Reddit mentions of The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters

I have no idea if it’s an efficient method or not but I use The Kodansha kanji learner’s course.
I do 16 new kanji a day and I use the anki deck for the book to keep them in my memory. Whenever I flip a card, no matter the side, I write it down. Helps me remember better. I only try to remember the main On reading for each kanji and even then I don’t force it. If I can’t memorize it I don’t try that much harder. For the readings I just read a lot of texts and when I come across a word that uses a kanji I know I don’t know the reading of, that’s how I learn the readings. Eventually you become magically able to determine the reading for words even with kanji that have a lot of different pronunciations.

https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

Much cheaper on Amazon UK.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1568365268/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_BcIOCb1W9SMQX

Pretty much everyone will tell you that is nearly impossible to accurately gauge. It depends on how much you study each day, what materials you have to help you, how good you are absorbing the information, etc.

I feel that if you have enough time to absorb around 20 vocab a day (not as hard as it sounds, some days I try for around 50) for the first few months (then cut it down a bit as you go, as the grammar you are covering becomes more involved), and practice 1-3 grammar points a day (depending on their complexity/involvement), and avoid kanji for the first month, then start slowly (5 a day, not learning more until you know the current and it's associated vocab), using this book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568365268/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I feel like you could read random sentences of a very simple manga within 6-12 months. These numbers are all arbitrary, as it all depends on your motivation and ability to truly absorb and retain all the information.

I can give you a list of materials that I find essential, and I think anyone that used them would recommend them as well:

A general textbook like Yookoso or Genki. I use Yookoso myself, but have heard little bad about either. You can skip this if you are good about learning what you need to focus on next on your own, or if you have someone else guiding your studies, but they are not that expensive, and I would recommend both levels of Genki or Yookoso.

https://www.amazon.com/Yookoso-Invitation-Contemporary-Japanese-Third/dp/0072408154/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496923360&sr=1-1&keywords=yookoso

Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (once you learn the majority of it, they have a second and third level of this book [intermediate/advanced])

https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4789004546&pd_rd_r=MARVSJ4E1JD75N4JANKK&pd_rd_w=supQ1&pd_rd_wg=oQkTv&psc=1&refRID=MARVSJ4E1JD75N4JANKK

501 Japanese Verbs. Fantastic for learning conjugations, and checking yourself while you practice them each day.

https://www.amazon.com/501-Japanese-Verbs-Verb/dp/0764137492/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496923311&sr=1-1&keywords=501+japanese+verbs

The Learner's Kanji Dictionary. This will help you look up any Kanji you do not know, and does not have Furigana. It gives you stroke order, Chinese and Japanese pronunciations, and tons of vocab combinations for each Kanji. It is tricky learning how to look up Kanji by radicals, but you only need to learn it once. You can learn Kanji from this, but it would be a terrible idea, as it is a dictionary, and not organized in a way that will help you retain anything.

https://www.amazon.com/Learners-Japanese-Kanji-Dictionary-Bilingual/dp/080483556X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1496923666&sr=8-3&keywords=kanji+dictionary

Lastly that Kanji book I linked earlier. Many will tell you it is silly to not learn Kanji right away as you learn the vocab, but it takes a lot longer, most modern texts have Furigana (the hiragana characters of how to pronounce the Kanji) for all the Kanji, and Kanji do not help for listening or speaking skills anyways.

I do feel that learning the Kanji from the get-go is far better for vocab retention, but you will pick up vocab so much more slowly. You can pick up Kanji later, once you can actually understand some basic Japanese and are much more motivated to continue your studies.

I listed the materials I recommend in the recommended order (minus the Kanji book listed early on, which I recommend last). Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

Edit: Also, learn the kana first. Both Hiragana and Katakana. There is no excuse not to, they are invaluable. I would go so far as to say do not even bother starting vocab until you are comfortable enough to sound out a word written in kana in your head without a reference. Does not matter if it takes you a while, you will see them every day, and you will get used to them. Bare minimum, write the entirety of both every morning and night, and whenever you find yourself bored throughout the day.

As always, others will argue this, but again, there is no excuse not to learn it. Most good learning resources will use it anyways. They are very easy to learn.

Why don't you try a book that helps you learn Kanji and Vocabulary associated with those Kanji?

