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You don't need to spend 10+ years studying kanji to reach a decent
level of Japanese literacy. One or two years will do, if you've got the
right technique.
In this article, we're going to give you the recipe to our secret sauce
so you can do the same, no WaniKani necessary.
Even if you think you're "bad at kanji," you'll see a five to tenfold
increase in your kanji learning speed the moment you get to the
bottom of this page. A pretty good reward for fifteen minutes of
reading time, don't you think?
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We want to give these people another option. If someone wants
education, they should be able to get it.
2. If you create a free WaniKani account, you can use WaniKani levels
1–3 for free (that's 100+ kanji, and 300+ vocabulary words). By that
time, you've learned everything in this guide and more. People don't
stick with WaniKani because we keep the method a secret. They
stick with it because it's hard to quit (some say "addicting"), it's
simple (sit down, follow the instructions, and you will make
progress), it has a huge community of like-minded Japanese
learners (though sometimes they're a bit weird), and it's an all-in-
one solution (SRS, ordering, and more).
If you're a teacher, you'll learn how to teach kanji in your class using
this method. We'll provide reference materials for you to use, so
you can build a kanji/vocabulary teaching method tailored to your
teaching needs.
Ready to get started? There's a lot to cover, and we're sure you're
excited to see some results.
⼤ = ⼤ (big)
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Identifying the Radical
Verbs
Adjectives
First, you need to learn what a radical is. There's a chance you've
heard of radicals before – perhaps in reference to looking up kanji
in paper kanji dictionaries – but those aren't quite the radicals we're
talking about.
In this guide, radicals are patterns and symbols that appear inside
each kanji. Each kanji consists of 1–3 (sometimes four) individual
radicals. Think of them as "building blocks" for creating kanji.
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Now, try to imagine attempting to learn to read a word in English
without having the knowledge of the alphabet at your disposal. It's
insane, right? Yet, that is exactly how most people are learning
kanji.
The kanji is 町, which means "town." As you can see in the image
above, 町 is made up of two radicals:
1. ⽥ (rice paddy)
2. 丁 (street)
To learn this kanji using the radicals mnemonic method, you need
to know the names of these two radicals first (we'll teach you how
to learn kanji radical names later on in the guide).
See the two radicals? Okay, good. Let's move on to the next
example.
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The kanji is 電, which means "electricity." The radicals used to build
this kanji are:
1. ⾬ (rain)
2. ⽥ (rice paddy)
3. ⺃ (umbrella)
It's also possible for kanji to have only one radical, which means the
radical and the kanji are the same! The kanji ⼤ means "big." And in
this case, the radical ⼤ also means "big."
There are cases where the radical name and kanji name are
different. We'll talk about that later on.
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Through the radical mnemonic method, we'll essentially skip the
short-term memory step, putting kanji directly into your long-term
memory.
For this section, I want you to remember the number seven. Why?
Humans can typically remember 6–8 things in their short-term
memory. A lot of kanji have well over eight strokes.
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We'll start with ⼤, because it's only made of three strokes. That's
not so hard, and it falls well within the seven things a typical human
can keep in their short-term memory. Three strokes is only three
things to remember.
Finally, let's look at the most complicated kanji we've introduced (so
far). 電 is thirteen strokes, meaning it's extremely difficult for your
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brain to memorize via rote memorization. With radicals, you only
need to memorize three things.
Thirteen vs. three is a huge difference, and kanji get way more
complicated than this.
My point is this: right from the start – even without mnemonics – the
radicals mnemonic method cuts down what you have to memorize
by 80%, in most cases.
But we're not stopping there. Next you'll see how the addition of
mnemonics allows you to stick a kanji's meaning and reading
straight into your long-term memory. No more rote memorization.
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community.
The mnemonic method we'll use to learn kanji utilizes stories. This
is important, because stories are what catapults a brand new piece
of information (a kanji's meaning) into your long-term memory.
