Hey all - hope u all had a merry Christmas. Ok so a very very basic question which I expect will elicit some eye-rolling I’m literally just starting Japanese and am on level 2. It’s fun so far but v v complex too
So: why is it important to learn kanji names when these differ from vocabulary? Why not just learn one thing - the vocab? So when I look at the ‘strength’ kanji, why not just learn chi-ca-ra, rather than trying to also remember ry-oh-ku or ri-ki (did I imagine a ka in there somewhere as well)?
I guess I’m just wondering when I would realistically use these other meanings in conversation or even writing? Isn’t this just over complicating an already massively complex situation?
You meant readings, right? Otherwise i can’t make sense of what you’re asking. Back to your question, those are readings too, in compound words for example, you wouldn’t see this kanji being read as “chikara”, it would most likely be read as “ryoku” or “riki” for that matter, depends on the word.
The idea is that these kanji are used in other words and if you know these meanings and readings in isolation it makes it easier to guess and remember the meaning of compound words.
For instance if you look at a word like 有力 and you know that 有 is pronounced ゆう and means “to have” and 力 is (often) pronounced りょく and means power, you can guess that the word is pronounced ゆうりょく and the meaning is “having power” which in this case means “influential” or “powerful”.
Now of course you may also guess ゆうりき in this case which isn’t correct. りょく is more common overall so it’s probably a safer guess in general[1].
to get technical, りき is an older reading called 呉音(ごおん) while りょく is the more recent and widespread 漢音(かんおん) ↩︎
It is also a reasonable approach to say “don’t bother learning individual kanji readings, just learn vocabulary” – over time you’ll pick up that e.g. 力 in compounds is often りょくanyway. But it’s not the approach WK has chosen. WK as a design has strong preferences and minimal configuration, so you have to either go with its flow or else go use something else instead.
Kanji readings are just the ways those kanji can be read in different words, vocabulary readings are more self-explanatory, you have a word and it is the reading of it. I assume your confusion comes from a different source. Kanji by themselves aren’t words, tho ofc there can be words that consist of just 1 kanji and nothing else, like 力 （chikara), for example.
No, they are more like pictograms for concepts, i’d say. Kanji are more like building blocks, from which you build words, and again, ofc, there can be words that have only 1 such building block, i.e. consist of 1 kanji.
Onyomi vs. Kunyomi: What's the Difference? I recommend reading this to get a picture of why there’s multiple readings to a kanji, and where each one is generally used. That way you can better understand why WK is teaching you one reading on the kanji level, and a different one in the vocabulary level.
Sometimes they are, as in 力(ちから) alone but often you need to assemble multiple kanji to build a word like 有力 or 能力.
You can think of it like “take” and “under” are words in English while “undertake” is a different word that is built from these elements.
What makes this tricky in Japanese is that often the reading of the kanji will be completely different when used alone (kunyomi) and in compounds (onyomi).
As for typing Japanese here you’ll need to set up a Japanese IME on your device. The way to do that will vary a lot depending on your platform.
Most of them are not pictograms at all. The most common type of kanji has a part that gives a general area of meaning (e.g. the fish radical is usually present on various fish kanji, kanji for the sea, for washing, and so on have the water radical) and a part that is a pronunciation hint (unfortunately a hint for pronunciation in ancient Chinese, but often still at least somewhat useful in modern Japanese). The straightforward “the kanji for tree is a picture of a tree” pictograms are more frequent in the very simple kanji you learn first, but overall about 90% are these “rough area of meaning plus pronunciation hint” type.
You’ll need to install a Japanese keyboard, I’m not familiar with IOS so you’re best looking online for some advice (or someone else might be able to help here)
I’m literally just starting Japanese and am on level 2. It’s fun so far but v v complex too