I recommend this: https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

There are also memrise quizzes to drill yourself on what you learned:
http://www.memrise.com/course/196282/the-kodansha-kanji-learners-course/

"こんにちは" is the right way to write Konnichiwa. What were you trying to say with the second part, mainly "多町"?

Good luck!

There are many different approaches to learning Kanji that people will advocate. Some of the most popular include

• Learning common Kanji and vocab words that use them (The back chapters of Genki)
  
  
• Brute force kanji without using radicals (Various kanji books)
  
  
• Learning radicals and then Kanji comprised of those via mnemonics (Heisig)
  
  
  • Subset: Learn vocab words for each kanji in addition to mnemonics and radicals (Kodansha)
    
    Or you can take the independent approach: As you come across words you don't know, learn the kanji and that word at the same time. Look up the stroke order for kanji as you come across them and don't worry about systematically learning every 常用 kanji.
    
    What works best will depend on your learning style. I've briefly tried each of these methods. What I recommend to people now is Kodansha. Here's the basic process for how I learn 8 kanji every day:
    
    

1. First review the last 8 kanji I learned by seeing if I can remember the mnemonics. Try to draw them by hand. If I remember the vocab words I might write them down too, but I usually just review vocab using anki.
   
   
2. Go through 4 kanji and their mnemonics. Write each one at least once to get a feel for the stroke order. Go through the next 4 in the same way.
   
   
3. Add all the vocab that Kodansha recommends memorizing to my custom anki deck. (There is a community anki deck but I prefer to do it in my own style.)
   
   
4. Briefly look over the 8 kanji I learned today and the 8 I learned yesterday again.
   
   You can choose any number of kanji to do each day, just don't overload yourself with something ridiculous like 100 per day. Basically the way this method works is you learn each kanji via its radical components and you learn the multiple pronunciations or meanings by memorizing applicable vocabulary.
   
   I review the kanji from days farther back than yesterday using a kanji application on my phone that allows me to make custom kanji lists and practice drawing them. Again a different method might work better for you, this is just how I choose to do it. I could go through my specific problems with each of the other methods if you'd like but I think this post is long enough as it is.
   
   Resources referenced:
   
   Kodansha
   
   Android Kanji Study app
   
   Anki
   
   Community Kodansha Deck
   
   And the other kanji book I used a long time ago:
   
   Heisig

I also highly recommend KKLC. You can read the introduction with Amazon's Look Inside! function which really explains the methodology. It takes the best of other existing methods and wraps them up into one. You learn mnemonics for each character, you don't need to study graphemes because they are introduced as the course goes on, and it contains selected vocabulary that represent common compounds with the primary on and kun yomi readings for each character. Vocabulary is, after all, the way to learn readings. Pair the book with a SRS system like Anki (and there is already a deck for KKLC), and you've got an excellent method that you can work through at your own pace. I personally have been trying to average 15-20 characters a day so that I can finish before the end of the year. Some days I'll do up to 50 though.

HERE is why I would recommend WaniKani over KKLC: If you want a system that is all in one, that will give you progress markers, and will hold your hand throughout the process. I'll be the first to admit kanji study is rather tedious, and I think doing KKLC independently requires a lot of dedication. So if you aren't ready to commit to that, you can start with wani kani. I don't want to comment on it because I never used it, but I don't like that it locks you off from further content until you reach a certain level of mastery with the current stuff... I'd rather learn vocab through reading and not be forced to memorize words out of context to advance.

By biggest advice is to finish what you've started.

I've wasted so much time with, "Hey, that book/app/website/video series/thingamajig looks interesting. Let's give that a try!"

In the end rather than helping me by finding the most efficient ways to study, I skipped around so much that it took me like 2 years to get where an efficient student could get in 6 months.

Finish Genki I and Genki II.

I recommend doing something separate for Kanji. Either WaniKani or the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course or something else which covers most of the Jouyou (common use) kanji. Pick one. Start it. Don't stop until you finish it.

I'm not fluent, but the kanji resource that I like best is the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course; I feel that it does the best job of anything that I've seen in terms of explaining similar kanji and how to tell them apart. There is a decent number of pages available in the Look Inside preview, so maybe browse through and see if any of the explanations for similar kanji early on (木 vs. 本, 休 vs. 体, 牛 vs. 午, 北 vs. 比, 刀 vs. 刃) click with you?

