I might look into it tbh.
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This is the way. (For me, at least.) I excel at knowing what I want to type, and typing what I want to type, but my fingers’ grasp on Japanese is tenuous. I figure if I don’t know it I don’t know it, but it lets me fix it if I know it but it got lost in translation somewhere around my elbows.
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@Mods
Hie guys!
Can you perhaps reopen my study thread? I’m kinda back… again… 
https://community.wanikani.com/t/adis-odessey-study-log-%F0%9F%90%A3/61957/75
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Welcome back again! I’ve reopened your study log now.
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Hi everyone.
I am really new to WK, and I have a question about learning new vocab. So, learning one word feels like really a lot of time because of the stuff in “Context” section. Usually there will be a lot of use cases and three context sentences, and reading them everytime is what makes things feel slower. So, what I am asking is: is reading all those things necessary? Because I don’t know any grammar and don’t understand context sentences at all without translation and hence I am not sure if reading them really does any good for my learning process, maybe I should just wait until I reach level 10? That’s when I will start learning grammar, for I am following Tofugu japanese guide.
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Learning vocab through context is easier than without.. unless it’s not! So feel free to skip complex example sentences, they won’t offer much value for you but probably a lot of frustration.
Alternative context suggestions: Use the word to write a really short and easy sentence. Grab yourself a list of your current words and go word hunting in the wild. for example: tadoku graded readers are free and come in very easy, but you could also look for those words in other media that you enjoy even if you don’t understand them yet. Maybe you can find your words while watching anime with subtitles in your native language?
But even if you don’t feel ready yet for context, that’s not a problem. You will get the context as soon as you start reading. Engaging with meaningful material makes learning easier, but it’s not like it’s impossible to learn without
Lots of ways to engage with your newly learned words, the context sentence are there to help you, but in the beginning they can be quite overpowering ^^
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Hello and welcome!
There is only one correct answer, and that is: whatever you think works best for you. I very rarely have looked at context sentences (I did have a userscript that had some audio context userscripts from media that I could play but I got away from that), and that’s been okay for me. Maybe it’ll be okay for you as well. Use your best judgement, and if it feels like no longer doing them ends up feeling like the wrong choice, feel free to change back!
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Hi and Welcome.
As Hrudley said, whatever works. If you are relatively new to Japanese, I wouldn’t bother right now. I tried the same strategy as you’re suggesting, waiting for level 10. However, although I’ve just taken a break from lessons at level 10, I still haven’t managed to do the context sentences in Japanese. I can’t read fast enough yet. Level 10 is just the start of reading practice for me. I read the English of the context sentences to confirm my feeling for the meaning of the word, but that’s it and it’s what I expect to do for the next ten levels.
I don’t think I’m worried about it. I’ll have another look at level 20, and I plan a much longer break at level 30, when I really should be proficient enough in reading (or taking the time out to get proficient). 1000+ kanji and 3000+ words in 18 months, along with basic grammar. Everything else is gravy. Slower than I would have originally liked, but avoiding burn out is a key goal too. Tortoise not hare.
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Thank you guys for your help and time. I decided that I won’t bother myself with sentences and use cases that much for now and hopefully will go through lessons faster. And return to them when I learn at least some grammar or will have some clue on how to google stuff I don’t understand. Or sooner, we’ll see 
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Hi, I am wondering if some more advanced learners have comment on this: what are your common patterns for thinking (in English) about the semantic relationship of kanji which, when displayed together, have a new meaning?
These examples make sense or feel very straightforward to me:
牛肉: cow + ‘s + meat, first kanji as adjective [[same situation with terms like 平気]]
兄弟: older brother + younger brother, a collection of nouns
These examples are ones I am struggling with:
外交: outside + mix + -ing, thinking of mix as a verb ?
名人: name + person, how to semantically link these to get “expert”, not the mnemonic way
古来: old + ‘s + come + -ing, ?to get to “from old times”
〜年来: amount + year + come, ?to get to “for some years” (I’m not actually so familiar with this phrase in English. I think in English it would be reference to an unspecified amount of time, but in the context examples on WK the amount of time is always specific such as thirty or fifty years.)
Thank you for taking the time to answer. I’m sorry if my question is unclear, please let me know and I can try to improve it. Thanks.
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Rather than only have one or two concept / aspects by kanji… add more.
Personally I now put all the concept exposed in https://jisho.org for each kanji.
Going through your example 名人.
名 - Jisho.org (name, noted, distinguished, reputation)
人 - Jisho.org (person)
Suddenly 名(distinguished, reputation) + 人(person) = 名人(master; expert) makes sense
Another for the road… 古来.
古 - Jisho.org (old)
来 - Jisho.org (come, due, next, cause, become)
古(old) + 来(come, cause (both can have the ‘from’ aspect)) => (from old) => “from old times”
An added bonus is that it’ll help you distinguish between a large amount of kanji that have the same meaning on WK.
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Hi Yandros, thanks for replying. I am already using jisho and wiktionary for reference to get a better handle of the ideograms’ meanings. I am rather looking for models of understanding the relationship between the kanji that appear together.
This, especially because, “distinguished person” does not lead to “master” in my mind. “Master” has links with “skill”, “talent”, “practice”, “teaching”, but not fame/status. Does that make sense? And I first learned 名 as “name” so this continues to be the strongest association.
Rather, your example looks like this to me: 名人, distinguished (adj) + person (noun).
