This is my setup for learning and practising writing kanji.
Note that I’m not (yet) interested in writing kanji from a calligraphy perspective. I do it because I think reinforces memory by approaching kanji from multiple angles (reading and writing).
I’m on WaniKani level 3. I’ve started using KaniWani alongside it.
KaniWani makes you practise converting an English word back to kanji, but I noticed that I wasn’t truly recalling the kanji from memory. In fact, I was typing out the hiragana as I could hear them in my head (either as roumaji or from a 12 key hiragana keyboard) and then picking the kanji from a drop down list.
So I’ve started using my phone’s handwriting keyboard (Android GBoard in my case) to draw in the kanji (and kana) directly with my finger. This works quite well, although it occasionally mistakes ー (long vowel) for 一 (“one”) so I have to watch out for that.
The handwriting keyboard is quite forgiving with stroke order, but I still want to build good habits from the start, so I’m using an Android app called Kanji Study to learn and practice the stroke order. As I unlock new levels in WaniKani, I copy the lists of newly unlocked radicals and kanji into “custom sets” in Kanji Study, which I can then practise. Custom sets are a paid upgrade but I think that’s the only way to practise the kanji in the WaniKani order.
This is all working well for me so far. It’s exercising true recall, it’s engaging, and it’s fun to draw (instead of type) kanji into my phone.
The next step might be to use a tablet and stylus instead of my finger, and maybe practice on paper one day.
I already use a genkouyoushi notebook for practising kana with a pen. I think this helped a lot with memorising the kana in the early stages.
I also do a lot of writing practice (but on paper myself). It’s definitely improved my ability to recognize and distinguish kanji, but it’s a big time commitment if you want to do it systematically on top of all your other studies.
This is actually also how many natives do it. The so-called character amnesia. There’s an interesting counterpart to it however:
The number of characters available for use on a word processor far exceeds the number of characters a person can readily remember how to write by hand. While many have blamed the use of input methods for difficulty remembering how to write the characters by hand, widespread use of input methods may be responsible for a reversal in the decline of kanji use in Japan.
Ahh thank you for putting a name to that phenomenon
This is a good point, I need to consider whether I can sustain the additional effort over time. I’m only on level 3 and probably still in the “honeymoon phase” of my kanji journey. I can feel the tendency towards taking on additional load because I’m excited and having fun.
From what I can see, the kanji get more complicated as you advance through the levels, and while drawing feels like fun now, it might become a chore later.
Even if I did get to the end of level 60 having learned how to both read and write all the kanji in WaniKani, unless I have some need to continue writing after that, I’ll go back to typing and get “character amnesia” just like most natives.
However, if I treat writing practice as just a reinforcement for learning to recognise and read kanji, then I can use it as a means to an end.
Anyway, I’ll see how my writing practice holds up over the coming levels.
This is fascinating. And it makes sense. If you heard a new word in conversation, you might not know there was a kanji for it until you typed it in phonetically and then saw the option pop up. The input method becomes a learning tool!
Also, interesting to think that at some time in computing history (before unicode?) the Japanese would have had no option but to use ASCII, which would mean roumaji. And I guess they would have also developed other interim solutions before the convergence on unicode standards.
Actually I only started my drawing practice around level 15, specifically because at that point I started confusing similar-looking kanji too much and that definitely helped with that.
But kanji complexity and drawing difficulty don’t really correlate in my experience. 鬱 is the most complex kanji on wanikani by stroke count but I don’t find it particularly difficult to remember and draw.
Usually what I find the most difficult is remembering kanji that have a very “unique” shape instead of using common components. Kanji like 覇 or 糧 are pretty busy visually, but if you break them apart it’s all common stuff like 月, 旦, 里, 米… that you find in many other kanji and therefore you’ll know how to write effortlessly soon enough.
On the other hand a kanji like 演 gives me a lot more trouble despite not being particularly scary at a glance. That right-hand side component is unique and resembles other similar-but-not-quite-identical components like the right side of 横.
I see you’ve completed level 60 (I just noticed it’s in our avatars!). Are you able to recall and write all of the (2000?) kanji you’ve learned from WaniKani? Have you felt at all like you might be approaching the “number of characters a person can readily remember how to write by hand”?
I’m wondering how feasible it is to continue writing practice throughout all 60 levels.
Oh there were many steps before unicode! Actually to this day I think Shift-JIS is still rather popular in Japan (partly because it’s denser than UTF-8 for pure Japanese text I think, and also probably for historical reasons).
Unicode only became really widespread with the internet boom in the early 2000, before that it was the dark ages. Being French I know it was a complete mess just dealing with the few special non-ASCII characters that we have (éúêç etc…) and it would require constant attention when you did any sort of programmatic text handling. If your script was completely non-latin it was even more of a mess. Russians for instance developed a Cyrillic charset that would still be somewhat readable as ASCII if opened on a system that couldn’t display Russian characters by ordering the letters very unusually, it’s pretty smart.