Most people are going to recommend you use some sort of SRS (spaced repetition system) to effectively learn the vast amounts of information you need to memorize. Many recommend Anki (it's my preferred flash card/srs app) but there are others out there. Here's the link to the manual (https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html#introduction). It obviously explains Anki specific functionality, but it describes the use and purpose of an SRS system and why it's proven to be effective for memorizing information.

As for learning Kanji, this is the most challenging part of learning Japanese. You're gonna want to use some structured learning material which will help you understand what radicals are and how the factor into building individual Kanji. I personally use James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" and its sister learning site Koohii (https://kanji.koohii.com/study) to create mnemonics for the Kanji and learn to memorize them. I then make my own flashcards in Anki and practice them when they come up on the app.

I've seen others recommend Kodansha (https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268), but I've never used it so I can't speak to its quality. From what I've heard though it might honestly be preferred to Heisig's stuff cause his mnemonics can seem pretty strange or outdated (which is why I get most of mine from the top upvoted ones on koohii).

You're gonna want an english to japanese dictionary. For that I use jisho (https://jisho.org/). You can search for words in english, romanji, kana, and kanji and you'll find definitions, related words, pronunciations etc. It's incredibly helpful.

I don't know about a discord server but I'd be interested in something like that as well.

It takes a lot of time and dedication, and for most people the payoff will only be achieved after years of learning, but it's definitely doable, and learning can be very fun in and of itself. There's a very satisfying feeling to go from looking at Japanese and seeing it as alien characters, to being able to read a sentence that once just looked like scribbles.

I used it up until about level 8 I think. I liked it and the items that I leveled to mastered/enlightened (as they call it) are definitely in my brain.

However I'm cheap and for the cost of 4ish months of WK (it's like $8/Mo for non beta testers now right?) I just decided to pick up The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course.

This book paired with HouHou is effectively the same thing as WK. Of course you do need to be a little more motivated because you need to add the items to HouHou yourself. I think this is also pretty cool because, for example, I recently switched the language on the weather site I use to Japanese. I've thrown all the new weather terms I've encountered so far along with their Kanji into HouHou.

In the interest of fairness: A major drawback of HouHou is the lack of any app/online review. I've resorted to using Teamviewer to connect to my PC in order to do reviews remotely. WK (and I think Anki) certainly does not have this problem; there is even a pretty good app for WK afaik.

If you're interested, I pretty much do what this guy does (except he uses Anki) and I feel like I've been making as much progress as I did with WK.

Edit: I'd like to add that with WK I never bothered with stroke order or writing any of the kanji at all. Since I've switched to this new approach I've started writing out each kanji ~10 times (sometimes more if it looks really similar to another one I already know etc etc) and I feel like this has helped me remember them immensely YMMV.

There are plenty of good resources out there, so there's no one best option. So, try what you can, see what jives with you, and then stick with it.

Anyway, here are the resources I used and liked:

1. Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course. I haven't tried RTK, but I went with this one because I liked the approach. It orders the Kanji taking into account frequency, but also introducing "graphemes" one at a time, and the mnemonics were mostly etymologically accurate. Both it and RTK include all the Jouyou kanji, but KKLC includes a few more (total 2,300) by adding in some common non-Jouyou kanji that are still handy to know.
   
   I used this to quickly go through all the important kanji and their meanings. I neglected readings, but I think it was worth it, since now I can recognize characters more confidently, and pick up readings in context with vocabulary.
   
   Unfortunately it's currently unavailable via Amazon, but the item listing lets you preview the book. Use that to see if you like it. Alternatively, see if you can find it at a local bookstore so you can page through it (I bought mine at Barnes & Noble), or check your local library (which may be able to order it if you ask for it). You can also use those methods to preview other books, like RTK.
   
   
2. KanjiStudy. It's an app for Android (and iPhone, but last I checked, that version is considerably behind). Great for quizzes and writing practice, and it supports grouping the kanji by whatever order you want, be it KKLC, RTK, Japanese grade levels, etc. $10 and super worth it (again, at least on Android), but you can try it for free to access the kana, radicals, and one "level" of Kanji for each learning order. The only think it's missing is a spaced repetition system, but that's coming eventually.
   
