Ok so I’ve been studying Japanese as my third language for a little while now, and have learned some basic grammar and can read hiragana and a few kanji.
I’m at the point where I’m ready to start just filling up with vocab in order to mash some simple sentences together, but I’m trying to figure out if kanji and vocabulary are the same? Because I know kanji can have like a traditional reading and a Japanese meaning which can vary slightly, I’m not sure if it makes sense to just mass learn kanji and their hiragana spellings (because also it seems sometimes hiragana spelling is used instead of the kanji out of ease maybe?) or if I learn kanji as a separate entity entirely and think of it purely associatively with like a visual aid.
I also think I’m probably overcomplicating this after typing this out, thoughts?