Novel Approach?

[Namioto]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share my newly-discovered method of learning kanji. Keep in mind that I am by no means knowledged or proficient at kanji. I am simply putting my method here to get some comments and suggestions. Heck, it might even benefit some other kanji learners!

Enough disclaimers. Here we go.

To study kanji, I'll pick a Japanese song that I like so much that I want to know its meaning. Any song will do, especially one that you've memorized already. Then I'll go through the song and find all of the kanji using dictionaries or other Japanese people. Many of the more popular songs can be found at Mognet.

After that, practice those kanji chronologically through the song taking it lines at a time. Eventually you'll be able to write out the whole song just by singing it in your head. You'll also have a decent grasp of the kanji's meaning because you know the song. Another interesting aspect of this approach is that when asking a Japanese person of the meaning of the lines, they can usually point out some expressions or kotowaza to you. You can then associate these with the kanji you've learned!

This is working well for me so far. Hope it helps someone!