First, identify the radicals that build the kanji. It's important to come
up with a method so that the order of the radicals are the same
every time you identify them. While you could use any ordering
system you want as long as it's consistent, we recommend you
order the radicals by following general kanji stroke order rules. That
is, by starting in the top-left and working your way down to the
bottom-right. It'll make writing easier, should you ever learn how to
write by hand.
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For example, with rice paddy and street you could create stories
like…
A rice paddy that's so big a street forms next to it? That's a town!
or…
In your mind's eye, you should imagine these two stories. A couple
of things:
Let's do this with the other two kanji you've looked at in this guide.
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Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity!
or
You may have noticed already, but the kanji 町 (town) and 電
(electricity) share the common kanji radical ⽥ (rice paddy).
Radicals you learn will be used over and over again, just like the
letters of the alphabet. Some will be used more than others (also
like the alphabet), but every radical will be used more than once.
Okay, lastly, let's look at the kanji ⼤, which is built with the radical
⼤.
⼤ = ⼤ (big)
In cases where the radical is the same as the kanji, you don't have
to make a story. Just use the radical to trigger the fact that the kanji
is the same as the radical.
In cases where the radical is the same as the kanji but the radical's
name is different, you have to create a story, just like before, to
connect the radical name and the kanji meaning. The only
difference is you have to create a story from one radical. It's a little
obnoxious, but when the radical name is different from the kanji,
there's usually a good reason for it (most likely, the kanji meaning is
hard to imagine and not good for mnemonics).
Now that you understand how this works, let's quickly run through
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some examples. Go through each kanji, identify where the radical
lives in each, and then make your own story (or look at our
examples for inspiration).
2. The sun and the moon are out? With both their light-powers
combined, it's incredibly bright!
2. Make your spirit simple by being more Zen. Let go of your worldly
desires and be free!
2. If you want to carry fire with you to find your way on a dark street
you'll need to buy a lamp.
1. The sun is used in the temple to tell time. Clocks aren't allowed in
sacred places like this!
2. Go see where the sun falls in the temple. That's how you know
that time it is.
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2. Eye death is the leading cause of blindness in most first world
countries.
2. What the heck dude! You shot fireballs at my syrup and it dried
up! You're the worst!
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You're probably thinking. "Isn't it better to learn the ‘official' names?
Who do you think you are, Tofugu?!"
The first thing you have to know is that there are "radicals lists" out
there – quite a few, actually. In theory, you're free to use any
radicals list you'd like, but for the sake of this guide, we'll use the
radicals from WaniKani. Other radicals lists, including the most
common "official" Chinese Kangxi Radicals List, don't work well
with our mnemonic method. One of the major reasons for this is
that some of the names assigned to the radicals aren't very good.
For example:
⼐ open box
⼌ down box
⼴ dotted cliff
⽘ double x
You have to admit, the names may look like the things they
represent, but they don't really hold any meaning. There's nothing
you can visualize easily in your mind's eye with "down box."
Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical
man ⼈ small ⼩ hand ⼿ water ⽔ fire ⽕
man ⺅ small ⺌ hand ⺘ water ⺡ fire ⺣
man small ⺍
By renaming duplicates to unique names, it's easier to make easy-
to-visualize stories in your mnemonics.
Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical
person ⼈ small ⼩ hand ⼿ water ⽔ fire ⽕
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Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical Name Radical
leader ⺅ triceratops ⺌ fingers ⺘ tsunami ⺡ boil ⺣
hat grass ⺍
You may have realized at this point that we're renaming radicals.
"How dare you alter the original," you are probably thinking. "Isn't it
better to learn the ‘official' names? Who do you think you are,
Tofugu?!" (Oof, that's an email we get a lot!)
3. What would you say if I asked you, "What's the meaning of the
letter ‘s' in ‘stupid?'" Radicals and kanji are a lot like that. Knowing
the official meaning of a radical isn't important (and when it is, we
keep the official meaning).
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Now that you know radicals have names that are good for making
stories, it's time to learn how to identify them, learn them, and use
them to make your own kanji meaning mnemonics.
6. It will find the kanji in our spreadsheet. If you look at the 盲 kanji
row, it will show you what radicals are used to build this kanji.
