Dear friends. I need your help-suggestions.
Context: I recently traveled to Japan, last April. I decided I wanted to learn how to read and speak it, so I found this thread (among other online sources) and for the past month or so, have self-learned:
The problem:
I decided this week to start learning Kanji. And...
It has been a disaster. I am able to figure out all of hiragana rules, as well as how to use them in combination, but as soon as I see the Kanji by itself or in another context, I forget what the heck its supposed to mean. I have tried to associate the symbol with a thought or using math-like reasoning (breakfast, lunch, dinner seemed like a good example: 朝食, 昼食,夕食) but any rule will break in the next Kanji I try.
Is this really all just memorization? If so:
Context: I recently traveled to Japan, last April. I decided I wanted to learn how to read and speak it, so I found this thread (among other online sources) and for the past month or so, have self-learned:
- Hiragana: using mnemonics
- Katakana: using mnemonics
- Numbers
- Grammar
- Some vocabulary
The problem:
I decided this week to start learning Kanji. And...
It has been a disaster. I am able to figure out all of hiragana rules, as well as how to use them in combination, but as soon as I see the Kanji by itself or in another context, I forget what the heck its supposed to mean. I have tried to associate the symbol with a thought or using math-like reasoning (breakfast, lunch, dinner seemed like a good example: 朝食, 昼食,夕食) but any rule will break in the next Kanji I try.
Is this really all just memorization? If so:
- Mnemonics were quite effective in making me memorize all of the Hiragana and Katakana characters very quickly. Is there a similar way to proceed with Kanji?
- Should I just book an online teacher here (this seems like a nice place) and ask for a customized Kanji-learning method aligned with my learning process? https://www.italki.com/teachers/japanese
- Any other suggestions?