Lately I have been on this kick where I suddenly want to learn a lot of kanji. Not that I didn’t want to learn it before but it seemed a little impossible. Thought I would just focus on the learning to talk and listen part. But while conversation is the sweet sweet cherry pie filling, kanji is the crust that holds it together. K - sorry, food analogy used because I am hungry right now. Though if I were to pick something to eat it wouldn’t be cherry pie.
Kanji is incredible though. Studying the characters is like a game in finding meanings, combinations, and ways to remember. Each symbol has maybe one base meaning and one or two or three or four or…usually 2-3 pronunciations. A kanji will often be used in other words that are either heavily or sooomewhat related to the base meaning so when you learn the loose meaning of a symbol, you can start to gather what a word you don’t know might be about. Some examples I like:

自動車 (jidōsha) = automobile, 車 (kuruma) = car (?for short?)

自動 (jidō) = automatic, self-motion

販売 (hanbai) = sales, selling, marketing

機 (ki) = machine

together 自動販売機 (jidōhanbaiki) = vending machine

OK I guess I could find more interesting examples with some little time spent on the DS but to paint a picture without too much effort on my part.

I wanna become a kanji nerd. If there is one thing I will do in my life it is learn them all. Why not?