So one version of the question I’m asking myself would be “How often do I read 名 acting like a noun in some pair of kanji, and how often as an adjective? Which tends to come up more?” and I am thinking about this broadly for the kanji pairs I’m encountering.
See in the 古来 example you switch the word order to get the ‘correct’ meaning? I’m then wondering if this is also a common occurrence that I’ll need to consider. Like when I’m finding kanji in the wild I should think “let me try reversing the order of the ideas those kanji represent (A,B → B,A) and see if that gives me a more sensible meaning.” And when do I know to do that? These are the lines I’m thinking along.
Thanks
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I’m not sure if your way of putting it makes sense to be honest. The way I see it is that we are at a highly symbolical level. Seeing jukuko as the intersection of the concepts present in their kanji component is already far enough.
I don’t think that adding other considerations like the word nature (adj., noun etc), order etc will help you derive meaning in any sensible way. It feels like you’re trying to force an English framework onto the Japanese.
Disclaimer: none of the above is an “advanced” learner opinion, just my gut feeling. I have no experience in linguistics or anything related.
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Ah, that’s dissapointing. I think it may be good for your learning to note that grammar isn’t an English framework. I will keep looking for understanding on this topic.
All the best
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Unfortunately, in the beginning you’ll just have to find something that works for you. I am more advanced (N2) but when it came to learning the kanji pairs, I just brute forced some of the memorization or I had already learned the word before. I think when it comes to this question in particular…
The only way to figure this out is by encountering more kanji with the 名 kanji. A common example is 有名 which means “famous” aka have + name. I learned this word my first year of university Japanese, so I didn’t have to put the kanjis together to make it make sense, and with some kanji later, trying to find connections between them can be extremely difficult like
人参 which is person + participate = carrot. There are some kanji that are just used for their sounds alone.
To answer your other question about switching the kanji around to understand them better…
Most of the time, you’ll make a new/different word with very nuanced or slight differences. The one I think of is 栄光 and 光栄 which are “glory” and “honor” respectively. In English, while these meanings are close, there is a difference between them.
In the end, just learning more, especially in the context of reading online or books or whatever interests you, will help you learn more vocabulary and become more familiar with trying to anticipate what words mean what, but be prepared for some of them to be just brute memorization as well.
I recommend checking out the Absolute Beginner Book Club here in the forums to try reading something with many people here using wanikani. It’s a very kind and helpful place, and will get your immersion started quickly. Absolute Beginners Book Club // Now Reading: A Sign of Affection // Reading Next: My Love Story!
Good luck!
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It’s kind of more a Japanese way of looking at it, but during study for Kanken (kanji test) they test for your ability to identify this kind of relationship between kanji in jukugo formation. I’m no expert but this kind of framework has been making me think about jukugo formation more.
Probably incomplete, there are exceptions, but general types of 2-character jukugo you can find here (japanese website unfortunately) 熟語の構成| 小学生の国語質問ひろば | 進研ゼミ小学講座
To summarise:
- 2 opposite characters (e.g. 上下, 左右, up-down, left-right)
- 2 characters with similar meanings (e.g. 身体, body-body)
- First character describes in more detail the second character (e.g. 牛肉 like you said, cow-meat)
- First character describes an action, second character describes the thing acted upon (e.g. 登山, climbing - (a) mountain, kind of swapped from the English noun you’d expect)
- First character acts as subject, second character acts as predicate/action (e.g. 市立, city-operated)
Actually working out which categorisation a word fits into is the hard part, which I’m personally not so good at. But this kind of framework generally describes most of the jukugo you’ll find, and if there’s a word you’re struggling to kind of find meaning behind the Japanese origin, this can help.
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Fun fact, you can say “mountain-climbing” in Japanese too, but it’s a kun-yomi word (and thus a little less formal): 山登り
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@Malinkal @superelf94 Thank you for these thoughtful replies, especially Malinkal(!), you answered my question exactly. I knew there must be something like this. Great resource.
I’ll take another look at the book club as well. I’m not an anime/manga fan so I have been avoiding those threads, but I should be more open-minded when it comes to learning.
Thank you for the truly helpful responses
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That’s totally cool too! I think there are some past threads that aren’t anime or manga related. While manga can be easier to read since actions are mostly drawn instead of written out, there are some light novels or easier actual short stories that have been read as well. There is a category for book clubs and each book should have a home thread to look through if you find something that looks interesting to you. While the thread might not be as active as it was, you can still look through the past comments and discussions which can help you understand as you read along. Plus the book walker thread has discounts going on as well for all kinds of books. Good luck in your reading journey 
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Hello, everyone!
I’m a little bit concerned. I’m a bit of a newbie, only at Level 2 right now, and I’m starting to worry about my progress. While I can mostly read kana, I still misread them quite a lot, and get them mixed up. Likewise, I feel like I’m struggling to keep all the kanji stuff (radical name, kanji name, vocab reading) all in the correct places and mixing them up too. Is this normal for my level? I try and tackle reviews as often as I can, but how often should I also be reviewing my kana? I try and read whatever kana I see around (which isn’t much, I must admit), but I’d be far too slow to keep up with karaoke or something, and more elaborate fonts and logos still trip me up.
At what point should I be trying to learn grammar and practicing speech recognition too? I can occasionally pick out words and phrases I recognise (mostly in music and anime), but hearing normal conversation still leaves me somewhat clueless.
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