Kun'yomi vs On'yomi When Speaking Japanese

[jneapan]

Gonna repost something I wrote about this a few days ago:

大 Kanji and Vocab

This does not apply only to 大, but my approach when I learn a word is to associate its meaning with the sounds of the pronunciation, not the kanji themselves, and it works great. I know the word だいじ means “important”, I know the word たいかい means “tournament”. When I hear them I recognize them like that. When I see the kanji, I use that as a shortcut to get to the word that’s already memorized as kana in my head. So if I see 大会, I try the different readings in my head first and see if I find a mat…