Learn Japanese

What sort of help are you looking for?

There are a lot of different strategies for learning kanji. I think the most important thing to understand is that kanji are not created from random brush strokes, but they are made up from parts called radicals. The same radicals appear over and over again in many different kanji.

A method that many people find helpful is creating mnemonics or little stories for each kanji. So for example, if you have a little story to help you remember that a certain kanji is made up of 3 particular radicals, that's a lot easier than just trying to remember the 14 strokes that make it up.

This method was put forth in a book called "remembering the kanji", and you might hear people talk about this method sometimes. A lot of other sites and methods have also taken this technique. The book itself is somewhat controversial among Japanese learners though, because of some other ideas it mentions about how you should learn kanji. I think the fundamental idea of breaking kanji down to radicals and using mnemonics is extremely helpful though.