Something I'd noticed while studying Kanji was that many Kanji sound like one of the parts used in them. This is something I've noticed often enough that I have at times started intuiting readings based on this, sometimes without realizing it in the moment. Today, I learned these parts have a name: Phonetic Radicals. This is how native speakers sometimes just 'know' how a kanji is read without being familiar with it - you can make an educated guess if you spot a phonetic radical.
On r/JapaneseLanguage a few days ago, a college-level Japanese teacher posted an app he made to teach this, because he was noticing no one else is teaching this. Upon checking it out I can more or less guarantee this will become part of my routine. Reddit thread about the app here:
Not only do I feel admittedly somewhat vindicated, but I think understanding of phonetic radicals is something Renshuu could possibly try to incorporate, because having this ability can make reading and vocab retention much easier. And if not, well ... There's a resource focusing on that now anyways, which is probably good for everyone.
The terminology is arguable, since radicals are by definition the 214 semantic components used by dictionaries to organize and look up characters. However, many people have studied character rimes. I’m using the phonetic series system developed by Zhengzhang. I have lists for over 600 series so far.
I’m not sure how useful it would be to actually study these lists, but I find them incredibly useful for browsing. Just being able to see all the characters with the same phonological root side by side is very informative.
I only wish it was easier to find the list I am looking for at any given time.
I haven’t been able to try the app since I don’t have Android, but if it has any other features other than simply grouping characters by reading, maybe renshuu could copy some of those.
