How do you all practice writing Kanji?

Thank you everyone for replying to my post! The things you have said have been really helpful!

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I use an (android) app called Japanese Kanji Study which tests on stroke order, which has really helped me. I also do handwritten homework for my classes so Iā€™m regularly using some that way. I know a lot of people think itā€™s unnecessary to learn to write kanji because of smartphones but it has definitely improved my memory for them.

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Just to answer this part specifically and emphasise something that auruille said - beyond writing, this issue will get a lot better if you have exposure to kanji outside of the WaniKani environment. If your grammar isnā€™t yet at a level where you can read anything then I wouldnā€™t worry about this too much; youā€™ll get practice when you get practice.

If you do think you can start to read, then Iā€™d take a look at getting some low-level graded readers or similar to give you a bit of exposure.

I might also recommend this font randomiser script, as it can help to reduce your dependence on the WaniKani font specifically.

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I watched a really interesting YouTube video relating to this recently! It was super informative and basically suggesting using Remembering the Kanji as a way to drill and practice writing kanji. Here it is if interested (he explains it with much more depth and eloquence while writing kanji in the background). Itā€™s a little anti WaniKani but WaniKani works the best for me so I donā€™t see the reason in stopping it if we all learn differently. Iā€™m gonna buy RTK at some point and continue using WaniKani as a supplement since you canā€™t practice writing with WK.

I second this, I love that it separates into the JLPT levels and it helped me a lot in my vocab sections when I took the tests.

Get this trash out of here.

Why do you think itā€™s trash? Genuine question and not looking to argue either.

What would stop you? Are the mnemonics in RTK that much different? I didnā€™t make it far before quitting.

Also thatā€™s not him writing the kanji. He does give credit in the description, but I think Iā€™ve seen multiple people think it was him. It kind of lends the impression that he used RTK to get super amazing at calligraphy.

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Itā€™s just an RTK ad made by someone who learnt from it and then refused to accept that there were better methods, like wanikani, and so started saying theyā€™re bad, even though WK is literally RTK but with more information.

Itā€™s not that Iā€™m saying RTK is bad, or that writing is bad (It can only help), or that WK is all there is, but I just think that video and the creature who made it are trashy.

I guess because itā€™s not physical or made with the intent of practising your handwriting? With Kanji practice books there are literal spaces for practising writing the kanji with a guided stroke order so I meant it in a very literal sense. But I didnā€™t mean you actually ā€˜canā€™tā€™. I should have phrased it as ā€˜you donā€™t practice writing with WaniKani activelyā€™ to be more precise. Oh and thanks for the clarification about the kanji writing in the background, thatā€™s a shame and makes the credibility of his video much lower.

@tzukishiro

I see! Thatā€™s fair enough. Itā€™s the first and only video Iā€™ve seen by them so Iā€™m not really familiar with the rest of their opinions or how much I agree with them. Though I did think the video I initially linked was pretty interesting is all.

rtk isnā€™t bad, writing what you learn with it is actually the intended way to do the book.

personally, i believe that just writing something like a diary, or random stuff, every day, will be more helpful. like, pick a couple words you just learned on wk, then try to use them, and write it all by hand.

mind you, thatā€™s what iā€™d do if i was handwritingā€¦ which i am not, or at least not yet. time is a real problem for me.

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Hi Ukaiji, fancy seeing you here :wink:
I think what everyone has said here is very useful, definitely going to give that KanjiBox app a try.
Personally I have a notebook that I write in at home. I also do a lot of doodling at work (especially in long boring meetings) I try to recall as many kanji as I can. I find that my biggest problem is that I canā€™t really see or visualize the kanji in my mind, so Iā€™m trying to think in kanji which is really hard.

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I donā€™t practise writing kanji at all. Considering that I basically never write anything by hand, even in English, I donā€™t see it as an effective use of my time.

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That video has just been debated to death a few times already. Recently even. Search on the forums if you are interested for lengthy discussions but thereā€™s not much to add to the discussion anymore.

Have you tried Kanji Study app (https://mindtwisted.com 5) for Android? I canā€™t stress enough how great this app is. Among other great features it teaches stroke order and it has kanji writing training and kanji writing quiz modes. It is possible (once the app is purchased) to create custom lists of kanji and go through them.
When I see kanji in WK I read mnemonics and immediately add this new kanji to the custom group in Kanji Study. Usually I have groups for each WK level and divide each group on 5-10 kanji. I drill handwriting (fingerwriting in that case, haha) during the day and then repeat a few days after.

It really helps in remembering.

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I write out the lessons at least once and whenever I get it wrong, I write it again and chant the mnemonic (true story) to try and reinforce it or imprint it in my memory somehow. I look up the stroke order online. Iā€™m not big on drills and writing it over and over again though cos then it becomes muscle memory and youā€™re not really focused on anything: kanji itself nor the meaning of it.

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Those are only the last 21 levels (excluding 42, seems that I lost it)

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I write 9 kanji per week = 5 lines per day in my notebook, following the stroke order of Jisho. Im doing it only with the kanjis that have poor connections in my brain, complex strokes and very similar kanji, like these ones: 微 and 従, all in wanikani order. Also, when a line is completed i search a unknown word with that kanji, write in the left side of the page and then add to Kamesame to study it.

My goal isnā€™t a good penmanship but fast writing and reinforce recognition of some kanji. Besides of muscle memory plus, after doing this you could write something cool for your friends :slight_smile:

Thereā€™s surely a better way for this, but i like carrying out my own method.

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Watched this video previously (video suggested by @Saimin). My thoughts are that I donā€™t think the video is fair in its critique against WK. Iā€™ve never used RtK so I canā€™t say for certain, but from how he describes it, it looks like it is what WK does exactly, more or less. One of his critiques is that WK doesnā€™t actively encourage you to write, but as @Leebo mentioned, whatā€™s stopping you? It sounds as though heā€™s saying that because WK helps ā€œhandholdā€ through some aspect of learning kanji (the mnemonics, SRS), heā€™s expecting WK to handhold you through everything else too (writing), and I donā€™t think thatā€™s fair. He also mentions costs, but the books themselves arenā€™t free either.

I did RTK prior WK, so in a sense it helps sometimes in remembering certain radicals and so on. However, I never did RTK with writing practice, just for the meanings and basic recognition, so I cannot really say whether RTK is better than anything else Iā€™ve tried.

There are apps that have some SRS combined with writing, but even after using several it felt like I was never able to write in real situations, since with apps you write on your phone with finger (at least in my case) and at least in my case I found that I need to get used to writing on paper and get the muscle memory.

So I set myself a goal (kanken) and am going through the exercise books for it. For every new kanji I check out all the ā€œrecommended wordsā€ in Kanji Study App and in the book, since I donā€™t have problems just with remembering how to write kanji, but I sometimes mistake where to use which kanji . Of these words I choose a couple that I will write repeatedly for the couple next days.

The practice books have also exercises and I have bought some exercise books that contain the exams from the past years, so I just practice and practice with those. The exercises force me not just to recognise a reading or how to write certain word, but to also recognize the context and choose appropriate word, so in a sense I am also doing vocab learning at the same time :smiley:

However, I would not recommend kanken study material for intermediate or below learners, since the material is made for natives.

I also got Shin Kanzen Master N2 Kanji -book from a friend and it is actually quite good practice to listen to a sentence from tape and try to write it by hand without any reference material.

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