Ok so if you've been following my Hiragana and Katakana threads, this would be very different compared to them. When Hiragana and Katakana represents a sound, Kanji represents words or syllables. Also unlike Hiragana and Katakana, there are thousands of Kanji characters and there are usually more than one meaning to each one. (source: Kanjisite.com)

Unfortunately, it's not a subject I can teach well myself, for I only know a handful of Kanji. It's also not something you can take all in one day, so you need to practice Kanji to everyday use so that you will be able to learn them better. A helpful tip in memorizing the Kanji is imagining the picture that it represents. For example, the Kanji for sun (日), my teacher taught me this to memorize it:



Notice the sun's reflection on the ocean (My drawing isn't that bad is it? ). Doesn't it look like the Kanji? Hehe Well you get the picture. Sometimes, just imagine the object the Kanji represents and it wouldn't be so hard to memorize them! And with practice, instead of writing long words in Hiragana or Katakana, you can easily write the equivalent in Kanji!

Since it is impossible for me to teach every single Kanji on this thread, I will making more threads for counters, days of the weeks, etc. which will contain some Kanji for you to learn. ^___^ Keep in mind that some Kanji have several meanings, so don't let that confuse you. If you have a question, you can ask it on the thread or PM me your questions.

For now, I have looked up a few helpful sites for learning the Kanji:

Online Japanese Kanji Dictionary
Easy to use and a large database. Just type in the English or Japanese word (in Kana or Kanji) and it will look it up! Good for learners of both languages!

Kanjisite.com
This site is cool if you want to test out your Kanji skills! Just click on start and choose a level and it will test you to see if you know your Kanji! No good for beginners though sorry but is a good practice and also tells you the definition of a Kanji anyways, so you'll be able to learn something with it.

Omniglot.com
Just some more history on the origins of Kanji. It also has a number of Kanji characters for you to learn.

LearnJapaneseFree.com This is a great site for learning the Japanese language! Very simple too! This link takes you to a list of Kanji that I feel you should learn first that they also recommend.

This post was last modified: 01-10-2008 10:45 AM by Rondillo.

i hate kanji because it's really dificcult to remember them.japanese also can remember kanji completely

You just have to practice the Kanji a lot! It actually took me faster to memorize the Kanji than Kana letters, mainly because Kana sometimes looked alike.

Waaa, this is great!
Ive been searching f0r Kanji,Katakana & Hiragana everywhere.
0ther sites really cant help.
Since im actually trying t0 help my friend t0 get s0me Japanese n0tes 0n the net. [i cant help that much since im mainly learning Korean T_T]

Oh btw, d0 y0u kn0w a site where it has the pr0n0uncati0n 0f w0rds in Jap, the writings & the translati0ns in English? All three 0f them f0r m0st 0f the w0rds in Jap? :S.

Thank y0u! ^__^

This post was last modified: 01-10-2008 02:52 PM by rh0na91.

I'm going to be making a thread for pronunciation soon, but here's a good place to start on it:

edit: oops! forgot to add this on edit!
learnjapanesefree.com

This post was last modified: 01-11-2008 05:00 PM by Rondillo.

im still having hard time learning japanese...wahhhhh...

your drawing isnt bad at all, i thought you copied and paste it from somewhere else's website, i didnt know it was made by you

yup i drew it myself! lol just drew it to better explain... What is it that you are having trouble with? Am I a bad teacher? ToT

nope your not a bad teacher, its just that i cant seem really get the japanese thing. i guess its hard for me to understand the language though ^_^

sweet... m gona try... Korean is also difficult.

ei can you please tell me what is the difference of kanji with the other japanese language?
what is the main language that japanese people use? is it kanji?