Question
Updated on
13 Aug 2015
- English (US)
-
Simplified Chinese (China)
Question about Japanese
Is it hard to read Japanese due to the multiple readings a kanji character may have? Or are kanji words (whether mixed with hiragana or other kanji) read only one way? For example "生" scares me with it's many readings.
Is it hard to read Japanese due to the multiple readings a kanji character may have? Or are kanji words (whether mixed with hiragana or other kanji) read only one way? For example "生" scares me with it's many readings.
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- English (US)
Often the kanji compounds use the onyomi pronunciations and the single kanji, especially with an ending as in an adjective, adverb, or verb, use the kunyomi. But as with everything, there are many exceptions to these rules. You just have to memorize a lot of it.
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- English (US)
Would it be wise to forget the onyomi/kunyomi readings for an individual kanji and instead memories words and their reading?
I'm having a hard time understanding the point of learning all the onyomi and kunyomi readings for each kanji.
I'm having a hard time understanding the point of learning all the onyomi and kunyomi readings for each kanji.
- Lithuanian
You don't learn all of them at once. Usually, you only need two or three of them ever, and most often, like 95% of the time, you use only one.
Personally, I find it best to just learn a word that uses the particular kanji, I feel like it's immediately more useful that way. For example, 生まれる would be what I would learn, and worry about other readings later, when I stumble across them.
Later on, you will probably know two or three readings for each kanji, and that is, for the most part, all that you'll ever need. Even Japanese don't remember how to read all kanji.
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- English (US)
I would agree with moonmean. It's nice to be able to guess at a pronunciation and meaning the first time you see a new word, but by no means should you obsess about learning every pronunciation. Besides, myriad more pronunciations exist when kanji are used in names.
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