8. Rejoice!
These steps assume you already know the radicals to a degree that
allow you to use them in stories. You have to know the names of
the radicals well enough to identify them without looking up their
meanings.
So, the next question is, how should you learn the radicals? In what
order should you learn them? When should you learn them?
But, if you're learning kanji on your own, you have to come up with
your own ordering, and figure out what radicals to learn for your
target kanji. It's not impossible, but it does require some
forethought. To make this work, you'll either need to:
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1. Learn the names of all the radicals first, before you even look at
any kanji. This method feels slow at first, but overall it's probably
going to take a similar amount of time compared to any other
method. Or,
2. Take a look at the 10–30 kanji you need to learn next and go
through each one by one. Identify the radicals used in each of
these kanji, and learn those radicals (you'll have to figure out a way
to judge when something is "learned"). Then, after you've learned
the radicals, learn the meanings of the kanji using your "learned"
radicals. Then, repeat. The next set of 10–30 kanji will use radicals
you've already learned, and with each set you'll have fewer and
fewer radicals to learn.
That said, we've already done all this in WaniKani, so if you don't
want to spend time deciding what radical to learn when, that's a
third option available to you.
Alright, so you've learned how to learn the radicals, and how to use
them to make stories that trigger the memory of a kanji's reading.
Now you're going to learn how to memorize a kanji's reading by
continuing your mnemonic.
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Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, focuses mainly on learning the
meanings of kanji. It sure feels like you "know" a lot of kanji when
you finish this book, but the meaning of a kanji is only about one-
fourth of the equation. If you want to be able to read (and speak,
and write, and listen to) Japanese, you need to learn a kanji's
readings and vocabulary too.
Readings are difficult, but choosing what kanji reading to learn may
be even harder. The traditional method for learning a kanji's reading
is to just learn all of them, or at the very least learn an on'yomi and
kun'yomi reading. Almost every kanji has at least two ways to
read/pronounce it (one on'yomi and one kun'yomi). But, there are
also often multiple on'yomi readings and/or multiple kun'yomi
readings. Don't even get me started on nanori (readings for kanji
used in names)!
For most kanji, there is one reading that's better than all the rest;
one reading that is used in 80–90% of the vocabulary words that
use that kanji.
Economically, one reading makes a lot more sense too. You are
doing 20% of the work, but getting 80% of the results. To achieve
the other 20% of the results, you'd have to spend five times as
much time. You do need to learn that 20% eventually, but you can
learn it by studying vocabulary.
So, we keep talking about this "one reading." How do you go about
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choosing this one reading? It's difficult, especially for a beginner.
Sometimes there's no right answer, but in general you can use the
instructions below to choose a pretty good one:
Choose the reading that's used the most in vocabulary. Just search
for the kanji you want on jisho.org with two asterisks on either side
(for example *大*). This will find all the words that use ⼤. Go
through the results and get an idea of what reading is most
useful/what shows up most often.
Be careful when looking at words that use the kanji in them, though.
Not all words are created equally. Favor words marked with the tag
"common." The "common" tag isn't perfect, but it should help.
If you have no idea, just choose the on'yomi reading. It's generally
going to be the most useful reading to learn. If there is more than
one on'yomi reading, use the steps above to see what reading
looks the most useful.
Guess. As long as you learn vocabulary (we'll show you how later
on), you're going to learn all the readings. Don't stress too much
about it, as it will work out in the end.
Take a look:
町 (town) = ちょう
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The town that popped up overnight is led by Mrs. Chou. You don't
want to live here. You don't even want to stop in this town. Mrs.
Chou is insanely evil, so get out of there! (Join WaniKani to learn
more about the saga of Mrs. Chou.)
電 (electricity) = でん
After the electricity hits you, you feel your face and there's a huge
dent. Ouch!
明 (bright) = めい
Things only start to get this bright outside in May. Before that
month it's always dark and rainy.
礼 (thanks) = れい
You show your thanks to the spirit and suddenly a ray gun appears
at your feet. Huh. Maybe you should thank the spirits more often.
