ダッミト!! (Lol, that was my attempt at DAMMIT! in 日本語)

Yea, so I haven't sat down here in forever. Last time I did, I did the third lesson in Season に called 'Before You Learn Kanji.'

Although the content was heavy (も), I was excited at the end because I was under the impression that kanji would be next. Only to find out that wasn't really the case. I took a bunch of notes on that lesson though and I want to document them here tonight. On a pretty positive side note, before I get started with those notes, the next time I logged into TextFugu, I saw that I could sign up to alpha test their new kanji learning tool, WaniKani. I did and IT IS AWESOME!! So, although I haven't been here in awhile, and although I was a bit disappointed after the last lesson (I mean c'mon, I was sort of excited instead of frightened of kanji!), I've actually been learning quite a few kanji (and more radicals of course) using WaniKani. It's really cool. So, in essence, what I'm trying to say is that I haven't been a totally bad kid when it comes to my 日本語 quest. In fact, I've been all over the WaniKani, so at least there's that!

Anyway, about those notes. . . Here they are. . . Verbatim! (It's kind of scary. LOL)

Before You Learn Kanji

Know the first set of radicals well. It's going to suck - period. However @ least with TextFugu it's going to be less hard.

(おん) On'yomi - Original Chinese readings

• Long story short due to Chinese history, kanji have multiple おん readings and many of them are used. Fortunately, for each kanji, most use a single on'yomi 80-90% of the time. (Think 80-20 rule - sort of)

(くん) Kun'yomi

• Quite a bit different from おん reading. くん are actually native 日本語 words that have been associated and attached to kanji as it was being imported

• *In order to make kanji accessible to [those] who didn't speak Chinese, ひらがな got attached to kanji. Ex: the kanji for "eat" or "food" is 食 / しょく (on'yomi)
• The on'yomi is the original Chinese pronunciation but his on'yomi isn't (usually) used on its own to say    "eat" or "food." You often have to combine kanji together to form jukugo (combo kanji) in order to create a word using on'yomi pronunciations. For example, 夕食 (ゆうしょく) means dinner. You can see how the kanji are combined to create a word. (Ha! I guess...)

• The kun'yomi is different. (Yay!) Since it is the Japanese pronunciation of a word or concept, the Japanese figured out their word for eat and applied it to this kanji. The word for "to eat" in Japanese is たべます, but that's too long to stick in one kanji (plus when its on its own, you already pronounce it しょく.) So by adding hiragana to kanji, it shows how to read the kanji. When written in Japanese, and kanji, it looks like this: 食べます. (た.べます)
• When you learn the kun'yomi, you learn the whole thing - hiragana, kanji and all
• *Think of kun'yomi as new vocabulary you learn with the kanji*

• Because Japanese words didn't fit w/ kanji perfectly, some duct-taping had to happen i.e. often times, hiragana will be attached to a kanji to "complete" it and show the kun'yomi reading.

When to Use the On'yomi and Kun'yomi (O_o)

• Pretty difficult.
• General rules which might help.

1. When a kanji is sitting on it's own, often times you'll use the くん reading. (There are exceptions to this--aren't there always??!)
2. When a kanji is combined with another kanji, and no hiragana is attached, you'll probably use the おん reading. This is jukugo.
3. A lot of the time, you'll have to have prior knowledge of a particular word before you can know the pronunciation of it. Often times, you can guess the pronunciation of a word/kanji, based on your studies/a few indicators, but in the end preparedness and experience is key. Even Japanese speakers can't always figure out the pronunciation of a word they haven't learned in context before. It's not like English where you can just sound it out, after all!!

So, yea. After digitizing those notes, I think I might be just as confused if not more than when I wrote them. No freaking wonder why most students of 日本語 quit. This stuff is tough. If I hadn't learned several kanji and their readings (even though I couldn't tell you definitively whether the readings I've learned are おん or くん honestly -- I guess likely くん based on general rule 1 above) via WaniKani, I think I'd be pretty depressed right now. LOL.

Goodnight and またね!