Here are the Anki stats for my Kanji drawing practice deck:
You can see that it estimates “92%” retrievability (I average 80 to 90% accuracy in my daily reviews).
It does take me a while and sometimes some trial-and-error before I manage to draw a given kanji however. I certainly cannot draw 90% of these 2000+ kanji effortlessly first try. In my anki deck I display the stroke count, associated vocab and (hidden by default) the radical to help me if I’m stuck:
I also think that at this point it would be better if I wrote words instead of individual kanji since that’s what how you would write Japanese in practice, but I’m not sure how to proceed with this. Maybe I should try journaling in Japanese or something like that, but I’m not good enough at Japanese in general to really do that comfortably.
Maybe having vocabulary on the cards is a good idea … I currently just have the readings and defenitions on the front and a diagram on the back for my handwriting practice Anki cards.
I try to remember the reading at the same time for bonus practice, that’s why I don’t have them at the front. Instead I use the vocab to help distinguish between the many similar kanji. I also maintain a list of kanji with similar meaning (you can see it in the “Related kanji” for 福 in my screenshot above).
Daily journalling seems like it would be a great way to practice writing kanji in context.
Interesting that you say you’re not good enough at Japanese to do this though. What skills would you work on to improve this?
I assume that after level 60 your vocabulary is very good, so I’m guessing you might want to improve your grammar? Or perhaps more practice in converting thoughts and memories into Japanese sentences?
I guess it also depends on what you want to journal about. Writing about the things you ate and the tasks you completed in the day would be a good start, but writing on complex or abstract topics would be something else.
Also, can I ask how you feel about your reading at this stage, as compared to your writing, in this regard? For example, could you comfortably read someone else’s journal or blog?
It’s mainly that I have nearly zero practice actually producing the language, I’ve effectively only been reading Japanese so far (and to a lesser extent, listening to it). It’s one thing to recognize the words and grammar when other people use them, it’s an other to use them myself correctly and intuitively.
I mean, link me something and I’ll tell you.
I’m still progressing pretty fast month-to-month, it’s quite motivating. I still look things up all the time, although often I can guess the meaning of unknown words from context.
At this point I feel like I can read any basic or intermediate Japanese text with some effort and the regular help of a dictionary.
That’s what I find, too, except for the few where it’s super-hard to MAKE it do the correct one. (I remember having a hard time with 直 for example).
Really though, I was finding that using my finger on a touch screen was not doing anything for my atrocious handwriting. Same as you, I’m not in this for the calligraphy by any means. But if I’m doing it, might as well use the practice to have not-embarrassing chicken-scratch.
I picked up a bunch of grid-lined notebooks from the 100-yen store, some with big fat one-inch squares and some smaller, and I just write with a pen in those. For me, it’s the perfect balance of getting real practice, but not having the hassle of loose sheets of paper, needing a flat surface, etc. That way I can practice not only individual characters, but also proportion, position, etc. relative to the others in a line of writing.
oh and if I remember right, there are two that look like 市 that aren’t the same thing. One the ‘lid’ touches the ‘towel’, and the other doesn’t. but the difference is so small I’m just guessing on my phone, and guess wrong half the time. It’s maddening.
I don’t do it with kaniwani any more though because the synonym problem was driving me nuts. I usually write out my bunpro answers by copying the complete sentence into my notebook in handwriting and (when I first learn them) by going to the ‘levels’ page in wanikani and just copying them. Copying isn’t much of a production test, but if you want that, the vocabulary list is column format so you can cover the left-hand side of the screen and try to remember the kanji.
That’s brilliant. Maybe today I’ll combine all our ideas and make myself a handwriting practice Anki deck. Your format, @simias idea to just do vocab, not kanji, and my writing-in-a-notebook style testing.
I don’t know if I’ll keep it up though, depends how much of a PITA making the cards is. I know myself too well; too much ‘preparation’ means I won’t really do it.
One lighter approach that I used to do when I was SRSing Russian was to write down every vocab review that I failed. That gives you some writing practice on top of forcing you to focus on the words you struggle with.
I have a WIP project I’m working on called KanjiStad where you are presented with a vocab with a missing kanji which you then have to draw. No SRS though (I use this to supplement Anki), just figured I’d note in case anyone is interested.
Example screenshot below, you have to draw the kanji which is supposed to be in place of the ︎ (in this case 災)
That’s a really useful deck! One question though, if you get the stroke order wrong, do you consider that card as passed or not?
(Also, fyi, that card order problem where everything starts at level 4 is still happening.)
I’ve decided (for me) that if I get the stroke order wrong, then I scold myself, write it a few more times correctly, and mark it as ‘hard’, not ‘good’. As long as it does look right.
… I currently just have the readings and defenitions on the front and a diagram on the back for my handwriting practice Anki cards.
︎ (in this case 災)
