2042

2042 is the number of characters (kanji) taught in a book called Remembering the Kanji. There are about 2000 kanji in general use in written Japanese, in addition to the ~150 kana (hiragana and katakana) phonetic elements. I've been studying kanji based on the method laid out in this book near daily since we arrived. To keep the kanji in order and review them efficiently I used a spaced repetition system available through a website called Reviewing the Kanji, which waits progressively longer intervals between successful reviews of the same kanji. This means that I only have to review the basic ones every few months, while troublesome ones will come back within days. Last week, after thirteen months, I put the final kanji into rotation for review. I now know, or at least expect myself to know, the English meanings of over 2000 kanji, which should comprise almost any I need for any writing in common use.

See the big green bar on the right? That took FOREVER.

I filled seven notebooks, each with 5,000 squares gridded specifically for learning to write kanji, reviewing the kanji over the last year, for more than 35,000 individual kanji reviews during this process. This is in addition to the pages and pages of scrap paper used before committing to the dollar store kanji books. I will need to buy an eigth tomorrow for continuing review. The notebooks are intended for use by Japanese schoolchildren who are learning the kanji, and come in a variety of cutesy designs.

The cute exterior.

The "I buy ten-packs of ink refills for my pens" interior

The system taught in the book helps you to create names and stories for different elements that are found in multiple kanji. Thus, when I review the kanji all kinds of colorful people, animals, and places show up, often with elaborate personal histories and tendencies. Thus, Fingers the Thief, whose mark is the element for human fingers, is usually stealing or infiltrating something in his kanji. For instance, the kanji for "hold" (持) is made up of the element for fingers (I can't find this one on its own) and the element for temple (寺), so my story is: Fingers is making sure to hold on to the loot from the temple as he makes his escape. There are dozens of radicals and thousands of stories using them. The majority are a lot more complicated than that. The worst are the ones that sound similar and feature similar components. Ocean, sea, and open sea have similar elements that confused me for a long time.

Anyhow, the worst is over on that front. I've been able to read bits and pieces for some time now, but I need to make the jump to really reading and writing instead of fishing around for things I can translate. Wish me luck!