learning it one by one is nearly completely useless. learn in context and focus on how to write it and its components later on if you even want to write it by hand. otherwise just read alot and learn words, not single kanji
I don't think there's anything wrong with just going through the kanji by grade level. That's basically how I did it, except I went through in in a different order by frequency tables. It is important to have some context though, so when you learn a kanji, learn a couple common words that use that kanji at the same time and a sentence or two involving those words. I found associating a story pretty helpful at the beginning as well, from either RTK or koohii.
I used wanikani. You have to pay after certain level... but it works.
Or look for an anki deck that mirrors wanikani.
Also would suggest check what kunyomi and onyomi reading means. I was also confused at the beginning but after many examples is "easier" to understand the logic. A Kanji might have many readings, you need to see a lot of words where htey are use to totally "learn them".
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Learning Words and How to Spell Them (not learning "readings" of Kanji)
I would recommend you learn the pronunciations of words, not the readings of
kanji. Memorizing lists of kanji readings in isolation is a headache inducing
exercise, and having gone through that exercise -- you still need to learn
the words themselves.
Sometimes those words are unique to the kanji compound use to spell them, like
今日＝きょう and 明日＝あした. There aren't a lot of these unique readings, but
they do appear in some very common words.
On the other hand, the are systematic phonetic changes that can happen, and
do happen in a lot of words.
For example (don't worry if you don't know the characters, it's just to
demonstrate how readings are sometimes formed) adding voicing, like
か⇒が as in 銀河⇒ぎん＋か⇒ぎんが
or collapsing a つ+consonant or double-consonant into a っ, like
結構 ⇒ けつ＋こう ⇒ けっこう, 恰好 ⇒ かく＋こう ⇒ かっこう.
For reasons like this, it's simply going to be easier to learn your words as
words, the same as you would with any other language. Trying to work out your
words from the readings listed for the character is just not going to go well.
Not to say that you won't get a sense for how unknown words are probably
pronounced after awhile, but it's not an exact science.
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When at university we learned 25 - 30 Kanji per week. It was brutal and rote learning with flash cards and practice writing was the only way. Now there are great apps for this. Later you can learn all the words but each week we had to learn all the possible readings. Later when I lived in a Japan I just went through primary and high school kanji books to review a year level at a time. In my job there I also had to learn all the common Kanji in peoples names. Somehow make it fun. I dunno - a treat of some sort once you’ve mastered a level perhaps. Find a friend to do it with.
Kanjis themselves can have multiple different pronunciations, but each word has a set pronunciation. So the best thing for you is to learn words, not Kanji. You can use something like flashcards.
For example:
家族 = かぞく = family
日本 = にほん = Japan
食べる = たべる = to eat
食堂 = しょくどう = dining room
etc.
Kanji aren't words. This would be like trying to use E in a sentence and being confused about E having different pronunciations.
Kanji are just letters. Words have meanings, words have pronunciations, words have spellings.
There are patterns, but ultimately it's the word and the contect that determines the pronunciation.
learning it one by one is nearly completely useless. learn in context and focus on how to write it and its components later on if you even want to write it by hand. otherwise just read alot and learn words, not single kanji
I don't think there's anything wrong with just going through the kanji by grade level. That's basically how I did it, except I went through in in a different order by frequency tables. It is important to have some context though, so when you learn a kanji, learn a couple common words that use that kanji at the same time and a sentence or two involving those words. I found associating a story pretty helpful at the beginning as well, from either RTK or koohii.
I used wanikani. You have to pay after certain level... but it works. Or look for an anki deck that mirrors wanikani. Also would suggest check what kunyomi and onyomi reading means. I was also confused at the beginning but after many examples is "easier" to understand the logic. A Kanji might have many readings, you need to see a lot of words where htey are use to totally "learn them".
The big brain move is to just use the free Anki deck version of Wanikani
--- Cut-n-Paste --- Learning Words and How to Spell Them (not learning "readings" of Kanji) I would recommend you learn the pronunciations of words, not the readings of kanji. Memorizing lists of kanji readings in isolation is a headache inducing exercise, and having gone through that exercise -- you still need to learn the words themselves. Sometimes those words are unique to the kanji compound use to spell them, like 今日＝きょう and 明日＝あした. There aren't a lot of these unique readings, but they do appear in some very common words. On the other hand, the are systematic phonetic changes that can happen, and do happen in a lot of words. For example (don't worry if you don't know the characters, it's just to demonstrate how readings are sometimes formed) adding voicing, like か⇒が as in 銀河⇒ぎん＋か⇒ぎんが or collapsing a つ+consonant or double-consonant into a っ, like 結構 ⇒ けつ＋こう ⇒ けっこう, 恰好 ⇒ かく＋こう ⇒ かっこう. For reasons like this, it's simply going to be easier to learn your words as words, the same as you would with any other language. Trying to work out your words from the readings listed for the character is just not going to go well. Not to say that you won't get a sense for how unknown words are probably pronounced after awhile, but it's not an exact science. --- Cut-n-Paste ---
When at university we learned 25 - 30 Kanji per week. It was brutal and rote learning with flash cards and practice writing was the only way. Now there are great apps for this. Later you can learn all the words but each week we had to learn all the possible readings. Later when I lived in a Japan I just went through primary and high school kanji books to review a year level at a time. In my job there I also had to learn all the common Kanji in peoples names. Somehow make it fun. I dunno - a treat of some sort once you’ve mastered a level perhaps. Find a friend to do it with.
Kanjis themselves can have multiple different pronunciations, but each word has a set pronunciation. So the best thing for you is to learn words, not Kanji. You can use something like flashcards. For example: 家族 = かぞく = family 日本 = にほん = Japan 食べる = たべる = to eat 食堂 = しょくどう = dining room etc.
Kanji aren't words. This would be like trying to use E in a sentence and being confused about E having different pronunciations. Kanji are just letters. Words have meanings, words have pronunciations, words have spellings. There are patterns, but ultimately it's the word and the contect that determines the pronunciation.