Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeYMaideN
Nyororin, are you suggesting that I go ahead and use the "Japanese Demystified" book while studying my kanji to get a good grasp of the kanji usage, instead of learning the kanji by themselves? (I was planning on going up to 500 before I actually studied grammar/vocab, and I know about 100 or so now)
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I cannot recommend any books, I am not familiar enough with any to give advice on them.
I would say that you should learn grammar and vocab before even starting kanji. Kanji isn`t necessary to
start learning Japanese. Just as learning to spell a bunch of random words is no way to build a good foundation for learning English, memorizing a bunch of kanji isn`t a good foundation for learning Japanese... And can actually hinder progress by teaching bad habits when it comes to meaning.
Learners who study individual kanji first seem have a lot more trouble later with multiple meanings for different kanji when they are used in compounds. If you know the word first, then learn how to write it... it tends to stick around a lot longer in your mind and eliminates a lot of space for mistakes. Especially with the "kanji has an English meaning!" study method out there. Instead of being able to read a fluent sentence, you risk needing to think back to English for the meanings. Translating in your head is one of the worst bad habits in learning a language.