I looked through some old notes I made at home in primary school and came over the first kanji I learned, 亀 the sign on Kame Sennin’s back (or Master Roshi for you Americans). I found out while reading the Dragon ball manga that 亀 (かめ) ment turtle, even though I don’t think I understood that Kame Sennin was a pun where the japanese word for turtle was used.
Have anyone of you learned any kanji way before you started to study Japanese for real?
Mine is boring. I learned 一 二 三 and their on’yomi way before anything else (as in 10 years before anything else). Regarding the meaning, I thought “yeah, that makes sense”. And that’s about it.
I seem to remember one of my first recognised kanji being 気, I remember asking what is was to my Japanese friend when I was an exchange student, she was like, “ah don’t worry, its in lots of things, I can’t explain that”. So I never bothered checking it after, but was intrigued, as I am today, 気 is used in so many expressions and phrases, I really need to study the common ones again, haha
For me, it was 金 (きん) because of full-metal alchemist, and how part of the Japanese title sounds similar to an older variant of my family name… and just happens to have a similar meaning. 錬金術師, just drop the last half and you have the pronunciation almost spot on for middle-german.
Not technically my first kanji so to speak but I remember playing a Nancy Drew computer game years ago and you had to investigate a room and there were a few items with some Hanzi on them that were later used in a puzzle. The two I remember seeing were 月 and 火 and I learnt what they represented.
I also vaguely remember seeing them in the Cardcaptor Sakura English dub and assuming due to context that they meant the same in Japanese.
The very first kanji I learned would have to be 渚 (なぎさ), it’s the name of one of the protagonists of my favorite anime. I remember myself awkwardly writing the character (and messing up the stroke order, ofcourse) about 4 years ago.
Mine was 早 of 早く (immediately followed by 行 of 行きましょう). First line of the first dialogue of my first textbook, I was so proud the next day when I recognized the same kanji in the next lesson!
Decades ago at a university anime society screening, there was a show in which one of the characters had 悪 written on his back, and the show made a huge deal about the significance of this guy wearing the “kanji for bad” all the time.
I don’t even remember what the show was, but the kanji (and the meme) stuck with me.
Was it this guy?
Because that is Rurouni Kenshin. Excellent anime. I haven’t made it to that kanji yet, but I remember exactly what you were talking about. Though the appearance is slightly different.
Welp I grew up in China so I guess I studied thousands of 漢字 before I started learning Japanese (which is a few weeks ago), but if we’re talking about kanji with kunyomi/onyomi, probably the numbers 一、二、三 etc. because I started watching anime at a pretty young age and the first things I picked up on were probably the numbers.
Not technically kanji, but the first character I learned was 牛 during Korean school when it was the year of the cow. That was also when I learned the concept of hanja (korean version of kanji). It was so eye-opening I remembered it ever since, even though I wasn’t forced to memorize it.
I can’t say for sure what was the first kanji I caught the meaning of, but I do remember intentionally looking up how to write music really early on, since music is a huge thing in my life. I practiced those two kanjis 音楽 (sound and ease) with a passion until I knew them by heart.
(this was when I still had no intension of learning kanji, since I considered myself too old to even try. Now that I’m even older, I’ve amended my wayward ideas and given it a try with WK - thank the Crabigator for that! It’s a lot of fun! ^>^)