掲示板 Forums - Kanji: do I really need to learn the onyomi/kunyomi readings?

(These are my personal opinions. As always, renshuu lets you study in whatever way works best for you.)

Many people wonder: when learning kanji on renshuu (or some other platform), whether or not it's worth learning what seems like a list of arbitrary readings for each kanji character. (By the way, if you don't know what kanji readings are, check out our Kanji Basics lesson under Resources > Japanese Basics in the menu)

While there are different ways to reach this, it is essential for long-term learning that you end up having a mental map of readings for each kanji.

(Check out the bottom of the post for the two main ways that people do this)

What do readings help with?

It is the hope of most learners that one reaches the point where learning switches over from an active to a passive activity. In other words, you stop learning lists of words and expressions, and start to pick them up the way that native speakers do: through exposure to them in conversation, reading, etc. This may seem like an impossible dream to someone who is only a couple hundred words into the language, but it is a step that all learners reach if they stick with it.

Reading

As you most likely know, kanji have one or more meanings that can be used to help figure out the meaning of a written word, even if you've never seen it before. So if you run into the word 今夜 (こんや), knowledge of those two kanji will make you think "now + night... this probably means tonight." Additionally, since words are usually parts of sentences and paragraphs, the context of the passage will help even more with the meaning of the term.

One might think that the meaning is enough, then - no knowledge of readings was needed to identify that word. However, just knowing the meaning of the term does nothing in terms of letting you use the term yourself (either in writing or speaking). If you're typing out the word, using the "reading" of the term is always going to be faster than a writing pad that lets you input the kanji directly. It's more obvious with speaking - if you cannot read it, you cannot say it.

Now, if you are thinking "I never plan on writing or speaking, I just want to consume Japanese media", I'd strongly recommend that you consider the possibility that you'll want to write or speak in the future. Relative to how much time you will put in learning to read Japanese, the time to learn to write it (even if it's just on computers) is tiny in comparison.

Listening

You might not believe me now, but knowing the readings of kanjis plays a HUGE part in listening skills, especially as you progress into intermediate and advanced levels.

Let's think about what listening actually is - it's hearing the "readings" of a string of words. Let's return to our example, 今夜/こんや. If you do not have a firm grasp on the word to begin with, when you hear the word, you're going to hear it in one of two ways:

こ - ん - や = three syllables, each with no inherent meaning as individual sounds.

こん や = two readings, each of which your brain can link up with potential readings from known kanji.

や might be a word you studied as a suffix, but こん doesn't exist on its own. In other words, without prior knowledge about the kanji and readings, there are few strategies (other than relying purely on context) that you have to figure out what this word means. However, if you have こん in your head as 今, and や as 夜, you're going to have a better chance at figuring out what it is.

And of course, it's pretty hard to tell someone to stop talking while you take a word and look it up, so we need to give our heads every advantage possible in decoding the language as we receive it. Anyone that has used Japanese in real life has probably had the experience where taking too much time to understand someone and come up with an answer destroyed the flow of the conversation.

I was a teacher in Japan for many years, and was part of teacher meetings as a daily part of my job. One day in March, a teacher was talking, and a word was spoken that I had never heard before: しんがっき.

It came as a shock when my brain said "oh, I know what that means."

しん / がっ (collapsed form of がく ) / き

しん is used by many kanji, but is overwhelming used as 新 (new), especially when at the beginning of a word.

がく is a rarer reading (less kanji use it), so given that I was at a school, 学 (がく) actually appeared in my head.

き is a tricky one. If you type this into renshuu's kanji dictionary, you will get a HUGE list of kanji, including many that you learn in your first year or two of learning Japanese. However, the other two kanji plus some contextual clues led me to the most likely candidate. It was March, which meant the new school year (and school semester) was starting in April. Additionally, the discussion was discussing schedule matters. So "new + school + ____", I guessed that き was 期 (period).

Once you have a firm grasp on them with repeated exposure, kanji will literally leap into your head and help you figure out what you're hearing.