禅 (zen) = ぜん
Zen is zen. (So meta!)
灯 (lamp) = とう
Lamps lining the streets were first invented in Toukyo. That's why
the Toukyo we know today is always lit up with new-age lamps all
night long!
時 (time) = じ
Time in a temple makes you think of Jesus. Specifically, Jesus
being able to perform time travel magic. He winks at you, goes
back to the dinosaur ages, where he wrestles a T-rex. Then, he
goes to WWII era and punches Hitler in the mouth.
盲 (blind) = もう
Now that you're blind you shouldn't drive anymore because if you
do you'll mow everyone over. Actually, you probably shouldn't mow
your lawn anymore either…
娠 (pregnant) = しん
When you're pregnant you hit your shins on things all the time
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because your belly is so big. You can't look down to see your shins,
let alone try to avoid bumping into things.
燥 (dry up) = そう
Dry up syrup with fire and, you're removing its soul. Have you ever
seen dry syrup before? No soul in that. In fact, you probably have
no soul if you can dry up syrup without feeling bad about it.
弊 (evil) = へい
The evil penguins can't let you tell the other humans what you've
seen, so they murder you and hide your body in a hay stack. Your
family will never know what happened to you. The penguins will get
away with their evil plans.
By doing this, you have a system for not only recalling the meaning
of a kanji, but the reading of a kanji as well. I know recalling the
meaning and reading feels slow to you now, but you'll learn how to
reach a fluent level of recall later on in this guide. Part of this comes
in the next step, as well as the final piece of the puzzle: vocabulary.
if you are trying to learn the word ⼈⼝, you would need to "know"
the kanji ⼈ and ⼝. If you don't know both, you shouldn't be
learning this word (yet).
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vocabulary words that WaniKani users learn. You can use them too:
2. Do you know all the kanji in the word? For example, if you are
trying to learn the word ⼈⼝, you would need to "know" the kanji ⼈
and ⼝. If you don't know both, you shouldn't be learning this word
(yet). As for how to define "knowing a kanji," that's going to have to
be a threshold you decide yourself. We suggest being more
conservative on this, because people tend to be more optimistic
than they should be when it comes to knowledge.
3. Sometimes a kanji will only have one "good" word worth learning.
But, the act of learning vocabulary words helps you to learn the
kanji as well. In cases like these, we suggest you add a couple
"less common" words to your study stack, because it will help you
in the long run. Even "uncommon" words will pop up where you
least expect them.
4. You like the word. Hey, that's a good enough reason for me.
Jukugo Vocabulary
There are multiple kinds of vocabulary words, and each will use a
slightly different mnemonic strategy, but we'll start with jukugo
(combination) type words first. These words are two or more kanji
(sometimes four kanji) plopped together to form a word. If you know
the meanings of the individual kanji, you can use that information to
create a story that will get you to the meaning of the vocabulary
word. It's not so different from the way you learned the kanji
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meaning, is it? Let's look at some examples:
⼈⼝
Person + Mouth = Population
The amount of people with mouths (that you have to feed) is the
total population you're responsible for.
目⽟
Eye + Ball = Eyeball
An eye that's also a ball… well that's easy, it's your eyeball.
⼦⽝
Child + Dog = Puppy
A child dog, or the child of a dog, is a puppy!
不良
Not + Good = Bad
If something is not good then it must be bad.
戦場
War + Location = Battlefield
The war location is the battlefield. It's where you actually fight the
war.
暗殺
Dark + Kill
A dark kill is an assassination. It's done in secret, usually in the
dark. Probably by a ninja.
野球
Field + Sphere = Baseball
The sport you play in a field throwing a sphere is, of course,
baseball!
⻭医者
Tooth + Medicine + Someone = Dentist
Someone who puts medicine on your tooth is your dentist. (At
least I hope so. Don't let random people put things on your teeth!)
顔⽂字
Face + Writing + Letter = Kaomoji
You make a face by writing with letters. That's called kaomoji! Oh
well, we stole that from Japan, but you get the point.
