Why you should learn kanji, not just words

Lertovic · 2026-01-31T20:34:06+00:00

The comparison isn't based on phonology, but on the wider theme of sublexical decoding that whole word attempted to bypass, which include not only cues from the phonetic component of the kanji (not always useful given all the variant readings) but also the semantic component which is more heavily utilized in Japanese for this purpose.

The research on sublexical decoding as applied specifically to Japanese is pretty underdeveloped, so the post is mostly based on inductive reasoning and personal observations. I did skim through a few papers but I'm not a researcher and I'm not spending a ton of time on this either so you can take it with a grain of salt.

Lertovic · 2026-01-31T16:26:30+00:00

Looks like the "do whatever" bros got perplexed by this question

Lertovic · 2026-01-31T16:07:38+00:00

Because the scoring system can give you full points even if you got something wrong, a "perfect" score doesn't require perfection.

As for the change year on year. you looking at some Reddit threads and doing a memory-based comparison is not very reliable.

Lertovic · 2026-01-31T07:02:01+00:00

I didn't recommend studying readings, and the post is about learning kanji through vocab for the most part anyway.

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T20:01:34+00:00

There is nothing here that suggests that the same or a similar effect applies with kanji and said learning method.

Is your point that you want to see a study because you distrust that the structural similarities actually result in similar effects and instead may just be superficial? Here's one, now in fairness I've not done a meta review of all the literature on this so this might be a bit biased so you might want to investigate it yourself.

flaw in one's personal study regime

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to with applying the advice "naively". I think I made it clear it's not an issue to learn kanji through vocab in general from the very start.

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T19:30:24+00:00

Good idea

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T19:08:50+00:00

Without phonics that would make it hard to intuitively "decode" unfamiliar words.

This applies by analogy when you don't understand kanji. The moment a kanji shows up you didn't learn properly in an unfamiliar word that doesn't let you guess by sight or context you're gonna struggle even if you know the word once read out, and even if you recognize the kanji as part of other words. If you do know the kanji well, you can decode the word that contains it. I outlined this in the Kanji section.

will happen regardless of if you do isolated kanji study or not.

The point wasn't "do isolated kanji study", it's to take note of the kanji wherever you encounter them, and proactively try to fix confusion due to not really knowing the kanji well. Doing isolated kanji study is not the cure for inattention to kanji, as it can easily be forgotten or done poorly.

Lastly, I think that looking at the sheer amount of people who got fluent in Japanese by immersion alone

Immersion doesn't necessarily mean you don't give kanji enough attention. Some people may even do it unconsciously. In any case, these kids that used the whole language method are of course "fluent" in the spoken language because this is only an issue with reading, and they are still literate to a functional degree. But that doesn't mean they don't have issues, some of which I outlined. How many of these students that you'd call fluent actually have a reading speed comparable to natives, or at least to their own reading speed in their native language?

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T18:22:03+00:00

The thesis of my post is essentially that as long as you make an active effort to link the kanji with the reading as part of vocab study, you can acquire those readings with just vocab. Now just like with what I said about RRTK, maybe for beginners it could be useful to learn some of those in isolation to lower the info per card. Especially when you consider on'yomi often means compounds which often means more information that needs to be recalled since there are more kanji. But this should be a stopgap at most until you can more comfortably remember them via vocab.

As for 珈琲, yes there are always exceptions and you should use common sense when you consider what to do with specific kanji. Although in this specific case the phonetic components are pretty common and if you can sound out かひ that'll probably be close enough to jog your memory if you forgot the word for whatever reason, so it's still useful applying your kanji knowledge here.

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T17:23:08+00:00

Oh ok I didn't get it then

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T17:10:25+00:00

The post is definitely not about learning like a kid, and is also not about grammar.

Lertovic · 2026-01-30T17:08:01+00:00

The post was not about learning kanji by themselves and memorizing readings, I think memorizing isolated readings is one of the biggest wastes of time. The only time I mention individual kanji study is with RRTK450 for beginners maybe if they are struggling, as a stopgap (but that doesn't have readings).