As a summary, these two processes are examples of passive learning. With this, you will transition away from looking up every new word, and start learning more Japanese just by being exposed to it. It's pretty awesome, and is completely attainable for all learners.

So, how should I learn readings?

There are two key methods for learning readings, both possible on renshuu:

1. Kanji meanings + readings -> vocabulary review

This is my preferred method, but not ideal for everyone.

A. In your kanji schedule, have the meaning, kunyomi, and onyomi study vectors enabled.

B. Through your schedule, learn and review the kanji readings as elements of the kanji.

C. In your vocabulary schedule(s), any words with those kanji will start automatically offering up kanji questions, so you can review and reinforcement through your vocabulary studies.

+ Helps make a very clear mapping of kanji to readings

+ Makes unique readings (those are the ones, like 今日/きょう, where the kanji in the word do not link up with official readings) easier to spot.

+ Since you learn the original readings, it is an easier jump to collapsed/contracted forms (がく > がっ).

- Depending on your vocabulary contents, you may learn readings that you are not immediately exposed to within your vocabulary studies.

2. Kanji meanings (no readings) -> vocabulary review

A. In your kanji schedule, have the meaning vector only.

B. So, your kanji schedules focuses only on meaning.

C. In your vocabulary schedule(s), you will be exposed to the readings through the vocabulary terms that use them.

+ You do not have to learn the readings in isolation (which can be hard for many people)

+ You do not spend as much time on the less common readings

- Unique readings are harder to notice

- Rarer readings will not be reinforced as often

- Collapsed readings are harder to synthesize into your knowledge. (A collapsed/contracted reading is one that gets shortened when used within a word with multiple kanji in it. For example, 学 has the reading がく, but it is read as がっこう in 学校 (gakk instead of gaku). So if you learn 学 in your kanji schedule, then 学校 in your vocabulary schedule, it will not be obvious if がっ (gakk) is a shortened form of がく, がつ, etc.)

However, both styles reach the same goal: the mapping of kanji to readings. So choose what works best for you!

P.S. - If you would like learning materials which are built around "learn a kanji, then immediately learn a group of words that use that kanji", consider going into Resources > Lesson Center, then searching for renshuu's "kanji kentei" materials. They'll be perfect for you, and they follow the kanji progression used in schools in Japan.

Will just mention one thing that can scare some people away from learning the readings: Some kanji have a large number of different readings listed for them.

For example: 行 has 11 readings listed
Kunyomi: い (く)_小, ゆ (く)_小, おこな (う)_小, -ゆ (き)_x, -ゆき_x, -い (き)_x, -いき_x, おこ (なう)_x
Onyomi: コウ_小, ギョウ_小, アン_高

I'll just emphasize that when you first learn the readings for a kanji, you don't need to learn ALL of the readings. You only need to worry about the most common readings. For 行 it would just be these 2:

Kunyomi: い (く)_小

Onyomi: コウ_小

Those will probably cover 95% of what you read. As your vocabulary expands, you can pick up the other readings.

The SUBSCRIPTS! Been wondering all the time what they were supposed to do. Never tried to click on them either haha

If you go into the dictionary for the kanji, the readings have a subscript. If you hover over the subscript you will get a popup that tells you:

"These symbols denote when this reading is typically learned in a Japanese school.
小: Primary school
中: Middle School
高: High School
x (or nothing): unknown, or not taught in the above school levels"

Following Kanji Kentei seems like a reasonable approach. It's worth a try. If it works for you, then it is a good approach. If it doesn't work for you, then it's a bad approach.

I don't believe there is any way (currently) to turn on vectors at a mastery level. One option that might be close to what you want is to create a separate schedule with the reading vectors. You could then either add the terms manually one by one, or by lesson to that schedule when you want to learn the readings.

I mean I understand why you may not want to learn them but they do come in handy. It helps shorten things out and like a few people have said you don't need to know every meaning to to a singular Kanji. Just try and focus on the main meanings and once you get comfortable then start branching out bit by bit. It can help lessen the stress of trying to understand everything in one go.