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旅⾏者
Trip + Go + Someone = Tourist, Traveler
Someone who goes on a trip is a tourist or a traveler.
英会話
England + Meet + Talk = English Conversation
If you go to England and meet people to talk to, you're having an
English conversation.
外務⼤⾂
Outside + Task + Big + Servant = Minister of Foreign Affairs
The public servant who handles the big tasks concerning things
outside your country is the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
保守主義
Preserve + Protect + Master + Righteousness = Conservative
Someone who wants to preserve, protect, and master the
righteousness of the past is a conservative.
各駅停⾞
Each + Station + Halt + Car = Local Train
A car that halts at each station is a local train. If you get on one
be prepared for a long ride with a lot of stops.
⾃動販売機
Self + Move + Sell + Sell + Machine = Vending Machine
Ah yes. The machine that moves by itself to sell sell sell. You
know it, you love it: the vending machine!
Verbs
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⾷べる
Eat + う sound
This is a verb with the kanji for eat, so you can guess it means to
eat.
⾔う
Say + う sound
This is a verb with the kanji for say, so you can guess it means to
say.
聞く
Hear + う sound
This is a verb with the kanji for hear, so you can guess it means to
hear.
学ぶ
Study + う sound
This is a verb with the kanji for study, so it means to study or to
learn.
目覚める
Eye + Awake + う sound
The verb for your eyes becoming awake is to wake up.
⼼得る
Heart + Acquire + う sound
Here's another verb. When your heart acquires something, you
know it forever. So this means to know.
Adjectives
You can do the same thing with adjectives too. As you might know,
a good number of adjectives end in い (these are known as "い
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adjectives"). If you see a single kanji with an い at the end, you can
guess that it is (probably) an adjective form of the kanji's meaning.
⼤きい
Big + ends with い
This is an adjective version of big, so you can guess it means big.
忙しい
Busy + ends with い
This is an adjective version of busy is also busy.
丸い
Circle + ends with い
The adjective version of circle is circular or round.
⽩い
White + ends with い
Adding い to the noun white turns it into the adjective white.
若々しい
Young + 々 (repeater) + ends with い
々 means the kanji is happening twice, so the adjective version of
young young is youthful.
And lastly, there are times where you just see a vocabulary word
that is a single kanji sitting there all alone. When this happens, the
meaning of the vocabulary word is usually the same as the
meaning of the kanji. And it's usually a noun.
⼭
Mountain
It's a mountain!
⼒
Power
It's power!
外
Outside
It's outside!
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Now
It's now!
瓶
Bottle
It's a bottle!
蟹
Crab
It's a crab!
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But, the memories are still shaky. You still need to put in the work to
transition those memories from "need to use mnemonics to recall
them" to "fluent" (pops out of your mind with no thinking at all).
First off, I want to remind you about the ordering. I don't know what
kanji you're going to learn and when, but you always need to follow
the "radicals → kanji → vocabulary" pattern. Radicals are the
building blocks for learning the kanji. Kanji are the building blocks
for learning the vocabulary.
1. Learn radicals.
2. Learn kanji.
3. Learn vocabulary.
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It will take a long time to bring one item to this "fluent" state, but
SRS is what elevates this process to maximum efficiency. When
you're learning hundreds or even thousands of different items, SRS
is a godsend. You just have to add the items and do your reviews
when it tells you to.
I know that all this seems like a lot of work (and it is). In the short-
term, it will feel like you're spending a ton of time not learning
anything at all. But you have to look at the big picture.
If you learn kanji this way, you'll reach the end goal ten times faster.
You have to believe in the system, and force yourself to make a
little progress every day. You'll see some gigantic gains after about
a month. Stick with it, and your future-self will thank you.
I'd also like to note there are communities and resources out there
that will allow you to skip some of the manual, time-consuming
steps mentioned above.
Whoever you are, you can do it. I know it's a big endeavor, but you
can learn kanji, and you can do it in (way) less than a decade.
Many small actions will get you there, so take the first step right
now. If you're having trouble doing that, or if you have any
questions, you can always shoot us an email. We'll do our best to
help you out.
Good luck!
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