Hi everyone. We have had some lessons on how to read Japanese since last month, starting with basic Hiragana through Katakana so far.  This month, I would like to introduce you to basic Kanji’s. If you would like to review what we have covered so far, please take a look each link below:

Let’s learn how to read Japanese!

• Part1 – Hiragana Part1
• Part2 – Hiragana Part2
• Part3 – Hiragana Part3
• Part4 – Katakana

Kanji’s that are important to note are: Kyo-iku Kanji(教育漢字,きょういくかんじ) and Joyo Kanji(常用漢字、じょうようかんじ). In Japan, children learn up to 1006 Kanji’s during the elementary school years. Amount of Kanji’s they learn depends on each grade. Each Kanji taught in specific grade is clearly defined by Japanese Ministry of Education.  For example, there are 80 Kanji’s that are taught in 1st grade, 160 Kanji’s in 2nd grade, and 200 Kanji’s in 3rd grade, and so on.  You can see the complete list of Kanji’s for each grade here in Wikipedia.

As for Joyo Kanji, these are the Kanji’s that are used in publications, such as newspapers and magazines. There are total 2136 of them. Besides the 1006 of Kanji’s they learn in elementary school, there are additional 1130 Kanji’s that students learn at middle and high schools.

2136 sounds a lot of Kanji to learn, but once you start learning Kanji, you will soon realize that you will be able to apply the basic rules to learn more complex Kanji’s and that it will help you read them within each sentence.

With that said, here are the first 12 Kanji’s that I would like to share today in this article.

These are the Kanji’s that represent numbers. Let’s try reading the following numbers in Kanji.

十
十三
六十
三十
五十二
二百十
四百二十五
七千九十八
六千三百二十一
九千七百五十三

They are read as follows:

十 (Ju,じゅう, 10)
十三 (jusan,じゅうさん, 13)
六十(rokuju,ろくじゅう, 60)
三十(sanju,さんじゅう, 30)
五十二(goju ni,ごじゅうに, 52)
二百十(nihyaku ju,にひゃくじゅう, 210)
四百二十五(yonhyaku nijugo,よんひゃくにじゅうご, 425)
七千九十八(nanasen kyuju hachi,ななせんきゅうじゅうはち, 7098)
六千三百二十一(rokusen sanbhyaku niju ichi,ろくせんさんびゃくにじゅういち, 6321)
九千七百五十三 (kyusen nanahyaku goju san, きゅうせんななひゃくごじゅうさん, 9753)

Below is a great video that teaches you the stroke order for each Kanji, 1 through 10. You can learn number 1 through 10 in Kanji in less than 3 minutes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3pIxaDGnvU