the first few lessons, and like the first 3 kanji were a breeze.
next set came out, and i no longer find it remotely easy to remember the kanji readings. i remember the meanings just fine, but the readings are a whole nother story.
i feel like the site has failed me somehow. for starters, no audio is played for these kanji. i can’t even find a button to play the sound. i can for kanji that is not the main lesson, but not for the ones in the lessons. so i don’t even know if i’m pronouncing it right, nor do i hear a sound to even remember it by.
second, i feel like alot of things visually on the page are making this hard. when i look at the kanji Ten, and see the english translation “ten” directly under it, i end up remembering the translation rather than the sound. i have to look left to see the sound, and i feel like somehow this is messing with my ability to remember the reading. i wish i could either completely remove “ten” from the screen so that it’s not distracting me, or replace the english meaning with a hiragana reading. kinda like furigana. either way, i’m suddenly not having anywhere close to an easy time remembering so much as one reading, where just yesterday i remembered the reading of the first 3 kanji i was taught very easily.
maybe they put less effort into their mnemonics after that? i don’t know, either way, i feel like the lack of sound and then seeing the meaning instead of the reading front and center is not helping.
so to recap, i’m having a hard time remembering the hiragana for the kanji/AKA the reading. I remember the meaning without issue.
The audio is only played for the vocabulary
If you want audio for the kanji, I would suggest asking on Hinative.com or Forvo.com
In my opinion, it’s not that important to know whether or not you’re pronouncing kanji right. If you know the meaning, and can spell it out in hiragana, that’s all that matters. After all, kanji aren’t words, so you won’t be saying them. (The pronunciation of the kanji will change depending on the word anyway)
My suggestion for memorizing the reading is just repetition. Go through the lessons on the screen, and memorize the English meaning. After that, go through them again and memorize the Japanese reading. That way you’re not trying to memorize two things at once and you’re learning both
(I also use quizlet.com and study the kanji before the lessons pop up, so I can see both the reading and meaning at the same time)
Hey that’s good feeback, and I don’t want to downplay it. The way you feel is the way you feel and nobody can tell you it’s not.
With that said, not being able to remember at first is normal and ok. It’s part of it. That’s what filters out the easy ones so you can focus your repetition on the hard ones. After a lot of repetition, you’ll start remembering. Give it a go for a while and see what you think.
Kanji don’t have pronunciations for there to be recordings for. The readings are given in hiragana, but an audio recording wouldn’t contain any additional information, unlike a recording for a word, which contains pitch accent information.
You could use browser add ons like Stylish to define css to hide the meaning, or create a user script if you want some features like hiding/unhiding during the lessons.
You could also move the reading around with a script.
If you don’t mind using user scripts, there is one that will hide the meaning during lessons at first.
You can also customize that script to only hide the meaning for kanji (and not vocab) if you prefer. For example, here’s my edited version that only hides for vocab. You can probably replace vocabulary everywhere with kanji to get that effect.
I’d say most of us find it a little more difficult to memorise (and then to recall) the reading rather than the meaning of the kanji. You’re not alone! It’s understandable as the sounds of the Japanese language are very different from those in the English language; it takes some practice to get used to them.
I would suggest really taking your time with the reading mnemonics - they’re your best friends when trying to memorise something as abstract as a random sound. Some of the mnemonics are pretty wacky but the more ridiculous you find them, the easier it will be for you to remember them. Channel that rage and disbelief!
Finally, forgive me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you might want to do some more hiragana practice outside of Wanikani. Deciphering (and consequently memorising) the reading of the kanji becomes a lot less painful when you don’t stumble on a foreign script that is supposed be your crutch. Have you tried realkana? Also, you can refer to this Tofugu article for the correct pronunciation of each kana.
Good luck, and hang in there - there is a bit of a learning curve to all this, but it does get easier with practice
i’ve memed the symbols and sounds of hiragana, but i don’t know any words or vocab to go with the hiragana. essentially i can can sound out hiragana but have no clue the meaning of what i’m sounding out.
this is why you should continue here.
hiragana & katakana are 100% phonetic.
they are used to tell you how to pronounce kanji words (there’s a bit more to how they’re used, but when you look up words in the dictionary, they write them in hiragana & katakana to tell you how to say them)
The hiragana themselves have no meaning. That’s like asking what the “c” in Candy means. It’s quite literally just a sound.
It would also be difficult to give a sound recording for the letter C, as it makes multiple different sounds. It can sound like a K, like an S, or it can be silent. And many kanji have far more than just 3 pronunciations, which is why recordings are only provided when the kanji are in the context of a word.
That’s great! Can I ask if you’ve begun any grammar study? Wanikani will only teach you kanji (plus some vocab as a side-effect, but it’s not really beginner-friendly vocab for the most part). I’m not sure if most people will agree with me, but I’d say kanji is not the most pressing part of the Japanese language study for the absolute beginner.
If you haven’t already, I’d suggest you start learning some basic phrases and expressions so that you can practice sounding out real Japanese rather than just disconnected kana.
Personally, I began by learning some basic vocab & phrases while completely ignoring the associated kanji (i.e. I only learnt the hiragana and the meaning), keeping in mind that I will learn the kanji eventually on Wanikani. I literally went through the Genki textbook without spending a second on the kanji lessons because I knew I’d learn them on WK later on anyway.
The best mnemonics are your own mnemonics. If you spend some time trying to create one for yourself you’re more likely to recall it. But personally, I have an easier time using the vocab to remember the kanji readings than the intended using the kanji to remember the vocab.
For example, I can’t remember 名 is めい just like that. From reading about Shogi on Wikipedia I know the champion is called the Meijin, written 名人. Now it’s fairly easy. If you want a list of vocab for your kanji, you can copy-paste your kanji in an online dictionary like Jisho.org, and see if anything seems familiar from anime or whatever.
If you have trouble with numbers though, you won’t get much useful vocab there as they’re usually other numbers anyway. You could try counting from 1 to 99 in your head instead. You only need the numbers 1 to 10 for that, and how to combine them to create the larger numbers.
Don’t think this has been mentioned yet, but I do think it’s important to note: have patience.
You’re learning, not only an entirely different language, but an entirely new writing system on top of that. There are going to be struggles, difficulties, frustrations, and the like, and that’s going to continue even after level 60. The thing to hold on to is the enjoyment and your reasons for learning the language. Take your time, don’t feel rushed, and try to have some fun with it.
You might understand very little now, but each new thing learned is another new thing, and that’s fantastic! Be sure to celebrate even the smallest of victories. Just imagine where you’ll be in a month, a year, or five years from now
Out of curiosity, how is your hiragana reading level? The kana pretty much always make the same sounds with some variation only in words/sentences. You can review these with youtube videos. If you’re having a hard time turning your hiragana reading into sounds, you might need more time with that before advancing through kanji. In college, we didn’t even bother with kanji until about halfway through second semester and were grilled with kana early. I can’t count how many times I had to listen to a recording of a native speaker going “a i u e o ka ki ku ke ko sa shi su se so…”
I mean, I’d say that what you need in order to start reading IS basic vocab (and some basic grammar) under your belt. Most beginner-friendly resources use furigana, so not knowing kanji is probably not that big of a hindrance if your goal is to start reading as soon as possible.
If you’re interested, there’s a group of WK users (myself included) who will soon start reading an easy children’s book together. It has furigana, so not knowing many kanji shouldn’t be an issue. It might be a good way to acquire some basic vocabulary in a fun, engaging way.
