Onyomi, Kunyomi

[NoCityHeadAche]

:confused:

How do people do it? How do you remember the 3, 4, 5+ readings a single kanji can have? How do you know what one to use in different situations? I'm having a pretty good time remember Kanji characters and their meanings, but their kun/onyomi readings is kicking my butt.

Any tips? Right now I'm just doing hardcore Flash card memorization but it still doesn't help much when it comes to remembering readings. Is there any way to find out which reading is used the most or something like that?

TIA

[Greji]

:confused:

How do people do it? How do you remember the 3, 4, 5+ readings a single kanji can have? How do you know what one to use in different situations? I'm having a pretty good time remember Kanji characters and their meanings, but their kun/onyomi readings is kicking my butt.

Any tips? Right now I'm just doing hardcore Flash card memorization but it still doesn't help much when it comes to remembering readings. Is there any way to find out which reading is used the most or something like that?

TIA

Just hang on! Charles, the resident kanji expert will be here with help in a flash.....
:cool:

[Sentakki Fried Chicken]

:confused:

How do people do it? How do you remember the 3, 4, 5+ readings a single kanji can have? How do you know what one to use in different situations? I'm having a pretty good time remember Kanji characters and their meanings, but their kun/onyomi readings is kicking my butt.

Any tips? Right now I'm just doing hardcore Flash card memorization but it still doesn't help much when it comes to remembering readings. Is there any way to find out which reading is used the most or something like that?

TIA

Admittedly, I'm not in the same class as Charles, but I would read and read and read...not textbooks, just anything in Japanese. The more you read, the better you'll come to understand the context of the way the characters are used and differentiating will come to you naturally (if not always 100% correctly...who could imagine that 長谷川 is read はせがわ and not something like ながたにかわ or ちょうやかわ？）

[Charles]

Admittedly, I'm not in the same class as Charles, but I would read and read and read...not textbooks, just anything in Japanese. The more you read, the better you'll come to understand the context of the way the characters are used and differentiating will come to you naturally (if not always 100% correctly...who could imagine that 長谷川 is read はせがわ and not something like ながたにかわ or ちょうやかわ？）
I'm not sure I'm in the class you think I am, as I've only recently decided to renew my atrophying kanji skills. However, I will concur, you should try to memorize them in context, it is easier to memorize them as part of vocabulary studies. You really don't need to memorize all the less frequently used readings, as you may never encounter some of them.
But I wonder what NCHA's current level is. There are some tricks for memorizing readings en masse, but they're not very useful below high-intermediate levels.

[amdg]

Admittedly, I'm not in the same class as Charles, but I would read and read and read...not textbooks, just anything in Japanese. The more you read, the better you'll come to understand the context of the way the characters are used and differentiating will come to you naturally (if not always 100% correctly...who could imagine that 長谷川 is read はせがわ and not something like ながたにかわ or ちょうやかわ？）

Well, names (people names and place names) are notoriously quirky. Don't worry about learning those at the start.

I'm no expert by any means, perhaps towards the lower level compared to other people here, but I don't think you should be learning by going through a dictionary and learning all the readings for each kanji. As others said, learn in context. That means reading sentences and learning the correct reading for that sentence or compound.

[Takechanpoo]

Admittedly, I'm not in the same class as Charles, but I would read and read and read...not textbooks, just anything in Japanese. The more you read, the better you'll come to understand the context of the way the characters are used and differentiating will come to you naturally (if not always 100% correctly...who could imagine that 長谷川 is read はせがわ and not something like ながたにかわ or ちょうやかわ？）
Hey, my last name is 長谷川.
Hasegawa is originally from 初瀬(hasse or hatsuse) in Nara prefecture. My ancestor migrated Nara to Niigata. Hasegawa is mainly distributed in the north coast area of Japan sea side and Kanto region.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%C4%B9%C3%AB

[Mulboyne]

There is no intuitive way to do it straight off the bat. No-one new to studying Japanese is likely to have a sense of what sounds like a Japanese reading and what sounds like a Chinese reading. But, as you grow your vocabulary, you'll get used to reading compounds in a certain way. For instance, you learn quite quickly that the character for East is 東 and you'll often have cause to use it as higashi in cases like 東口 or east exit - higashi guchi. But it's also staring you in the face as the first character in Tokyo - 東京 which you will also learn early. So you'll read it two different ways when you want to say the east exit of Tokyo Station - 東京駅東口 Tokyo Eki Higashi Guchi but I doubt it will ever occur to you to want to say Higashikyo Eki To Guchi. It just feels wrong and you'll get that feeling more and more with other compounds.

[NoCityHeadAche]

Ah, vocab, in context. So I guess I gotta hit up those newspaper/magazine articles eh. Well that certainly sounds more feasible than trying to remember all(or half) the readings for say...出 or 生..ffs hurts my head just thinking about it. Anyway, you have my thanks.

