Quote:
Originally Posted by Tatsuma
I just started learning kanji and for words with double pronunciations how will i know which one to say? For a sentence do i first learn the hiragana for that kanji in order to know which way of saying it or just figure out the multiple pronunciations and read the sentence?
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If you have a Kanji background, learn the On-reading for all 2000 characters and then leverage your existing vocabulary and whack those things together using On-reading and start creating words. 80% of the time, you'll get it right. If it is a combination of Kanji that makes no sense, then it's probably Kun reading.
If you don't have a Kanji background, IN GENERAL, Kanji that's grouped together like 書店 would use On reading (shoten), where as Kanji by itself, or with some hiragana after it takes the Kun reading 書く would read Kaku, 店 would read Mise. Again there is a zillion exceptions, you just have to learn it the hard way.
Kun reading is basically retrofitted native Japanese reading of a Kanji, it has no pattern whatsoever, totally random and you just have to commit to memory one by one. There are tricks with On reading though, usually the right hand side of the character tells you how to read it. 広、鉱 all read Kou and 同、胴、銅 all read Dou.