Same. I’m about to start working as a CIR in August, and I’m qualified for the job, except I can only really hand-write the most common kanji. It’s really embarrassing when it comes up…
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Just to add to my additional input. When I am not on here I put pen to paper and write the new ones I have learnt. I have a fair idea of the stroke order and it helps with retention.
I am treating this website as more like a “flashcard” site. It is not good on its own, but coupled with other forms of study it becomes beneficial.
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I think learning the meanings and reading kanji is more important than writing. But I don’t think writing is obsolete.
That being said, for me writing kanji can be a more time efficient way to learn some that I’m really struggling with remembering. Instead of getting the same kanji wrong and re-reading the mnemonic, sometimes writing the kanji just helps me solidify the learning.
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I use the Kanji Study app to practice writing alongside wanikani and I have to say that, personally, it’s made a huge difference to being able to remember them. It forces me to pay closer attention to the components and to differentiate between otherwise very similar kanji.
Active recall is one of the key features of successful learning and while wanikani does this for the reading and the meaning, it doesn’t do it for the actual kanji, so you are only ever recognising them. Whereas with Kanji Study I’m presented with a meaning, a reading and a blank screen and I have to actively recall the kanji. For me the two apps working really well alongside each other.
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I think that’s a bit of a reaching statement to make if you don’t know someone’s individual objectives with respect to the language. Do Japanese natives living and working their whole lives in Japan know how to recognize and write a large volume of kanji? Of course. Does that make it a requisite for a foreigner learner of the language? No.
I can’t agree with that at all, from personal experience.
I haven’t written a single kanji. Are there similar looking ones? Yes. Can I explain how the brain distinguishes them? No. Can I distinguish them? Yes. Even when it comes to completely new and unseen vocabulary.
The other comment regarding opportunity cost is an important one. For those who only have an hour or so a day to study, spending so much as 5-10 minutes with writing is a considerable chunk of time.
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I think it is. It certainly does help me memorize them better. I have an anki deck for kanji writing practice. I don’t bother with stroke order or the number though, I only pay attention to the radicals and their mutual alignment. Maybe it’s not the best way, but it does help me.
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Its kind of a foolish narrative to have and constant contradictions. What is the point of even learning at all if you are not even bothered to learn? The thought process shown displayed here shows a great lack of knowledge about the Kanji. If you cannot recreate something then you simply do not know it plain and simple. There is no leeway in this at all as not being able to write it clearly demonstrates that your knowledge in it is just a facade. If you knew anything about Kanji at all then you would know that learning the stroke order for sun, mountain, dirt, rice field has a pattern to it and by even learning how to write those 5 radicals allows you to write several hundred Kanji. You ask does it make it a **Prerequisite for a foreigner to learn - well that is a moot point because the prerequisite would have already been fulfilled if you had bothered to heed your lessons in the first place.
- Kanji is made up of radicals that constantly repeat.
- Every radical follows the same writing manner being replicated in different Kanji
- By learning all the radicals (not the fake ones on this site) you are able to recreate any Kanji you see regardless if you know the Kanji or not.
- If you cannot recreate the Kanji based on the simple make up of the radicals then it is proof that you do not know Kanji at all. The radicals tell the story. If the site had the correct names for the radicals then you just may understand.
I am guessing by your post that you have definitely never been to Japan. Kanji may look all neat and tidy on billboards but that is just that. The moment you meet Japanese people you will see how Kanji can be written in “casual style” of what we call “running writing”, “calligraphy” and in a way that looks nothing like the plain and simple presentation we see on this site.
Even further the written form differentiates from the digital form. Examples are the correct radicals for water are conjoined in digital and singular in written.
The only way to identify Kanji by seeing it in obscure patterns like “running writing” style or similar in print is to be able to see how they have done the stroke order. Stroke order is the easiest thing to see in a Kanji.
To be perfectly blunt if you don’t understand the Kanji including how to write it then all you are good at is that card game “memory”
Good luck turning up in Japan and heading to Izakaya and getting meal and drinks if you cannot read what is available on a menu design with font and layout of the Kanji that you have never seen or understand.
Wow, that was harsh, though you’ve got a point that it’s useful knowing how to draw the most basic radicals.
I’d still vote for not necessarily writing out every kanji on paper, rather just learning them and the readings. The topic reminded me of this article on Tofugu.
Also, this guideline was what I’ve been taught in class as well.
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For what it’s worth, I feel like stroke order can help with memorization further (once you get past the initial learning overhead of course). I don’t really have anything to go against since I started learning it immediately, but I feel like it adds almost an element of consistency and almost “muscle memory” to writing them. Every shape becomes not just visually recognizable but also… uh… procedurally recognizable? Physically recognizable? Idk, something like that.
