Can't write/recall Kanji

Hi,
I am currently struggling with Kanji in the sense that I can read one if I see it but if I try to write it down from memory I can’t recall it. Does anyone else have this problem? Since there is no stroke order on WaniKani, I also have no idea how to write many of the Kanji I use correctly. Is there anything I can do to help me recall Kanji better? And any service/website I can use to get me learning stroke order? Thank you to anyone who replies :heartpulse::cupid::heartbeat:!!

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As for stroke order, you’re far better off learning the general principles that govern stroke order, rather than trying to memorize stroke order diagrams. Tofugu actually has an article about it. Then you can go about memorizing exceptions to those guidelines.

The only cure for not being able to remember how to write kanji is to write them and quiz yourself on them.

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Yeah, WaniKani pretty much only teaches you reading. Part of the reason for this is the increasing prevalence of writing digitally these days - any kanji you can read, you can write on a computer just as easily.

If you learn the rules that Leebo posted, you can write pretty much anything. If you want to know how to write a specific kanji, jisho.org has stroke order diagrams and animations for all but the rarest of kanji.

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Yeah. Being able to recognize is different from being able to recall. On here you’re training your skill of recognition. Writing the kanji out is a good idea, and you can use jisho for stroke order.

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Thank you :heartpulse:!

Stroke order will eventually become pretty natural after a while, and the more kanji you write, the less you’ll need to check stroke order diagrams.

This.

Wanikani teaches you to recognize. It does nothing for recall. KaniWani (a 3rd party site developed to aid learning on WaniKani) will teach you to recall kanji (hence why the name is backwards), but if you want to be able to write out kanji unaided, the best advice I can give is to practice writing them and to try and learn kanji by radicals rather than just rough appearance. This is something you should be doing anyway, since levels 11+ will become hell with more complex kanji if you don’t.

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Thank you :heartbeat:!

Thank you :cupid: I will start doing that

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This. As with most of the apparently weird freaky stuff with Japanese, once you get some under your belt, you start to get how it works, and you’ll be able to intuit how it works for kanji you haven’t encountered before.

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There are two scripts to display stroke order in WaniKani:

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Popped in to mention the above two userscripts, I use them too!

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I recommend learning stroke order rules and downloading a stroke order diagram script (as suggested above), but also using Kaniwani to quiz yourself on recall. So try to write down the kanji for the words before you type them in and then see if you got them right. Studying is good, but quizzing yourself is how you’ll really remember it. :wink:

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I use an iPhone app to learn writing - there are a few that will test you using handwriting recognition to check your stroke order. I’m currently using Japanese My Way (JMW) but there are others.

If you want to do it on your phone or tablet you could use kaniwani with google handwriting to practice writing the vocab. I don’t like using kaniwani except for wanikani burned items though

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In this regard, WK is an interesting study in how the brain separates reading and writing skills. Also there are some who use wanikani that keep a notebook handy to practice writing kanji while going through reviews, because SRS doesn’t just work for reading after all.

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Learn the strokeorder and try it with some kanjis. Or once a week try to write all kanjis you’ve learned.

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If you have an Android phone, I use an app called Kanji Study App. It has a practice writing mode, and my recall for Kanji I practice on there has gone WAY up. N5 kanji are free, but it has a nominal cost to proceed from there.

It’s also worth evaluating how important it is for you to be able to write kanji by hand. It seems to be a trend that even native Japanese speakers are succumbing to kanji amnesia because after high school they rarely have to write by hand. Recognition is often enough, and as mentioned earlier here, if you know how to produce the word verbally and recognize it when written, you can write it on a phone or computer.

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Here’s a great anki deck to help memorize all of the kanji’s

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