漢字(かんじ)は友(とも)だち How to learn kanji in

I’ll explain below;
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Make friend with kanji
Kanji was born as pictures
Combining pictures
Japanese meet Kanji-おんよみ
Read as Japanese―くんよみ
Making new words-じゅくご
How to learn new kanji
1. Make friend with kanji
Is kanji easy for you? Or kanji scares you? If you don’t
like kanji, then kanji won’t like you. If you run away
from kanji, kanji chase you and catch you, just like
dog.
So, instead of avoiding it, let’s make friend with kanji.
How do you make friend? Of course, you get to know
each other. It’s the same with kanji. Let’s get to know
what kanji is all about.
2. Kanji was born as pictures
 As you all learned in Year 9, basic kanji was born from
pictures.
 Some kanji was born from a drawing of the object

→
→
から山という字ができました。
 Some kanji came from drawing the concepts or ideas.
は
（うえ）です。
If you want to know more go;
http://bekkoame.ne.jp/ro/akira.h/kanji/
or
http://www003.upp.sonet.ne.jp/itomoko/kodomo/naritati2/naritati05.htm
So first of all you should learn these basic kanji with the original
pictures, then you instantly know the meaning of the kanji.
3. Combining kanji
The next step!
Some kanji are born by combining a few simple kanji.
With this case understanding the original pictures of
each parts will lead you to understand the meaning of
that kanji.
 木ｘ２＝林
 木ｘ３＝森
 日＋月＝明（あかるい）
 日＋寺＝時
Some kanji was made from using the same kanji for the
same sound with some additional part to support the
meaning.
「シ＋青」=清(pure water) 「日＋青」＝晴 (Blue
sky) 「米＋青」精 (Clean rice)
青represents the sound “セイ”and the part in the left
represents the meaning.
(シ＝水)
So most cases if the group of kanji that use the same
main part have the same sound in Chinese.
Eg. 時、持、待、(Ji)
4. Japanese meet Chinese-おんよみ
Up to this the story was in China or Chinese Language. Now Chinese
characters were imported to Japan and meet Japanese Language. The
things will complicate from now one.
But don’t worry, if you know the history here then you’ll become super か
んじはかせ
(Dr. Kanji)
Kanji came to Japan at the beginning of 5th Century.
At the beginning the Japanese people used the kanji with their sound
and fit into Japanese sentences.
Eg. 安＝アン宇＝ウ加＝カ etc.
But this takes long time to write each sentence. That’s why hiragana was
born.
安＝あ宇＝う加＝か
This way of reading is now called 音読み（おんよみ）meaning “Sound
reading”.
5. Reading as Japanese-くんよみ
Unlike Vietnamese or Korean, Chinese characters did
not disappear here. Instead, Japanese people started
to use kanji with their own meaning, as well as the
sound.
They decided to read each kanji in 2 ways. One=stick
with the sound in Chinese as they did at the
beginning, but then read with the Japanese word
which had the same meaning.
 Eg.
 木＝モク
き
 日＝ニチ
ひ
 月＝ゲツ／ガツつき
 火＝カ
ひ
 水＝スイ
みず
 金＝キン
かね
 土＝ド
つち
 This way of reading is called 訓読み（くんよみ）
Whenever you learn kanji, you need to learn these 2
ways of readings. Theくんよみcame from the old
Japanese words that were used for the communication
in people’s daily lives. Most of these words are
original Japanese words which are called 和語（わご）
Normally these words are combination of no more
than 4 hiragana characters.
For verbs and adjectives you need to add some hiragana
when you read kanji in くんよみ
行きます
生まれました
小さい
大きい
These hiragana are called おくりがな
6. Making new words-じゅくご
The amazing thing is-Japanese people didn’t stop there!
As well as introducing Japanese way of reading Kanji,
they started to create new words by combining 2 or
more kanji together. The same as English language
borrowing words from Latin, or Te Reo maori started
to use words from English, Japanese compensated the
words for the ideas and objects which didn’t existed in
their language with the kanji.
These new words are called かんご (Chinese words) as
some of them come from Chinese Language. But
some are created by Japanese.
 Eg. 電車


（Electric vehicles）
家族（House-Tribe）
学校（learning institute）
These words are called じゅくご. In Senior Japanese
majority of the vocab you learn are these words. By
seeing and learning the meaning of each kanji you will
learn each vocab better.
7. How to learn new kanji
From now on every time you learn new kanji you need to
learn the story behind it, how it was created. You
should draw some pictures when you take note for
this. Then you write the basic meaning of that kanji.
You also need to take note for the 2 ways of reading, お
んよみandくんよみ. Lastly you should write some
examples（れい） of words that use that kanji. I’ll
give you both the words from わご and
じゅくご/かんご

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