But of course it’s not necessary, so do whatever helps you learn them best 
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Have you ever tried writing kanji? I started practicing writing the most common kanjis that are always used in my class and man, its actually really fun! Idk it just feels like I’m drawing 
There’s a lot of kanji that i always mix up cause they look the same so i plan to practice writing those too just so that i stop messing them up.
Oh i also find actually practicing the writing makes it easier for me to read written kanji.
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I don’t want to be overly confrontational with this, but I think it would benefit everyone here, yourself included, if you got off your soapbox for a bit and considered how other people are using WaniKani.
Let me start off by saying its AWESOME that you are learning how to write kanji. The points you bring up about being able to read handwritten and in other fonts by practicing stroke order and radicals are very important.
But, as some people have already pointed out, you are being rather harsh and assuming in your input to this thread. Learning to write kanji is great, and I encourage anyone who is considering it to continue, however you can’t automatically assume that it’s a necessity for everyone. And I don’t mean to look down on anyone for their level (it’s not like I’m super high level either), everyone who is here is progressing and that’s all that really matters, but seeing someone at level 6 making these broad assumptions about the proper way to learn seems pretentious. The secret is that there is no proper way to learn other than what works for you.
Something I (as well as a few other people who have replied) noticed is an issue with how you’re phrasing your stance on the topic. I really don’t want to come across as pretentious with this, so apologies ahead of time if I do, but I think it would do a lot of good if you were less hostile when conveying your point. Saying that someone’s knowledge is “just a facade” simply because they don’t learn how to write kanji doesn’t do anything other than offend the other person and make it less likely that they’ll listen to what you have to say. From the time I’ve spent on the forums (mostly lurking), I’ve noticed that those who are as open and patient with their replies are the most likely to be productive contributors to a thread.
The other major issue I think some have with what you’re saying is the assumption that we all need to learn Japanese the same way as you. Again, I think that learning how to write kanji is a fantastic endeavor if you have the time and reason to do it, but not everyone has those. Personally, I don’t write kanji (yet, at least) because I would rather spend the limited time I have on advancing the amount of kanji that I know. You are correct when you say that someone who doesn’t know how to write might have a harder time recognizing kanji in other fonts or handwriting, but that isn’t currently important to me. Most of what I want to get out of WaniKani is enough comprehension of kanji to be able to learn grammar.
You say “Good luck turning up in Japan” without knowing how to write kanji, but I’d wager a guess that most people here aren’t actually going to go to Japan anytime soon. I may be lucky enough in the near future to go, but I know for sure that it’s a huge cost of both time and money that not everyone can afford.
At the end of the day, it comes down to where you want to take your Japanese skills, how much time you can put into studying, and how motivated you are. If you want to learn to read and write, then obviously writing kanji is an important step in that, but if you’re like me and more focused on listening and speaking, then you can afford to not spend as much time learning how to write kanji. If you have the time to learn kanji writings, I recommend you do, as it can help with retention, along with everything else already brought up, but not everyone has that time. If I stick with WK all the way through (and I hope I do) then maybe at the end I can learn the writings, but for now it is enough for me to just know the kanji and the readings. On the motivation point, consider that some people have a much lower bar for burning out than others. Speaking personally, sometimes a small hurdle can seem like it will stop all of your progress, especially if you’re someone who might have problems with motivation or having too much stress (mental health problems). For those people, trying to learn how to write the kanji alongside how to recognize them, their meaning, and their multiple readings may be too much to handle all at once. For them, I would recommend doing what I’m planning on doing, and learning how to write kanji after finishing WK. I know it may not be the most efficient method, but it’s what seems like it will work for me.
This reply got… longer than I thought it would be (don’t they all) but I hope that what I’m saying gets through to you. One of my favorite things about this site is the community, so seeing you come through and basically trash anyone who isn’t studying exactly like you just set something off in me. I hope this didn’t seem like it was written out of anger, it wasn’t, more from a hope that discussion in here can stay constructive and away from being like how you wrote. Very long story short, writing kanji is good, but not everyone needs to, and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean that you don’t “know” the kanji, but it does mean that you may have a harder time with certain things like reading or writing, and a lot of people are ok with that.
E: small edits just for word choice and fixing a few spots, nothing that changed anything important.
