A (revised) approach for dealing with Japanese Kanji characters | Vlog #20 

My favorite way to deal with kanji is through context. I'm not saying that your way isn't efficient because it seems to be working very well for you! But I think that through learning them this way, you are not only learning vocabulary you are learning new kanji. And an added bonus is that you don't have to worry about memorizing each individual reading. Keep up the good work!

What about using Remembering the Kanji of Heisig? It worked for me, I learned 2100 kanjis by 3 months and I still remember most of them after half year.

You talked about it earlier and Gabe talks about it but I'm glad you're not uploading your deck, because making your own is just better in every way. I got infinitely higher quality flashcards when I sat down and made them rather than using someone elses. At this point learning a language is however you can make it work so whatever works keep at it. I started a few months ago but hopefully I'll be near the level you are aiming for in July of next year when I move to JP :)

Nice but I don't learn kanji, I just read books or websites I enjoy and look up stuff (aka vocab) via either Rikaikan or my Japanese dictionary app. It's much simpler and frankly the lazy way since Anki flashcard production is so time consuming (well so is reviewing them). So as for something like 携帯電話 I can def. say I don't know the 携帯 part very well.. do I know them separately as kanji.. like could I identify the reading/meanings heck no lol Well maybe the 帯 part... maybe on a full moon lol But when reading a book, I always pronounce it 携帯電話 for two reasons: I haven't found anything that comes before 電話 besides 携帯 and also it just makes sense in the context of whatever story or website I'm reading ... no looking it up or anything. Now other words I do have to look up till I get a sense for them (aka memorizing them)

So frustrated. Downloaded my first deck and the codec for my laptop doesn't read the file correctly. I'm not sure how to get it to work either. This isn't the first time I've had a problem with my laptop recognizing files. I just want to study, not deal with roadblocks.

Don't wait another week to help with flashcards! Please!

Hey I'm trying to learn Chinese (traditional) and this has been really informative. Appreciate ya

When the year's over do you plan to continue your studies? Also, do you plan on taking the JLPT, to see how far you've come? 頑張って！

Presumably this approach challenges the ordering to favour learning simpler kanji first (e.g. like the Heisig method). In my learning I've focussed entirely on reading - I've not done any kanji decomposition / mnemonics. This has been successful because often kanji occur in pairs but at the trade off that I can rarely read kanji when they appear on their own. Namely prioritising breadth of vocabulary over specific kanji knowledge, perhaps in a more extreme way than you are. For example I know that 経済 is けいざい but I can't read 経 on its own. As I learn more words I'm starting to discover words that share the same kanji. This means I might incorrectly read 経験 as けいざい or even a word like 怪我. So my approach is approximate but I don't think it significantly hampers comprehension in practice.

Hi man, and nice to meet you, I have just stumbled upon your channel. I am going to start japanese from scratch too... your channel is very interesting, keep up the good work. Sorry for potential mistakes, as English is not my motherlanguage :).

this is what wanikani does

Have you tryed Heisig's remembering the kanji? Sorry if you told about that earlyer. You probably had..

I use Dr.Moku