon” and “month.” Does this mean you should learn both meanings? And if not, how do you choose which one to remember? The answer to these questions matter, because you will quickly run into kanji like “運,” which has a multitude of meanings including “carry,” “luck,” “destiny,” “fate,” “lot,” “transport,” “progress,” and “advance.”

At first it may seem wise to pick up all the meanings because this extra knowledge can help you learn more words more easily. For instance, knowing all the meanings for “運” can help you remember “運(うん)” means “luck” and “運ぶ(はこぶ)” means “to carry.”

But to get the benefit of multiple meanings, you will have to increase the scope and difficulty of your kanji study, as studying a single kanji would require you to perfectly recall all meanings. That’s a tall order and a daunting task for the hundreds of kanji you will need to learn. Despite the benefits of learning all of a kanji’s meanings, this approach will make your kanji study boring and frustrating, and likely derail your Japanese study habit altogether.

More importantly, the extra benefit provided by learning incremental meanings for each kanji is just not worth it. That’s because all you need is one kanji-meaning association per kanji to get started with reading. Sure, the one-meaning approach means you won’t know all the kanji meanings when you start reading native Japanese. But the risk of breaking your Japanese study habit and delaying your ability to start reading native Japanese is not a smart trade for the marginal benefit an extra kanji meaning will give you.

Remember, it’s much better to learn that a kanji has another meaning associated with it by looking up a word as you read native Japanese content than by dawdling in the preparing-to-read phase.

So just learn that “運” means “carry” and get on with your kanji study. By committing to learning only a single meaning per kanji, your kanji study will progress as quickly and as effectively as possible.

But this begs the question: how do you choose which meaning to learn? Why decide to learn that “運” means “carry” rather than “luck”? For the most part, the specific meaning you choose to learn doesn’t matter—all that matters is that you choose one meaning. But to accelerate your study, it’s best if you can choose meanings that are useful and easy to remember. In practice, this means you should choose to learn a meaning that is distinct, clear, and commonly used.

Distinct

Learning a distinct meaning for each kanji is important because doing otherwise will make it difficult to keep different kanji straight. If you try associating multiple kanji with the same meaning, it will be hard to separate your understanding of these kanji because they will be tied to the same concept. This will in turn make it longer for you to build kanji-meaning associations and make the associations less useful than they could be when you actually start reading Japanese.

For instance, both “顔” and “面” have the meaning “face,” but it would be better to keep these kanji meanings distinct by choosing to learn a different meaning for each of them.

Finding a distinct meaning for each kanji is almost always possible. Even when kanji have supposedly identical meanings, they are ultimately used in words. And because words are always chosen for particular contexts, even kanji with supposedly identical meanings will have slightly different connotations.

For instance, “顔” is often associated with a human face, while “面” has a more general usage, such as in “face of the earth.” As a result, I recommend associating the meaning “surface” with “面,” as this differentiates the two kanji and allows for two distinct meanings to be associated with “顔” and “面.”

Clear

But choosing distinct meanings is not enough: you need to also make sure the meaning you are learning is clear to you. A clear meaning is important because if the meaning you are trying to remember is fuzzy or abstract, it will be difficult to remember. More importantly, if the concept isn’t clear to you, it won’t provide that helpful context when you begin reading Japanese.

Take for example, “歴,” which in many dictionaries is listed as having the meaning “curriculum.” If you just learn that “歴” means “curriculum” without context, you will probably think curriculum means something along the lines of a school curriculum. As a result, when you see the word “履歴書(りれきしょ),” which means “resume,” you might not understand why 歴 is included. But the reason 歴 is used in the word for resume is because “curriculum” actually has the connotation “curriculum vitae,” or CV.

As this example shows, sometimes adding a little context will clarify the meaning of a kanji. Remember, your goal is not to learn kanji for kanji’s sake, but to do so to aid your reading. That is why it is best to see words using kanji in context when you study kanji—words provide concrete examples that can clarify their meaning. Concrete examples will also improve your ability to remember kanji meanings.

For instance, it is difficult to learn that “詞” means “parts of speech” without examples, because the meaning “parts of speech” is a somewhat abstract concept. However, if you study “詞” along with the words “動詞,” which means “verb,” and “名詞,” which means “noun,” the kanji meaning will move from the abstract to the concrete. And the clarity provided by such concrete examples will in turn help you build your kanji-meaning association even faster.

Commonly Used

The last point to keep in mind is that even if you can find a clear and distinct meaning to learn for a kanji, the meaning you choose should be commonly used. Unless a kanji meaning is commonly used in Japanese, it is not a useful meaning to remember. And if a meaning is not useful, there’s no point in learning that meaning because it won’t help you pick up Japanese any faster. So, if a particular kanji meaning is used only with uncommon words, don’t learn to associate that meaning with the kanji. Sometimes, this will require you to learn the most common word that uses the kanji as your meaning.

For instance, “昭” has the meanings “shining” and “bright,” but no common Japanese words use this kanji to have that meaning. Instead, the common use of “昭” is to refer to the “昭和時代(しょうわじだい)” or Shōwa Era (1926-1989). When you have to learn “昭,” it is much more useful to learn that “昭” means “Shōwa Era,” because that is how you will see this kanji most frequently used in practice.

This same rule applies to choosing example words as well: only choose common words to provide context to a kanji meaning. For instance, don’t use “接続副詞(せつぞくふくし),” which means “conjunctive adverb” as context for when learning 詞. The less common the word, the less likely it will provide useful context for the kanji meaning you are trying to learn.

So, in short, the best way to study kanji is to choose one meaning to associate with each kanji. And if you can choose a clear, distinct, and commonly used meaning, the better.

Taking the time to select such meanings is no small task, which is why Ashiba can save you time: we have selected clear, distinct, and commonly used meanings for each kanji. But whether you use Ashiba or not, you should take the time to select meanings that are useful and easy to remember. Doing so will pay dividends in your ability to remember the kanji you study, and in your ability to pick up Japanese words when you begin reading native content.