I have started Kanji learning just almost 2 week back using WaniKani.
Its going good and review system of Wanikani is too great.
I love it.
one point I noticed, when I am seeing a kanji I am able to get the meaning of it or the pronounciation of it, for which I am very happy with the results.
but if I myself try to do the opposite,
like I have the “Pronunciation” and I have to think which Kanji it was, then I am having difficulties.
one of the reason might be that my mind do not have mappings in reverse direction.
it’s able to map Kanji to Sound but not Sound to Kanji.
I know there are extremely talented and hardworking people present in this community.
so I would love to get some guidance about how to make my brain retrieve the Kanji (or to start with at-least the meaning) just by listening the “Pronunciation”.
(i.e should I start writing any new word I encounter in a diary or notebook along with it’s pronunciation and practice manually as Wanikani do not provide the reverse practice?)
You can use kaniwani or kamesame . In kaniwani - It looks at your WaniKani “Guru” level items and tests you in reverse (it gives you the English meaning/reading, and you have to type the Japanese). In kamesame - Similar to KaniWani but often includes features for practicing production and vocabulary in a more flexible way.
And try to read graded readers or NHK web easy if you can as that will help with recall ( we learn to recognise in wanikani ) as it hard to recall than recognise at first but as you get used to it you will start picking up kanji’s and recall them quickly ……
For the listening part you have to listen to japanese more and it is (in my opinion) 10x more hard to recall or recognise words from listening as our brain kinda ignores things it doesn’t understand as white noise so try to listen to beginner podcasts or watch anime , japanese songs or whatever is that you like……
I do some ringotan for writing practice, it’s not perfect for the sound → kanji recall, but being able to write the kanji is the first step.
I still have many words where I think “hmm it could be that or that kanji here.”
Though, if you don’t have to handwrite japanese often it is really not that important of a skill. Recognizing the reading of kanji is much more important.
Kanji prep books for japanese kids according to class level are also a great resource. They often present you a text with some kana-word underlined and ask you to write it with Kanji.
Generally I think you have to write sentences yourself for it to get better. Preferably with pencil and paper for it to stick. Afaik, even in Japan the skill to write words from memory with kanji is deteriorating slightly since most people use smartphones to look it up by recognition nowadays.
It IS a lot harder to go from hearing it spoken to visualizing the kanji - it’s a different ability and it’s harder to practice.
The problem you’re going to run into trying to practice it is the homonym/synonym problem. A lot of words sound alike. You really have to hear a whole sentence for the context.
I use SSQ and it can test J-E, E-J, and audio quiz (what you want). It can test by Levels, Item Type (Radicals, Kanji, Vocabulary), and SRS levels; as well as various combinations of these.
Item Inspector can do a WHOLE LOT more, but it can do the above as well.
!
And try to read graded readers or NHK web easy if you can as that will help with recall ( we learn to recognise in wanikani ) as it hard to recall than recognise at first but as you get used to it you will start picking up kanji’s and recall them quickly ……
For the listening part you have to listen to japanese more and it is (in my opinion) 10x more hard to recall or recognise words from listening as our brain kinda ignores things it doesn’t understand as white noise so try to listen to beginner podcasts or watch anime , japanese songs or whatever is that you like……