Abstract
This study investigates the kanji learning strategies used by Thai high school students in beginning level Japanese class. It explores 4 research questions: (1) What kanji learning strategies do Thai high school students use in general? (2) In which areas of learning (reading, writing and/or meaning) are the strategies used? (3) Do Thai students apply their Thai linguistic knowledge in learning kanji or not, and if yes, in which areas of learning do they mainly apply it? (4) What are likely to be the effective ways of learning kanji for Thai high school students? The results show that 14 strategies were used in general. Concerning Thai linguistic knowledge, Thai students tend to use the strategy on associating the parts indicating the position of a vowel and a consonant in Thai language with the structure of a kanji. As for the effective ways for each skill, recognition of kanji's shape is considered to be the most effective way to learn reading, while recognition of kanji's shape together with frequency use are considered to be the most effective ways to learn writing kanji.
