Question: How Difficult is it to Learn Japanese Characters?

You ask about the difficulty of learning Japanese characters but you don't ask about learning the language itself, so I will leave off mention of that in my answer.

Briefly, there are three character sets to learn: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Of these, the two kana sets are fairly simple to learn. The last character set, kanji, is a bit more challenging.

You can learn the two kana sets in a week. Mastering them—getting to the point where you can use them without thinking—of course, takes more practice, but the initial learning so that you can read and write doesn't take very long.

The kanji. Well, let's start by specifying that you only need to learn about 2000 of these. You can learn more of course, but 2000 is the baseline. (Actually 2136, to be exact. This is known as the jōyō kanji.) As for time, I'd budget at least a year of constant practice. It's possible to learn faster, but you risk burnout if you push yourself too fast. A year is a good goal.
Some strategies:

Hiragana

This is simple. Here's what I did to learn them and what I have advised many others to do. I've seen this work with enough people to know it works.

Write them out everyday, or multiple times everyday. The first few times by looking at a book and from then on by memory. Do this for a week or two and you will know them all fairly quickly.

If you want to insure you aren't overwhelmed (it is critical to avoid burnout) you can break this up, learning only 5 new characters per day. Go in sequence.

Day 1: あいうえお (a i u e o)

Day 2: かきくけこ (ka ki ku ke ko)

Day 3: さしすせそ (sa shi su se so)

and so on.

When you practice recalling by writing them out, make sure to write out all that you have learned so far.

There is nothing complex here. It is memorizing by writing. Do this every day or a few times everyday and you will know them all soon enough.

There are books that aim to help you remember them by giving you memory tricks, but I would say these books are overkill for the kana.

I would add don't worry about form too much when doing your writing practice. You can always improve form later. But do try to get the stroke order correct. You can find the stroke order almost everywhere. Wikipedia has it for each character. For example: A (kana) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(kana)

Katakana

Same as above.

This character set is a little tougher because the characters are less distinctive, but you can still learn it fairly quickly with the above strategy.

Kanji

This is the big one. Learning this character set is tougher not only because there are more of them than the two kana sets, but also because they are more complex AND because in addition to writing/reading them you have to learn meaning. That's 2 separate things. (and actually there are often multiple ways to pronounce them, but let's not worry about that right now)

Obviously we need a plan.

Japanese people do it by brute force. Write a character many times until they memorize it. Basically the same as the kana strategies I mentioned above. This does work and it works very well, but the downside is it takes a very long time.

I will recommend a book here. It's how I learned them and how thousands of others have too.

Remembering the Kanji 1

The book is in its 6th edition and has been in print constantly since 1977, so you can tell it has remained popular. That's because it works (if you follow it and don't give up).

The idea of the book is to learn writing and meaning only, not pronunciation (which you can learn later). Cutting down on what you have to remember makes learning easier. You learn each character by telling yourself a story. This story is crazy enough to be memorable, includes the meaning of the character, and tells you how to draw it. Sounds like a lot of work, but when you actually try it you will find that it works amazingly well.

Here is a sample which includes the first few characters to learn. Give it a try and see what you think

Using this method I would caution you not to attempt to learn too many per day. 5-10 per day. That may not seem like much, but remember you also need to review what you already learned. Unlike the kana which are few enough in number to review all of them in a few minutes, the number of kanji you will be reviewing per day will quickly grow to a huge number.

Therefore in addition to limiting the number of new ones you learn everyday, I'd suggest an SRS flashcard system to help you learn. Here is a good free one:

Anki - powerful, intelligent flashcards

SRS means spaced-repetition and this just means it uses an algorithm to decide which cards you need to review at any given time. Basically when you get a card right, you don't need to review it again for a longer time, but when you get a card wrong you need to review it again sooner.

Combine RTK (Remembering the Kanji) with an SRS and you will learn them all soon enough.

Ask Me Japan

Do you have any questions about Japan that you just can't find the answer to and are itching to know? Ask me in the comments and if I have any insight I'll address your question in another post.

Thank you for reading. See you next time!

❦

	David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. More?

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