I saw a video saying there is a theory of the importance of writing with a pencil while studying, because the brain doesn’t know the difference among letters on the keyboard. It is said that the brain can memorize better while writing because it can recognize the difference of the letters while writing by hand. So I am using ipad. I split the screen in two and the i use the pen to write the lessons.
I want you to know that is not about the speed. I’m not studying every each kanji. Sometimes I do the review normally but writing with the iPencil. So, it is almost fast as on keyboard. But i write hiragana and english. Now I practice two languages, since Im Brazilian.
Also, I’m not worrying about the beauty of the letters because is so hard to write on the iPad. I know I can do better on paper.
Interesting - I will have to check it out - I am only an occasional iPad user - for example, I didn’t know about the Notes ‘squared sheet’ background.
My 2015-vintage iPad Pro just gave up the ghost, and I replaced it the other week with a new 11-inch M4 iPad Pro - but have not yet done much with it yet other than setting up some accounts and apps.
I’m also a bit unsure as to how you are splitting the screen and what you are using to capture the pen input. I just bought an Apple Pencil Pro to go with the iPad but haven’t taken it out of the box yet, so I will have to do a bit of hands-on learning.
So, if you don’t mind adding a little more detail, I’d find that helpful…
AND sometimes doing too much slows down the learning. What is the goal? To read Japanese, to speak Japanese, to write Japanese? Whatever the goal is, you should practice that specific skill. For reading novels this would be overkill, I have been able to learn to read 新しい with much less effort. If I wanted to learn to write notes in Japanese this could be useful. So I always say let the goal direct your practice otherwise you might be wasting time building unneeded skills, or skills that aren’t useful at this stage.
I’m not saying it doesn’t help, but does it help enough to warrant the time it takes.
Please take with a pinch of salt what I am going to tell you because every one has a different experience during their language learning journey, so it’s useful to listen others but at the end it’s what works for you that matters.
Although I agree on what you say about writing reenforcing memorization (and this is true not only in language learning but basically in any kind of learning in general), when I first started studying kanji I used to write every single new kanji, but this slowed me down enormously. It was fun at the beginning but after 6 months I gave up because I was not going anywhere and started feeling more and more frustrated.
I’m not saying that you should not learn how to write if this is what makes you happy when learning Japanese, what I’m saying is that you should monitor your progresses to be sure that the writing part is not slowing down too much your study.
I’m gonna go against the grain with the naysayers and add that this is what I did but with pen and paper, and I got to the point where I could read light novels and manga without furigana in a year of studying. While also taking the time to do extra writing practice with kanji I got wrong up during reviews. Writing practice for characters can help tremendously, and helps with reading other fonts and people’s handwritings much faster than just constantly looking at digital fonts over and over, since you’ll see the characters in all kinds of shapes during the course of it. Font recognition tends to be one of the biggest issues learners have because they skip this.
Lesson and review time became a little bit longer, but it drastically sped up how many cycles of the same characters I was going through because my retention skyrocketed the second I did it making the overall journey a much, much faster one than before I took notes of everything.
And now as a bonus I’m capable of writing Japanese freehand without any guides. Which is neat.
Best of luck! Writing is a great skill, and like a lot of things in language it makes acquiring other skills easier (like how knowing kanji makes learning vocab easier). Personally for me and for many people, learning how to write kanji isn’t worth the amount of time investment it requires as opposed to just reading and maybe writing the basic ones, but if you’ve found a way that works in with your studying style, it’s a great thing to pursue.
I wish it were more practical that I learn to write kanji- as a teacher who writes on a black board it’s a bit odd that I can read as many kanji as a high schooler but write only about as many as a first grader, but I’m held back by the knowledge that even if I did put my time into developing that skill, it really only takes a couple years of not putting it into practice before I would lose it. Also, would’ve been easier if I’d been as serious as you are about maintaining that skill from the start, and not playing catch-up with hundreds of kanji.
Thanks, 60 lvl opinion is very important to me. I thought it might me help to memorize faster, and learning writting also. I also study grammar at Kumon, and they have writing in their tests also. So I thought it might help me.
I dont know how are your burned kanjis, but maybe you can start with the burned items. How is to be a lvl 60? How do you feel? Can you read like almos everything? On the streets and etc?
So something I learned taking calligraphy courses is knowing when to pause or lift your pen in motion is a really important part to writing in Japanese, so I recommend not just studying stroke order but what kind of strokes you’re working with.
I found this link that gives you the names but not how to do them, but I suggest watching videos online of people doing these motions.
It’s nice! I actually hit level 60 before I had any real proficiency with the language or grammar knowledge, so at that time I wasn’t capable of understanding much. Now I’ve been studying Japanese for 5 years, I live and work in Japan, going for N1 next summer, and I can read quite a bit. I still tend to get stumped on vocab and sentence structure when I read, but the few unknown kanji I come across when I read aren’t a serious issue. You hit a point where you know enough kanji to read most of what you want well before level 60 though. And like I said, having kanji knowledge makes everything about Japanese easier!
I have used the app Ringotan for this before, it also works well with Wanikani, so you can practice writing the kanji you learned.
Eventually I stopped doing it because I was getting overwhelmed with all the things I was trying to learn at the same time. If I had more time, I’d probably keep doing it and I can certainly recommend trying it. Just for me, it’s a lot of effort for something that’s nice but not that useful for my personal goals.
Great tips! I practiced writing for every kanji in the first 300 and it made stroke order and distinguishing the more complex kanji that come later much easier. Since then (I’m approaching 650), I practice writing new kanji when I learn them, but to save time, otherwise I don’t quiz myself on the writing except for a few where I think that will be helpful. And sometimes it is still very helpful.
Just yesterday, I was trying to remember how to write the first character of 質問. Which at first felt like a waste of time. But then because I had done that, the next day when I read 質素 I noticed it was the same kanji. I had read the same passage 2 day earlier and not noticed. And now I feel like it has etched 質素 in my memory very easily alongside the general meaning of the kanji 質 for future reference. Things like that seem to happen quite often.
Anyway, recognizing the Kanji well itself is not enough, like 質素 is not 素質. Personally I comprehend both words’ meanings by sound/reading, rather than by Kanji. 素 somewhat adds to the meanings too, but most probably not enough. (And the second word probably tells the meaning of 質 better.)
I don’t recognize 問質 at all.
About the topic of handwriting, it isn’t super useful to me outside Japan, but I find writing less boring than typing for taking notes. So, why not?
Thank you. I have been studying japanese for a year now. I am N5. I study Kumon, Duolingo and here. I also have a Okinawan Band that plays folk music called ig: @bandasankyo . So this is how I practice. Even though my band sings 沖縄語 there are some musics in 日本語. Is so good to know that you reached lvl 60 before knowing grammar and thought easier to learn because I hear many people saying that I should learn more conversation than grammar, and then more grammar than Kanji.
Perhaps kanji first before doing grammar or conversation isn’t the best way to do it, but honestly imo studying whatever is the most motivating is good. One thing to keep in mind is that if you have significantly more kanji knowledge than reading ability, then you dont have the ability to reinforce kanji through reading. In my case, a couple years after I cancelled my subscription I had already forgotten a ton since I hadn’t seen them. I reset to level 20 once I had 3 years of Japanese classes under my belt, and they stuck much better this time. Knowing kanji helps grammar stick better. Being able to read helps kanji stick better.
In any case what I’m saying is that focusing on kanji and not conversation or reading might not be totally optimal, but we also don’t need to min-max this Japanese thing. Study in the you find it the most satisfying.
heeheehee I was wondering if anyone would catch that