question for people that are studying or have studied chinese, korean or japanese?

Question

When learning new vocabulary is it better to learn the meaning of the word and its kanji (hanzi?) at the same time, or should i first learn alot of vocabulary and then worry about learning their kanji?

Answer 1

I was a Mandarin tutor. If your work doesn't require you to write or read any Chinese very soon, I would recommend you starting learning speaking first, and no characters at all.

This focus will help you in at least two ways:
1) build up your confidence in communicate in Chinese; learning writing or reading at the same time will be to distracting;
2) build up your listening ability earlier. Most people can read and speak quite well but have difficulty in understanding others.

Then, i will recommend you spend time on the characters. This is the best model for people learning Chinese in part time.

Answer 2

You should try to learn both, because in order to be able to go any level higher than beginner you've to be able to decipher some kanji. Japanese have way too many homonyms that have the same hiragana writing, but an entirely different kanji. Knowing the kanji helps you understand the sentence much easier.

Of course, for non-Japanese/Chinese people learning the Kanji is a challenge. All I can say is practice makes perfect.

Koreans rarely use kanji.

Answer 3

I really recommend you to learn both at the same time. Of course, you have to learn first hiragana and then katakana, in order to write the vocabulary you are learning.
But if you forget about kanji, and try to learn IT at the end, when you know a lot of vocabulary, it will be impossible!! Is better to do it at the same time, so when you read a book, you can understand what is written (kanji and meaning). Good luck, because is not easy at all!!

Answer 4

I'm learning Chinese and I learn the word (kanji, we call it hanzi), its meaning and it's pronunciation all in one go. When learning, I write it about 60 times over and this really helps. You'll have to learn the kanji eventually so you may as well learn it when you learn new words.

Answer 5

Well, I study Japanese, and I don't learn the kanji with the vocab.
I learn the kanji as i need to know them, IE, for the JLPT kyuu 4, I need to know 103 kanji, so every week I aim to learn 6.
It really depends on the kind of time you have to dedicate for learning.
If you go for chinese though, I think and learning the kanji is essentual.

Answer 6

I like to learn the hanzi right along with speaking, as seeing the character and learning of the meaning and background often helps me to remember the word. Plus, with learning the characters, that gives you the ability to read books and articles in Chinese (or japanese) and gives me a chance to learn new words.

Answer 7

Japanese language has three types u got to master, one is hiragana, the other one is katakana and the last one is kanji!!!
hiragana and katakana just like learning alphabet, u need to memorise and write and read....
After this then u can proceed to meaning of word and phrases...kanji in fact is the most difficult one to learn.....
although chinese language writing is the same as kanji, but pronunciation might be slightly difference...even meaning difference too....
First of all, u need to ask yourself what language u want to learn, because it is always difficult to start learning...but later on ...u will enjoy it and love to move up to higher level!!!

Answer 8

I think kanji should be anchored to one or several meanings in one's mother language, like the Japanese do, because if you have to decide between several meanings when you read a sentence, it must be easier to make the guess in one's own language. I also expect that this guessing process must become more easily automatic if it is based on one's own language.
Therefore I'd say (but it's Maniette, or more precisely, I believe, Heisig's point of view) : one has to learn kanji meanings in his own language, then, when he's accustomed to an "oral" word in Japanese, associate this word with one of the kanji meanings already learned.

Basically, I opted for that way because it seems to me compliant with the way we are taught at the beginning the basic grammar of a foreign language, i.e. in our mother tongue.

Answer 9

If you are a serious student, then you should, in my opinion, learn to write when you learn to speak. If you are not as serious, then do not learn to write, because only people who want to really understand words need to learn to write.

Answer 10

You definently want to learn vocab first. I don't recomend Japenese, it takes around five years to speak fluently and there are five different ways of writing, but if you wanna learn, e-mail me something and i'll translate it for you!