   
3. WaniKani. I like it as a convenient supplement to keep me studying kanji regularly. You can get many of the same features with an Anki deck, so it's up to you if it's worth the convenience, style, and audio samples. The mnemonics have improved, but are still way too goofy for me, but that's what I have KKLC for anyway. There's a free trial, so it's worth checking out. Plus the people running the site and the community seem cool. Also, it includes vocabulary, which is nice, and has an API to integrate with other apps, like BunPro and SatoriReader, which can add a little value.

I'd suggest Kodansha for kanji learning, as the Genki I and II books don't really supply you with an adequate amount of kanji imo.

On amazon the dimensions are listed as 15.3 x 3.5 x 22.9 cm
https://www.amazon.ca/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

Wow that's really cheap for 720 pages 33 Cdn.

Kanji Learners Course https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268/ref=zg_bs_684266011_13?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7NBC5EM3NTCN9SJE8ZFP

Remembering the Kanji https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824835921/ref=zg_bs_684266011_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7NBC5EM3NTCN9SJE8ZFP

IMO KLC is a better version of RTK.

Holy hell.... I got it for $37.44 CAD last June, and now it's being sold for over $500 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1568365268/ref=pe_3034960_233709270_TE_item

Well as far as etymology goes, you can't beat the Henshall text (most recent version here): https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Japanese-Kanji-Understanding/dp/4805311703/

But if you actually want to learn Kanji I recommend using KLC: https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268/

This has a lot of Anki and Memrize decks to help you study.

Kodansha KLC is the most serious and quality resource for kanji, and starts right at your level (assuming you can read kana). As an alternative to Anki, try Memrise. It has KLC decks.

While I was using Genki I've used KKLC at the same time, no regrets, I even did the "same Kanji" that i found in both sources, now I'm working in digest Genki by it workbooks, and now to proceed on Tobira.

日本語がペラペラのため頑張って

Certo! Il fatto che conosci hiragana e katakana è un'ottima cosa, visto che in questo modo puoi partire già da subito. Io ho seguito gli (ottimi) consigli di r/learnjapanese e ho quindi acquistato il libro che praticamente tutti consigliano: genki (2 volumi che vengono 50€ ciascuno su Amazon). Unica pecca è che esiste solo in inglese, Ma il livello di inglese è ragionevolmente basso e, personalmente, mi ci sto trovando bene. Purtroppo genki non è abbastanza per imparare anche i kanji, per cui ho acquistato il "kodansha kanji learner's course", il quale utilizza un inglese un po' più "avanzato" e del quale ancora non ti posso ancora dire nulla, dato che per impegni non sono riuscito ancora a iniziarlo. Comunque una volta completati i due genki dovresti essere all'incirca al livello del JLPT N4, per cui in grado di leggere o manga semplici (con scrittura furigana, se non hai ancora iniziato uno studio approfondito dei kanji) oppure giochi come どうぶつの森 (conosciuto in Italia come animal's crossing). Come bonus ti lascio questa lista, sempre di giochi che utilizzano un giapponese semplice, per quando avrai completato i due genki. Scusa per essermi dilungato così tanto, spero di esserti stato d'aiuto!

Just buy it?
https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268/

And if you use that method I recommend these books as well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075JK29T2/

Personally I use WaniKani because I like the way it works, but I also have KKLC as a backup incase WK gets too freaky with the mnemonics and radicals.

http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

There's the book on Amazon. You can click "Look inside" and see the book for yourself. Not sure where you looked for samples at.

Here you go mate:

book: https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

decks: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/Kodansha

Nice! That's a promising start.

I'll tell you what I wish I'd known when I first started:

---
Know that the more you expose yourself to it, the better you'll get. The less you see, the more it will slip away. Studying every day is the key to success.

Once you've got Romaji completely out of the picture (it's a terrible crutch), try to add as much Kanji as you reasonably can. If you're really serious about the language, start looking into Kanji vocab building sooner than later. (Don't learn isolated Kanji 1-by-1, you'll never know how to read them when you see them in words if you do that.) Learning the core ~2,000 for genuine literacy sounds daunting, but the sooner you start, the sooner you can get there.

