What's a Kanji?

The third system, kanji, was imported over the centuries from China. The pictograms are typically (much) more complex than hiragana or katakana, and furthermore have different readings and meanings depending on how they're combined with other kanji. They represent words rather than syllables, although of course hiragana or katakana could be used to spell out the pronunciation. It's not uncommon to see a kanji with its reading spelled out in very small hiragana or katakana written just above it.

da-i ga-ku "big learning" i.e. university

sensei umaremashita nama biiru

Also, the same kanji can often be read in different ways. For example, the kanji can be read as sei when in "sensei" (teacher), or as u in "umaremashita" (I was born), or nama in "nama biiru" (draft beer).

This diversity is in turns intriguing and frustrating. The good news is that to start off with, you really don't need to know all the readings for the more versatile kanji. Again, you should consult with your teacher over what is likely to come up in any test you're thinking of taking. This is a kanji site, not a vocabulary primer, so forgive me if I stray from the JLPT wordlists occasionally.

Anyway, plenty of kanji have only one particularly common meaning, and as a result can be easier to pick up than you might think. Anyone who has been in Japan for as little as a week ought to be able to recognise yen, entrance, exit, month, day and the name of their nearest train station, for instance.

en - yen iriguchi - entrance deguchi - exit hachi-gatsu sanjuu-ichi-nichi - August 31st

In addition, it's often easier to remember the meaning of a kanji than the exact pronunciation - which may be all you need.

And once you've learned a kanji, you mysteriously start seeing it almost everywhere you look... funny, that... which is great for practice.

The way kanji combine can (I think, anyway) also be fascinating. One example is the Japanese word for crisis, consisting of the kanji for danger followed by the kanji for opportunity. Cool. Other examples are lawyer (speaking-protect-scholar) and, more mundanely, telephone (electric speaking). A lot of enjoyment(*) can be had from just getting out there for yourself and discovering these and similar connections.

So, that's what a kanji is. They're great. I hope you'll be able to get some use out of kanji (not to mention this site) but just doing it for fun is also perfectly acceptable in many polite societies.

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