Hello. I’ve spent the last three months learning the kana and am trying to set realistic goals for the next three months as I start working on kanji. I have only about half an hour to study each day, but I’m very consistent about it. I’m wondering how many new kanji each day, additively (I plan to build a custom Anki deck), might constitute a realistic goal for someone like me. I’m wary of trying to do too much too fast and getting overwhelmed, but I don’t want to be lazy either. My overall goal is to get to reading basic texts as soon as I can. I’d love to hear what’s worked for others in my situation.
9 comments
i wouldn’t focus on number of kanji, focus on words. if studying kanji helps with the memorization of vocab, go for it, but you’ll have to balance that out for yourself. one cannot read kanji, only words.
pick a pace and try it and see how it works. it’s far more important to make self-evaluation part of your cycle of learning, than some mystical perfect rate of consumption. your goals and needs, and time and energy, will shift over time. so just do what you can, give yourself breaks when you need them, and adjust over time.
so I did the “study consistently” thing as well but instead of 30 min I had 2 hours to study after work every day.
It took me a while before I could read stuff, I did genki I and genki II and then I read some basic books but they were still hard.
Genki gives you 315 or so basic kanji, and those kanji are the most useful, most commonly encountered kanji ever. So if you want to do like, study 1 kanji a day, then I’d say it might take around 315 days to get enough.
But you need to study them with vocab, Japanese is made of vocab words. Spoken or written Japanese are *both* made of vocab words. And you can’t do anything without that.
But you need some grammar too. Because just vocab isn’t enough.
If you only have 30 minutes a day for any Japanese study I would only do about 1 or 2 kanji….and take no more than like 5 minutes….as you would want to put the majority of the time towards comprehension from reading…and can pick up new kanji while doing that as well.
I don’t see how you can justify making your own deck with the little time you seem to have. Just do genki and use one of the premade decks for it.
Couple of points…
1. Unless you have a very specific need, [don’t learn kanji](https://youtu.be/exkXaVYvb68). Learn words instead.
2. [Here’s what helped me](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/s5mtva/comment/ht1lo0x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) when starting.
if ya only got 30 minutes you should be reading or listening or watching probably
I do three a day. It doesn’t sound like much, but kanji is not the only thing to learn. Also, today I am proud to say that I know every single N5 kanji, and soon I will know every N4 kanji as well. Always 3 a day
I really recommend using Anki or something similar to find ways of adding more time to your study a day than 30 minutes. 🙂 I use Anki when I go to the bathroom, when I stand in lines, when eat, etc..
You will be amazed at how much ‘raw’ information you can gain with anki just in the time it takes you to take a shit every day. lol Also, Japanese is a pretty rough language to learn on 30 minutes a day.. ^,^; If you don’t have more time than that then there isn’t much you can do but use what you have… but if you COULD shift some things around and you have the drive, then I would definitely try to find more time.
For general survival speaking I would recommend listening to Pimsluer Japanese while you commute. It’s limited, but you can visit japan and survive from it no problem and it’s completely audio based. It’s not the best in the world as a total system, but the fact that it’s all audio and can be done on the go can really be advantageous for some of us.
Perhaps if your just starting get on wanikani. If realistically a good way to learn at a slow pace. I bought the years pass in early February and I’ve climbed 7 levels in 2 months.
I find text books to drag on . However “Basic 500 kanji” is good. It’s a bright orange book, super hard to miss. Could
Probably learn 10 kanji a day than test your self at the end of the week with 70 kanji!
Bunpro is also great for grammar and Vocab. The combo of wanikani and bunpro for a year should be about a 100$. If you prefer a text Genki 1 and 2 can be completed in 4-6 months depending on how fast / deep you go.
At 30 minutes a day – I don’t think your giving yourself much of a chance, I’d bump it to an hour that way you can real dial it in. You could pair grammar and Vocab on some days, than reading and comprehension on others.