The starter's guide in the sidebar here recommends either WaniKani or Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course to tackle it. I started WaniKani about 2 months ago, and it's taken me through ~400 Kanji and ~1,150 vocab terms so far. If I had started a year earlier, I'd have learned all its 2k Kanji and 6k vocab by now!

If you can't read hiragana and katakana, find an app for that and learn them right away (really doesn't take long).

You'll want some way to study grammar, and while a textbook like Genki is probably best, Human Japanese or Tae Kim's Guide are good options that I really like.

You'll also probably want a way to learn Kanji, in which case I would pick up a copy of the Kodansha Kanji Learners Course and the Anki app plus related decks. If you want to stay entirely on mobile and don't mind monthly fees, try out WaniKani.

As for vocab, Anki with one of the "Core" vocab decks would be a good start.

Hey, friend. Can I please have a link to where you bought Kodansha from?

EDIT: [Sorry, found it] (https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268) further down in this thread for anyone looking for it!

Does the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course teach kanji using radicals?

I prefer learning with radicals and have been using wanikani to do so, but 10 levels in my hands can't keep up due to weak hands due to an injury a few years back.

Has anyone tried this textbook, and can vouch for how effective it is?

repost but didn't get any answers in the last thread.

I can't match 20-30 per day, but I was able to manage learning 8 kanji a day from the Kanji Learner's Course (that's how many kanji appear on two pages). They mostly stuck because the book has a solid system for remembering kanji meanings, and the vocabulary words always use the earlier kanji so you keep reviewing them as you go along. I also looked up sentences on jisho.org for practice.

The book tries to guide you toward more reading practice after kanji #1200, and away from just cramming more kanji. By that point I was sort of addicted to the book, and it was easier to keep using it than do real reading in the wild. But there's a balance.

Can't really say for an actual order between all of the books but you should learn hiragana and katakana before doing anything else (it's not so intimidating to do), and you can probably go on to use Genki 1 then Genki 2 after that.

That said you did pick several well recommended books so assuming you can get a study plan going (and stick with it) you should be on a good footing.

As far as other recommended resources, I've heard (but not tried it myself) Tobira mentioned as a good way of moving on after finishing Genki. For Kanji and (to a lesser extent) vocab you could also use Anki (free) or Wanikani (subscription / one off payment), or if you prefer textbooks KKLC.

The main benefit is that you learn kanji in a systematic way. They teach you to take kanji apart into their components and are structured so that you don't learn new kanji without being familiar with the components.

Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course has a pretty good breakdown of each character along with a simple etymological explanation of how it was formed and a few example words. It's excellent for using with Anki and there is a pre-made deck for this.

Wanikani, however, is a self-contained online SRS platform with a paid subscription model. It teaches you first the components, then kanji that are made of these components and then words that are made of these kanji. It's divided into 60 levels and you have to complete each level before you can go on to the next (as it's an SRS), so it takes at least over a year to complete it.

As for whether to use either of them, you'd have to decide for yourself. WK has first 3 levels free at an accelerated pace and KKLC has a preview on Amazon, so you could check them out for yourself:

https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

https://www.wanikani.com

Hello everyone! I've always been lazy about it and put off learning but I want to get serious about it. So starting today I'm going to do daily studying.

I don't have much money IRL due to illnesses hindering me having a strong income, so I'm currently using memrise's free course titled "Japanese 1". I'm probably going to try to milk all the free courses for what they're worth. Is this a decent strategy / will I learn properly? Or should I go to a different website?

Also, I'm putting some money aside to order this book - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568365268/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Is it worth it or is there better stuff out there? Thanks!

Yes this, or the newer Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course. You can find sample content online:

• Remembering the Kanji
  
• The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course (Amazon link—click on "Look inside")
  
  Whichever you choose, do read Heisig's RTK introduction. I haven't used KLC but from what I've seen of it, it improves on RTK while also adding some extra problems; in particular, too much information per character, which you'll need to learn to filter out to focus on what you need.
  
  The gist of the method is that you memorize the core meaning and the writing of the characters through their component parts, devising mnemonics from these components, and going from character to character in a sequence that takes advantage of this method. The point of this is that it'll make learning vocabulary much easier, and give you hints to understand words you read and don't know. You don't learn how to pronounce them—I suggest you learn that through vocabulary rather than per isolated character.
  
