| Introduction
to Kanji
The origins of kanji can be traced back to China
3,000 years ago. Around the 5th century
these written representations of 'real' objects
and abstract ideas were introduced to Japan.
What distinguishes the Japanese writing
system from the Chinese one is the use
of hiragana and katakana.
These two phonetic writing systems, which represent
the words as they are pronounced, are used in conjunction
with kanji to make up the Japanese writing system.
There are exceptions, but kanji can be read in two
ways, on-yomi
and kun-yomi
described below:
*On-yomi: Japanese reading of the
kanji which originally came from the Chinese pronunciation
*Kun-yomi:
pronunciation of a original Japanese word
represented by a kanji according to it's meaning.
Almost all kanji are comprised of at least 2, or
more, components. Many kanji are actually made up
of combinations of other kanji. There are commonly
shared parts throughout the kanji system. These
are called radicals and
there are 214 of these core components. It is also
important to note that these radicals have a source
meaning. That is, the kanji that are built
around them usually have something to do with the
central meaning of the radical. Here is an example:
In the first box on the left you can see the radical
'sanzui'. The source meaning for this radical
is 'water'. To the right of that
is the kanji for 'sea' or 'umi',
in Japanese. As you can see the radical makes an
appearance on the left hand side of the kanji. Yet
again the radical appears in the verb 'swim'
or 'oyogu', in Japanese. All of these words
are related to water in some regard. This not only
helps the reader begin to understand the meaning
of the kanji by what it is related to,
but it also serves the purpose of providing an indexing
system in dictionaries.
As you can tell kanji is an extremely complex and
developed writing system. Now before I lose your
interest there is one more very important point
to remember especially when writing kanji.
There are rules (sourced from "250 Essential
Kanji for Everday Use"- see reference
note below) for the stroke order and believe it
or not these help you write more proficiently and
neatly.
1.
Horizontal strokes: from left to right
2. Vertical or slanting strokes: from top to bottom
3. Hook strokes: from top left to right or left
bottom
4. The center stroke first followed by the left
and then right strokes
5. The outside strokes first, followed by the middle
strokes
6. The horizontal stroke first followed by the vertical
stroke
7. The left-hand slanting stroke first, followed
by the right-hand slanting stroke
It sounds all a bit too complicated, doesn't it?
Do NOT fret as throughout our kanji lessons together
we will provide you with the EXACT stroke
order. This will help you learn kanji and
the way that each one is formed without agonizing
over which rule to follow and when.
So
let's stop talking about using Japanese kanji and
start using it!!
Go to your first KANJI
LESSON here
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|
Japanese
children learn kanji by repetition; writing
characters hundreds of times until they are
branded it into the memory. Author Michael Rowley
has developed an extremely clever learning system
by associating relevant and elaborately designed
images with the shapes of Kanji to make them
so much more memorable to the untrained eye. |
*Reference note: "250 Essential Kanji for Everday
Use", Kanji Text Research Group, University
of Tokyo, Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo, 1993
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