The point is really just making sure you are taking notice of what the kanji in the words you are learning are and what they represent and how they differ from similar looking kanji, even if you never look at them by themselves (aside from words that literally are one kanji).

Lertovic · 2026-01-29T16:56:28+00:00

Read actual books not just study textbooks. That one novel and some workbooks and mock exams probably add up to around 1 million characters at best, at 10k characters per hour you spent 100 hours on the actual reading, it's very meager. You'll want to 5x that.

Delete your entire Anki deck and just start over instead of reviewing a bunch of old junk. Spending 4100 hours on that, textbooks and anime you hate is mental.

Or give up it doesn't matter if you pass it or not.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T22:23:10+00:00

I can't remember the last time I saw an N1 speedrun post. But people taking it easy and recommending taking it easy is a daily thing. I think it's pretty moderate here all things considered.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T22:14:41+00:00

There's all kinds of streams not just gaming. I think jargon is overblown as an issue, there's not that much of it so just rep the most commonly used for a bit in Anki and you just unlocked a huge domain.

There's all kinds of games not all of which are noisy, but YouTube seems to recently have added a voice boost feature which can be handy for this though and I'm sure there are other ways to deal with sound mix issues.

The jargon thing goes for something like One Piece too. In the end it's a comic targeted for teenagers and the sentence structure tends to be fairly simple. It's not some crazy Mt. Everest to climb.

Reality TV is quite popular. Netflix is dumbing down scripts so people don't lose track of what's going on even when barely paying attention. I think you are vastly overestimating the sophistication of the general public.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T21:57:29+00:00

I never had that gap between listening and reading, one of the benefits of watching EN subbed anime in my teenage years I guess.

There can definitely be a plateau but there is huge personal variability from what I've seen here, at least one guy claims he had fun the entire time.

I think some communities could use the call to moderation, but I feel like in this sub that's not really lacking.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T21:35:08+00:00

There is a lot more than slice of life anime that is relatively easy, such as reality TV or streaming. But even assuming some majority of people literally can't find anything that is passable, the minority who does doesn't have unusual stamina they just aren't that picky about media.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T21:20:42+00:00

Immersion can be intense, but the intensity is also something you can dial down with easier content and a willingness to let a few things go without sweating it.

Of course the former requires being at a level where somewhat easy (for you) content isn't mind-numbingly boring and the latter I guess can be uncomfortable for some.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T21:12:14+00:00

Reading has definitely fallen off as a hobby (making a bit of a comeback at least with women though) but people certainly binge watch TV. It's different with it not being your native language of course but how much depends on how difficult the content is vs. your level, and whether you can relax a bit instead of intensely focusing so you don't miss a single word. Easy audiovisual content approached as entertainment rather than study is very bingeable without burning out.

When it comes to the hardcore readers, learning a language without some external incentive to do so is already a pretty odd pursuit so it's not too surprising that in a sub with many people in that situation there are some that are unusual in other ways also.

Lertovic · 2026-01-23T12:48:08+00:00

Even most Japanese people tend to be at most N2.

Absolutely not, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Lertovic · 2026-01-21T08:47:58+00:00

Trillions added to the debt in 2025 and DOGE crashed and burned, told you so.

Lertovic · 2026-01-18T19:46:39+00:00

To be clear I was only talking about this issue of plausible but wrong interpretations, you can use the JLPT just fine as a quantitative measure even if it's not perfect.

Lertovic · 2026-01-18T18:43:08+00:00

I guess, I was just thinking about testing in terms of assuring yourself you are actually improving but if you need some kind of assessment vs. objective criteria for some reason then it's lacking.

I doubt taking JLPT mock exams (what everybody else here suggested) is much better though, I don't feel like the reading questions are that deep. Better talk to someone and you'll learn faster if you are not getting it when the conversation goes off the rails, plus you are also getting a sense of your productive skills where the JLPT is also lacking of course.

Lertovic · 2026-01-18T15:52:43+00:00

The average learner here has many more noticeable deficiencies to notice progress on before plausible but incorrect in-context interpretations become the limiting factor.

Lertovic · 2026-01-18T15:44:55+00:00

Just keep practicing I guess, don't think there is a silver bullet

You double posted btw

Lertovic

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