/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>8356423

Be careful to avoid the trap of 'learning the kanji' through flashcards and stuff. They're likely teaching you the Chinese meanings, which are somewhat helpful, but not how they're actually used in Japanese. Kanji aren't often just disconnected things floating around in a sentence, they're attached to each other or other kana for grammatical purposes.

For example, 寿司 is not longevity + govern, it's, sushi. The kanji are involved only because 寿 is pronounced 'su', and 司 = 'shi'.
Another example: 侍 is Samurai in Japanese, but 'Serve' in Chinese, which is somewhat loosely connected but not the same.
Now, there are kanji which carried over their meaning, like 犬, but they're certainly not everything.

So, my point is to avoid memorizing strictly Kanji unless you feel the loosely grounded meanings help you learn. At least, keep in mind that the Japanese and Chinese use Kanji in very different ways.

I have yet to find a source that actually teaches Japanese words though, other than a dictionary....