Learn to Read and Write in Japanese

Once you’ve learned the basic sounds and had some practise speaking Japanese, kanji is a natural next step to accelerate your language learning. As previously mentioned, Kanji is the Japanese written system of characters, adapted from Chinese. It’s made up of characters that have smaller parts called radicals, where each brushstroke emphasises balance and composition.

While some language learners find writing one of the most challenging parts of Japanese, there are a few tips that can make learning kanji a little easier. And despite the difficulty, knowing kanji is extremely helpful if you’re traveling through Japan and trying to navigate your way around a busy city like Tokyo. Being able to read road signs, menus, and maps will ease your journey and make communicating with locals a bit easier.

While there are no shortcuts to mastering kanji, there are a few tips that may help language learners pick up the basics of writing and reading Japanese.

1. Image associations

This helpful memory trick works for any language that utilises more complex characters and involves associating the image with an object. Look at each Japanese character and try to find something familiar that it resembles. It’s best if the object you associate the character with also conveys the meaning of the word.

For instance, this is the kanji character for the word stop in Japanese: 止 . As you can see, it looks very much like a stop sign and works well for an image association method because it resembles the word it represents.

2. Read manga

Manga is the art of Japanese comic books and is famous throughout the world as an integral part of the country’s culture. Reading manga can be especially helpful for language learners as comic books are rich with image and contextual cues to help decipher the meaning of the written words.

It’s best to start out with manga titles geared towards younger audiences, such as Sailor Moon, and then work your way up to the more complex subject matter. Another good place to begin is the Japanese manga series called One Piece by Eiichiro Oda holds the Guinness World Record for the most copies published of the same comic book series by a single author.

3. Learn Kanji radicals

Radicals are specific parts of a written character and once you learn a few of them, you may be able to guess at the meaning of a more complex word. Although kanji is not always as simple as breaking each character into smaller parts, once you get a feel for Japanese you can see connections between components of written words.

For instance, 今日 is the kanji character for “today,” but the radical in the second part of the character, 日, means “sun” or “day”. This same radical also turns up in phrases like “good afternoon” 今日は.

4. Chat online with other learners

Practise makes perfect and what better way to set aside time to work on kanji than to commit to writing in Japanese. Rosetta Stone has a web app that allows you to chat with other learners, helping you hone in on the characters that are used more often in daily conversations. \ Writing online really helps if you’re concerned about your ability to craft the balanced characters and brushstrokes of kanji. Some keyboards can be switched to Japanese characters using a few simple commands or you can use a Japanese keyboard online.