N4 Kanji & Kanji Story Quiz

Quiz JLPT N4 kanji by testing kanji, kana, English and kanji stories.

Any avid kanji student would know the names of Henshall and Heisig, for their publications on kanji etymology and kanji story composition, respectively. Kanji stories are laconic, personal stories associated with each kanji that rely on deconstructing the kanji into primitives, i.e. smaller parts such as radicals or groups of radicals, and then giving these primitives a unique keyword so as to use these keywords to compose memorable stories for each kanji. The greatest disadvantage with kanji stories, apart from actually memorizing some 2000 kanji stories, is that the keywords given to each primitive are often not associated with the traditional meaning of the radicals (部首), thus making passing N1 a daunting endeavor.

In juxtaposition, it seems more practical to rely on the original kanji etymology, with specifically defined meanings for each of the traditional 214 radicals. In such a manner, memorizing kanji becomes progressively limpid, as knowing the etymology of one kanji often helps to remember the related kanji. However, at least 80% of the Chinese kanji are phono-semantic (形聲) in nature, which means that they are derived from both phonetic and semantic elements. On top of that, for a substantial part of the kanji, merely partial, if any at all, etymological derivations can be studied, as much of the etymology has been obscured over time.

Common to both kanji stories and etymology is deconstructing the kanji into smaller elements to make an initially arduous task of understanding the kanji considerably more manageable. This is, after all, how the kanji were traditionally studied, as described by the original kanji radical construction in the Shuowen Jiezi (Chinese: 說文解字, translated as "explaining graphs and analyzing characters"), which is a Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. 說文解字 groups the kanji into 5 categories, namely: i) pictograms (象形), ii) simple ideograms (指事), iii) compound ideographs (會意), iv) borrowed kanji (假借), v) phono-semantic, and v) reciprocal cognates (轉注).

As such, when studying kanji, it is best not to limit oneself to either kanji stories or etymology, but rather to utilize a combination of these, as well as other methods, to take the path of "least resistance".

Consequently, the study of kanji is not primarily about memorization, but rather seeing patterns and associating these patterns with something less strenuous to remember.

This app was coded with the above in mind and is unique in such a sense, while also allowing you take photos with your phone and link them with each kanji as a form of a quiz hint.

Note: I wrote all of the kanji stories in this app. It might be a good idea to export them into an Excel sheet before making any major changes.