  Take into account that neither book is perfect, in particular the mnemonics can be quite bad, so I suggest taking Heisig's words to heart in his introduction, and while going through your chosen book you invent mnemonics that work for you, and assign a meaning to the components that is concrete and memorable.

Just started on Genki 1 not too long ago and a friend recommended I pick up Kodansha KLC to work through alongside Genki. While Genki is my main priority, I find it very nice to have something else to turn to when I start feeling kinda burnt out. Kodansha KLC is a very awesome book for learning kanji and I'd highly recommend it to anyone learning the language! I feel like this is starting to sound like a sales pitch haha, but really I'm so glad I bought it.

No problem... thanks for the reply!

So a little over a month ago (after I made that last post), I bought a copy of The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, and it's absolutely awesome. If you can get your hands on a copy, I'd definitely recommend it.

Basically, the book lists 2300 basic kanji... and for each one, it gives the meanings, the readings, a few example compounds, and - most importantly - a useful note on how to remember the character. For example, with the kanji 作 (as in つくる, "to make"), the book recommends viewing the right radical (乍) as a hacksaw, and the radical on the left as a person - thus, a person using a hacksaw to make something. That might not be the true etymology, but it's still a good way to remember the kanji. Some of the suggestions are a bit of a stretch (and kind of hilarious)... but I figure, as long as it helps me with memorization, then why not?

I was starting to go crazy trying to come up with mnemonics to help me remember kanji, so this book has been a huge help (and time-saver) for me.

Get a textbook. I recommend these as I use them:

Kakehashi-Beginning-Intermediate

Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

Kodansha Kanji Course

You might want this Etiquette Guide

And also this website:

Memrise

Kanji learning is by far the most popular topic on this subreddit. I wish they would just ban it, at least as top-level submissions, so that people can spend more time discussing the language as opposed to learning methods.

The interesting aspect of your question was that it was something that couldn't be satisfied by the usual answers because it involved characters that couldn't be easily imported into a computer. If a certain kanji is in computer memory, you can always copy it, throw it to Google and get results. In you case, however, even OCR doesn't work, so you must resort to the old technology, the indexing and searching method that has been used since before computer. It was refreshing.

Practically speaking, I guess most Japanese learners don't need to learn it because they will never wander out of the computer space as far as the Japanese language is concerned, or they will have some workarounds when the need arises, such as guessing the reading based on kanji components or guessing the number of strokes. But your question was specifically about "decomposing" them for the purpose of searching, which was also refreshing.

As for the concept of radicals in WaniKani, I think this recent thread will give you the basic idea.

On kanji learning that isn't Remembering the Kanji or WaniKani, I don't have a good link right now. There simply aren't many people here who endorse other options. The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course sounds promising but I can't vouch for it because I've never read it.

In any case, recognizing radicals is an acquired skill and you have to put an effort in it. There are 214 radicals, and each kanji has only one radical, or rather, each kanji is classified according to the one radical it is assigned. 214 might sound overwhelming but practically speaking many of them are obvious and easy to remember, and many of the obscure ones aren't actually so useful for searching purposes or any purposes for that matter, so it' OK to skip them in my opinion.

I don't know what exists in Chinese, but something like this which functions how you are talking.

I think the Kodansha system is far superior, having tried both myself. I finished the entire Kodansha book, which covers about 2300 kanji.

It incorporates some of the good from RTK, without neglecting the actual readings and important compounds along the way.

As expected, my N5 didn't go well for me, as I only seriously started practicing like a few days ago. Although, listening part went well (or so I think) for me, as I'm watching Japanese stuff on a regular basis for ~7 years now.

In any case, I'm more determined now. I'm following KLC book, KLC Anki deck, JLPT N5 Vocabulary Anki deck, and An Introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar, & Language. Also, I have Making Sense of Japanese but haven't started reading it yet.

I tried Memrise too but didn't go well for me. I found Anki better. Now just have to devote some time off Anki to study grammar too.

Hope this helps, and all the best!

Honestly, in my opinion, unless it's a very specialised language institution, don't even bother with traditional classes. The majority of them will do little more than go through the beginner textbooks at a pace 10x slower than you could on your own. All the information you need to learn the language is freely available as long as you have the discipline to go through it without being forced to.