[omae mona]

The flash card routine has never worked for me. I'll have to agree with Yutairui, amdg, and Mulby. Get some context for the kanji by reading as much as possible, and learning them in the context of actual words. In addition to the pronunciation, if you rely on the English 1-word "definitions" of each Kanji, rote memorization isn't going to help you too much with actual reading.

I just pulled up the character "調" in WWWJDIC. Their definitions are: "tune; tone; meter; key (music); writing style; prepare; exorcise; investigate". For "好", they list "liking; fondness; love". When you see a compound like "好調", if you've worked exclusively off flashcards, you're likely to think they're talking about a "love investigation"! (hint: that's not even close :-) )

Quick tips on pronunciation: in most dictionaries, one onyomi is listed first, and there are usually very few kunyomi readings. Typically remembering the first onyomi will be a good starting point. Remember one noun or verb using any kunyomi reading and you'll have a good basis. But still, context is critical. Learn words properly and you'll retain the kanji that go with them.

[Charles]

The flash card routine has never worked for me.
Flash cards are difficult to use for kanji and vocabulary, since you have 3 things to memorize, the kanji, reading, and meaning. And there are no cards with three sides. But there are other useful and more practical tools, like the Check Sheet (http://weblog.ceicher.com/archives/2003/04/check_sheet.html).

[Greji]

Hey, my last name is 長谷川.
Hasegawa is originally from 初瀬(hasse or hatsuse) in Nara prefecture. My ancestor migrated Nara to Niigata. Hasegawa is mainly distributed in the north coast area of Japan sea side and Kanto region.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%C4%B9%C3%AB

You might be related 滋利, who unfortunately is one of your favorite Ritsumeikan OBs.:p Actually, I think he's from Hyogo originally...
:cool:

[Western All Stars]

Don't spend any time memorizing on/kun. If you just focus on learning words, your brain will start to recognize the patterns and "fill in the blanks" when you see a new word for the first time that has characters from other words you already know. Of course words with unusual readings take a little bit more work, but in those cases the readings aren't on/kun anyway.

[pheyton]

For me I learned Kanji more effectively while living in Japan than here in a classroom in the US. I interacted with it everyday and used it everyday. That's not to say I am not learning now, it is just slower going. Immersion is the best way to learn, so ya, read, read, read.

[Mulboyne]

Amdg is right that the kanji readings of names are often quirky but you can build up your kanji quota by remembering characters for people, places and companies that matter to you. If you live in Japan then your daily route to work, school or wherever will give you a lot of material to work with. For instance, if you know how to read Yokohama 横浜 and Kawasaki 川崎 then you've got no problems reading Ayumi Hamasaki あゆみ 浜崎. It's a great feeling when you can start working out compounds based on readings you already know.

Don't be afraid to get things wrong because it helps you learn. One epiphany I remember was meeting someone call Koshima. You learn quite early that the character for small is 小 which is used in the word chiisai and can be read as "ko", Because Japan is an island country, you'll probably also learn the word "shima" and the character 島. I asked if the characters for Koshima were 小島 - small island. The answer was no. I wasn't listening properly. The name wasn't Ko-shima, it was Koshi-ma. The "koshi" was the character 越 which is also used in the name of the department store Mitsukoshi 三越 and also in the word for removals - "hikkoshi" 引越. The "ma" was the character 間 which is also an early one to learn because it has a number of readings and is used in the word for human - "ningen" 人間. Even though I got it wrong, I had enough basic knowledge to understand the real answer which, in the end, helped me remember all the characters because I had some context. Mind you, I've never yet met anyone else called 越間.

[pheyton]

The real problem lies in being able to write them! Sure you can read them, but can you write them?

[NoCityHeadAche]

Computers are a wonderful invention :D

By the way, can anyone here point me out to some beginner friendly kanji reading material?

[Charles]

Amdg is right that the kanji readings of names are often quirky but you can build up your kanji quota by remembering characters for people, places and companies that matter to you. If you live in Japan then your daily route to work, school or wherever will give you a lot of material to work with. For instance, if you know how to read Yokohama 横浜 and Kawasaki 川崎 then you've got no problems reading Ayumi Hamasaki あゆみ 浜崎. It's a great feeling when you can start working out compounds based on readings you already know.
I usually recommend beginners avoid studying kanji used in names (especially place names) as they tend to have ateji and very nonstandard, obscure usages. One of my professors wrote a long tedious book on the origins of names and would lecture us endlessly so don't even get me started unless you want to hear about it..
If you're in country, you can hardly avoid learning place names as you commute around, most signs have romaji too. It took me some effort to not look at the romaji so I could get a little practice on the kanji first.

[ojara]

Computers are a wonderful invention :D

By the way, can anyone here point me out to some beginner friendly kanji reading material?

I recomend zaurus
http://ezaurus.com/

any kanji can input by pen, and check dictionary for yomigana.
my freind love to study of japanese by zaurus.

used one cheap in sofmap.:D :D :D