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I went the route of learning handwriting alongside WaniKani (whenever I learned new kanji in WK I started to practice writing them in a notebook). I feel like doing that added a level of complexity to my study habits that helped speed up my burning out. I agree that handwriting might be crucial if you want to cover all the bases, but as far as reading goes, you can get by without learning it (in the end, that’s what WaniKani stresses, WK itself is made as a faster alternative to the classic “memorize kanji by writing them over and over” method).
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I totally agree. It all depends on one’s goals.
I’m sorry, but the fact that someone has different goals than you and concentrates on those aspects that are more related to those goals, doesn’t mean that they are not bothered to learn.
Well, if your goal is to be able to read any handwritten kanji - then yes. Otherwise, that’s not necessarily true.
Here are the words of Koichi 先生 himself:
Focus Is On Reading, Not Writing
“If you can read this, thank a teacher.” – Anonymous
Making this decision was particularly difficult, but as always, I’m going to let you know why (so important to know why you’re doing something, especially if you’re self-learning Japanese) you’re doing this. On TextFugu, at least when it comes to kanji, the focus is only going to be on reading the kanji, not writing it. If you want, you can still practice writing kanji, there’s nothing stopping you there, but there are some pretty specific (and good, I think) reasons why reading should be your primary focus.
- Most “writing” in Japan (or anywhere, actually) is done via a cell phone, computer, iPad, or some other electronic device. Typing in Japanese and converting what you type into kanji is incredibly easy . You do, however, have to be able to recognize and read kanji to do this. In reality, though, even Japanese people in Japan are forgetting how to write kanji by hand (it’s called “Kanji Amnesia,” look it up) because almost all writing is done via typing on some kind of keyboard. The ability to write is becoming pretty unnecessary.
- I want you to do me a favor and think about “effort” as something a little more tangible. For our intents and purposes, you can spend 100 “effort points” every day. Now, you could spend 50 points on learning to read kanji, and 50 points on learning to write it… Doing this, let’s say you were able to learn 10 kanji. On the other hand, if you had spent 100 of your “effort points” just on learning to read kanji, you (in theory) could have learned 20 kanji. You wouldn’t be able to write them, but since reading kanji is infinitely more useful, you’ve spent your time way more wisely. If you really want to learn to write, I’d recommend you do it afterwards. It’s not doing you much good right now.
All that being said, I don’t want you to worry too much about being able to hand write the kanji you learn. “Traditional” kanji learning approaches do in fact have you write kanji over and over and over again to help you remember the kanji. Luckily for you, TextFugu isn’t the “traditional” approach. For the time spent, repetition doesn’t actually help you to learn things (you may think it does, but I’m willing to bet it doesn’t help as much as you think). You’re going to focus on using really great (and simple) memory science to help you remember kanji. Your time is important, and if you eventually have to tackle 2000ish kanji, something’s gotta get better somewhere.
Takeaway Learning to read kanji is way more important and useful than learning to write it. Although the ability to hand write kanji could be important, being able to read it is so much more useful that spending your time there will get you 1000 times more bang for your buck.
Also, @Sutho81 さん、I’m sorry, but could you please show a bit more respect to others even if they disagree with you? Everyone has the right to have their own opinion and the right for being wrong. There is no need to resort to harsh words.
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I think it’s alright to have strong opinions and principles. Some people might take offense at the tone you’re using though ¯\(ツ)/¯
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Having - yes. Formulating them in an offensive manner - no. It’s important to respect each other’s opinions even when we disagree.
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Thanks everyone! I will not write kanji right now since my time is limited, and pretty much all I will be doing is reading it and typing it for the next few years, and hopefully by then I will have more time so I can practice writing the kanji and head to japan someday, but until then I will just be reading manga and listening to anime and maybe changing some webpages to Japanese lol
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I’m actually in Japan right now. Still don’t agree with your assessment 
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I seriously doubt you are in Japan as your earlier reply gave the clear impression that you have never been there.
I do not have time to waste here but writing Kanji is extremely easy and non time wasting. It is just as easy as writing English. Once you know how to write a, b, t, u, w, x for example and think about condensing them all into a square grid box the manner for writing them all remains the same.
With my line of work I have the fortunate ability to work with Japanese people on a daily basis and can assure everyone on here that they still know how to write Kanji. They still write in Japan. Using digital typing input is a moot point. Of course there are advanced Kanji that they may not know. Its like asking an native English speaker to write down “certiorari” and ask them what it means. The majority of them are going to get it wrong and those who do type it the auto spell check will take care of the rest.
Bam. Case closed.
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That is an incredibly agressive stance.
This is just plain wrong.
You have a point when you say that learning how to write kanji is useful to help you recognize handwritten kanji and cursive, but whether it is the best possible use of study time depends on your goals. For most people, it just won’t be.
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