The first step will be to learn hiragana, then katakana. After that you'll want to tackle grammar basics, beginner vocabulary and kanji, and then begin getting exposure to simple native content while exploring the more intermediate and advanced material.

---

For kana:

Use mnemonics to familiarise yourself with hiragana and katakana.

Then drill yourself with a tool like DJT Kana until they are burned into your brain.

-

For grammar:

The single free resource I most recommend in the beginning would be Wasabi's online reference, but there are plenty of other resources out there, including Tae Kim, Imabi, Maggie Sensei, Cure Dolly, etc...

For paid resources the most commonly recommended beginner textbook would be Genki. And then Tobira for more intermediate material. My most recommended resources to purchase would be a book called Making Sense of Japanese and the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series, with emphasis placed on the first volume.

-

For kanji and vocab:

Wanikani will automate the process for you if you have the cash to pay for a yearly subscription.

If not you can use Anki with either Kodansha's Kanji Learner's Course or with Remembering The Kanji.

---

All my Japanese knowledge was acquired through self-study, starting with resources similar to these. After I had sufficient experience with the basics I went on to learn primarily through reading native material and using native linguistic resources.

It took around 3 years before I was able to begin reading light novels.

Is it this one?

https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

I don't see it mentioned often, but Kanji Learner's Course by Andrew Conning is my personal favorite resource. I use it with the zkanji program to test myself.

I really like KLC, the Kodansha Kanji Leaner's Course: https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268

Combined with the Anki deck for it: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/779483253

It condenses the meaning of the kanji into a mnemonic "keyword". It gives you sample vocabulary so you can see how the kanji is actually used/read in Japanese words. It teaches you the stroke order (some people don't like learning stoke order, by I find that writing a kanji I'm trying to learn really solidifies the specifics of it in my mind). It groups kanji that look similar together, and makes you intuitively learn how to distinguish them from the beginning instead of it being a huge pain later. It teaches you via "graphemes", which are basically radicals that kanji are constructed from. It does all of this while also teaching kanji by frequency of use, so that you learn the most useful kanji early.

Not to mention that it was a course created more recently, so it contains all of the jōyō kanji (kanji that the Japanese government determined you need to know to be literate in Japanese), including the 196 that were added in 2010, and the most useful non-jōyō kanji. 2300 characters in total.

As you're learning the kanji, I would also study grammar and vocab alongside it, so that the kanji aren't just these abstract concepts in your head that you never use, and you understand how they're applied in practice. I recommend Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

Also start trying to read real Japanese: manga, TV subtitles, newspapers, whatever you like, as soon as you can. You can probably start trying that at around 1500 kanji or so with a Japanese dictionary. In my experience, nothing has taught me better than actually trying to read Japanese works and understand them.

WaniKani was too slow and didn't click for me, but that might be something you like.

Thanks for the detailed post. I think the textbook-search site'll be especially handy, since I've never heard of it before.

And since you seem to know of a lot of good resources, I have a few questions (if you don't mind).

1. Would you happen to know the difference between these two Kodansha kanji dictionaries?
   
   

• Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary
  
• Kodansha Kanji Dictionary
  
  I'm really not sure what to go for. I'm currently using the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, and it strongly suggests that Learner's Dictionary as a supplement. But at the same time, the regular Kanji dictionary seems to be the better deal since it has much more Kanji. Is there any point in owning both?
  
  

2. I'm interested in the All About Particles book, and other such supplementary texts, but is there a chance that the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series might make them redundant?
   
   
3. How is Kodansha's Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary? Wouldn't it be redundant to the Furigana dictionary, which lets you do look-up in both JP-EN and EN-JP? Or is it nuanced enough to be worth it on its own?
   
   Thanks!

Kanji in KLC are arranged in order of frequency. Amazon has a "look inside" for the book, so you can actually read about the author's motivations. Some of the pages are missing on the amazon preview, but look at actual book's page number 18, middle of the page for info on order. While you are on this page, take a look at the explanations of the sample entry.

You can read about how radicals (he uses the term graphemes) are introduced on page 12 of the preview.
http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step-/dp/1568365268/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463557402&sr=8-1&keywords=kodansha+kanji