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 Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:57 pm
I've looked around, but sorry, I can't seem to figure it out. ><;; Can someone explain kanji to me? Compounding/combining characters, and prounouncations. I know about the Chinese-deprived history and Japanese and Chinese way to say the word, but.. Knowing there are two ways to say each kanji doesn't help me. I just don't get it. ><;; Sumimasen, shikashi, onegaishi masu....
For example:
It's called "Shiro", meaning white. It's compound examples are shiro, hiragana, kuu, nichi and jii..? It's prounouced shiro and... what? =__=;Actually, basically, I have a more important question... Is it just a matter of memorizing? That the on and the kun reading is this and that and you can combine A with B to get C but not B and D to get F?
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Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:51 pm
Yah.. Its Called KANJI HELL
xD xp
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Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 8:04 pm
i'm not sure i completely understand the question. you say you know the difference between on vs kun. (the answer to that pretty much is yes, you just need to memorize what finished kanji have what pronounciation, in the same way that you just flat out memorize that what sound 'a' is, 'b' is, etc.)
what i don't quite understand is the 'a with b to get c' part.
if you're asking what i think you're asking....
while the radicals that make up kanji often have their own readings and meanings, and while you can, occasionally, derive the meaning of a kanji from the radicals composing it, or at least make a mnemonic out of it (ie 休む, being a man 人 sleeping under a tree 木 while he's on vacation)... the reading of the radicals themselves do not compound into a reading for a finished kanji.
hito 人 plus ki 木 make 休む yasumu.
radicals are 'like' letters in the sense that you take one or two from a relatively predetermined set of radicals and put them together to make words... but you can't look at 休む, not know that it's 'yasumu,' know that it has 'hito' and 'ki' radicals, and get the right pronunciation for it.
... did that help any?
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Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 8:59 pm
The various readings of the kanji are one of the biggest challenges for people learning Japanese. To give you some guidance though, it is usually recommended that you learn the various readings through example words, rather than just memorizing a whole list of the readings for each kanji. After all, you can't necessarily predict the reading of a word without knowing the word itself. You can certainly make educated guesses and be correct a lot of the time, but there are many variations for a lot of kanji. It's actually a lot like English, really. Letter combinations can be read in different ways, so you actually have to be familiar with a word to truly know how to read it. A good example is the combination "ough." Rough, through, dough, bought, drought, cough - They all use the same letters and they all have different pronunciations, and you just need to be familiar with the words to know how they're read.
As far as getting started learning kanji, I've said this in another thread, but a book I recommend is "Remembering the Kanji" by James W. Heisig. You first learn the meaning and writing of all the kanji, then you move on to the readings. It really presents kanji in a more easy-to-digest way, albeit unorthodox. I definitely recommend checking it out! For reading, "Kanji in Context" is also meant to be quite good.
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Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:33 pm
Yay for Kanji Hell! >o<
Sorry my phrasing sucked. Yes, that helped quite a lot, both of you (not three, nya~). I finally understand and can start learning the actual Kanji! Woo!
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Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:03 pm
Ginger.Duckie I've looked around, but sorry, I can't seem to figure it out. ><;; Can someone explain kanji to me? Compounding/combining characters, and prounouncations. I know about the Chinese-deprived history and Japanese and Chinese way to say the word, but.. Knowing there are two ways to say each kanji doesn't help me. I just don't get it. ><;; Sumimasen, shikashi, onegaishi masu....
For example:
It's called "Shiro", meaning white. It's compound examples are shiro, hiragana, kuu, nichi and jii..? It's prounouced shiro and... what? =__=;Actually, basically, I have a more important question... Is it just a matter of memorizing? That the on and the kun reading is this and that and you can combine A with B to get C but not B and D to get F? Other people have already said it pretty much. I can help but I'm rarely on gaiaonlione (first post in 4 months?) but that kanji Means white. You were mixing it's readings up with "day" 白 white
ハク (haku)
ビャク (byaku)
しろ (shiro)
しら (shira)
しろ‐い (shiro-i)
日 day; sun; Japan
ニチ（ニッ/ニ）(nichi) [nit/ni]
ジツ (jitsu)
ひ（び/ぴ）(hi) [bi/pi]
か (ka)I also have a thread for kanji; plus there are many books that can help you! biggrin Good luck with your studying! 勉強頑張って！
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