イギリス英会話ブログ

It was only in my third year living in Japan that I decided to take on the fearsome task of mastering Japanese kanji. My main motivation was that I wanted to be able to read a Japanese newspaper and understand firsthand what is going on in Japanese society.

I started with a good kanji dictionary (book, not electronic), a kanji dictionary for elementary-school students, lots of notebooks and a pencil. After some time of practising writing and testing myself using cards, I found that my rate of learning began to pick up. Within a few weeks I was able to memorize between 50 and 100 kanji a week. I then started using my computer as a memory aid - I created tests, where hiragana readings of kanji had to be correctly entered, and posted them on-line so I could use them at work as well as at home. Once I felt I was on the right track, I entered myself for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 2, and passed it about 15 months after beginning to study kanji. Encouraged by this success, I set my sights on Level 1, and using similar methods, managed to pass that a year later.

I think it is fair to say that this is the hardest I have ever had to work to learn a language. All the friends I have spoken to who are also aiming to master kanji feel the same way. For my part, the satisfaction and pleasure I can get from reading books or newspapers in Japanese more than makes up for the at least 500 hours I must have put in to squeezing all these characters into my head.

I had an interesting conversation a few years ago with a former brain surgeon who was fascinated by language and brain function. He took great pleasure in telling me that kanji characters are stored in a different part of the brain from English words. As evidence of this, he explained that when English patients suffer a stroke they usually lose all language ability, including the ability to read. Japanese stroke patients, however, though they may no longer be able to speak, are still able to read and understand kanji characters.

This is good news for everyone - gaining mastery in English and Japanese means that one is exercising different parts of the brain. This is often cited as one effective means of preventing premature senility; indeed, it has been reported that bilingual people have a far lower probability of going senile than people who only speak their mother tongue.

Certainly, for me learning kanji was a mysterious process - the intensity with which I immersed myself in their world was, I believe, the key to my success, as it enabled me to sub-consciously recognize patterns. I often surprise myself by my ability to correctly guess at a character’s pronunciation or meaning. I do feel that a different part of the brain is being used. Japanese students of English too, would do well to take this into account and realize that, because of it, an extra effort is required in order to kick-start and activate a part of their brain that they do not customarily use for language. This is a sub-conscious change which cannot be forced but will develop naturally in the mind of the sincere student!