I see, thanks for the detailed reply. Dont know how you manage to administrate the site, develop it and be so active in the community all at the same time 😅

I decided to stick to the standard renshuu schedules (JLPT), since I feel like they have a progression that is more relevant to everyday text and speech than the Kanji Kentei progression. Previously, I would use your first preferred method for learning kanji (1. Kanji meanings + readings -> vocabulary review), but I feel like there is too much to focus on between all the different readings, the meanings and the shape of the kanji. So, I'm trying out just using the meanings now, your second method (2. Kanji meanings (no readings) -> vocabulary review). However, whenever I encounter a new kanji in my vocabulary schedules, I immediately add it to my kanji schedule, even if it is N1 or even outside of the JLPT. My thought process is that I will see it often enough in the vocabulary that I've learned, since there is at least one word that uses it and I can just make a mental map between that word and the kanji. So I end up having a kanji schedule that is mixed with these additional kanji and the standard N5, N4, etc kanji. I've tried it for a bit and it feels OK, though I havent reached the point where they show up for review, yet. What do you think, is this a tenable approach or will I become overwhelmed with irrelevant kanji using this method? Should I just let the unknown kanji in my vocabulary be, instead?

Yes I am finding these really visually overwhelming. There is a preferences setting to "Hide rare kanji readings" which I turned on, but for this kanji I see the same 11 readings regardless of setting. Are none of these "rare" enough? It would be helpful to have that filter as a sliding scale perhaps based on the subscript, so that I could choose 小 and hide everything more advanced. I don't see how to limit to the 2 key readings that are recommended above, but even reducing to 5 elementary readings would be better than 11. Right now I'm doing my kanji study in a different app because this is just too much data. (Also most readings seem arbitrarily gray vs a few in black... is this because the system thinks I know them, or I don't need to know them, or what? It's also a bit of a visual impediment.)

My two cents on this one... James Heisig's RTK, which is what I'm assuming you're referring to is really great if you have to write the Kanji. I originally started with it and then gave up because I wasn't really using anything outside of the reviews. Sure I could look at a word and kinda figure out what it meant, but I couldn't actually read it. Fast forward to current day and I'm now grateful for the Kanji that I have learnt via RTK because I have to write in Kanji every day; whilst I can read a bunch, when it comes to writing I still struggle on the ones that I haven't learnt via RTK. Which is why I now find myself going back to RTK to learn the writing because this has been the most effective method for me.

So perhaps to caveat RTK. I think it's great if you're writing, however if your end goal is to just read and understand, then it's perhaps not so useful. So it's important for individuals to think about what their end goals are before writing off resources.

I understand the importance of learning the readings of kanji, but I have a very hard time with onyomi. I can't seem to retain the association with a kanji and its onyomi reading, and it's becoming frustrating to struggle with this when I generally have no trouble with their kunyomi and meaning. Do you have any advice more specific to onyomi readings that could help?

My two cents: if you are asking wether or not you should learn something, then

a) you are probably not at the level where it matters all that much or

b) it doesn’t matter to you (that’s okay!)

If it is A, yes, there is SO MUCH to learn. And if you are at a point where you are questioning wether or not you SHOULD be learning onyomi/kunyomi readings, I would highly suggest coming at it with genuine curiosity instead of “I need to make flashcards” notice how some simple kanji are said differently depending on where they are.

Example: 木
木 in 木曜日 will be 「もく」but if you point at a cedar tree you would say 「ひのき」?

Rinse and repeat forever 🙃

Some tough love: if it is B and it doesn’t matter to you, then nothing any of us say will change that. To learn anything worth learning, the very first requirement is to understand why it’s worth learning for you, personally.

Personally, I have never stressed about learning onyomi and kunyomi readings. They come up as they come up and I learn because I’m super nerdy and curious about it. But otherwise, it doesn’t matter to me. Why? Because I can get by without them… until I can’t. And it’s only at that moment that I learn and remember.

To add: Some onyomi and kunyomi readings you will never hear or read in real life. But some, if you study Japanese long enough, will come up so often you can’t ignore them anymore.

Just my two cents.

Happy studying!