One of the most common beginner questions I deal with is about kanji. But from experience, it it clear that even people who get to a relatively advanced level of kanji still don’t know basic things about kanji or study them really ineffectively. The treatment of kanji in most textbooks is terrible and generally consigned to a few pages at the beginning.
I’ve done a video on the kanjidamage.com system which you can find below and this will teach you basically everything needed to study kanji effectively.
The general advice is to not look at ‘learn kanji’ as a goal in and of itself. Instead, learn them as part of words. When you study a new word like say, 牛乳; learn how to read this word, ぎゅうにゅう, memorise how to write the two characters in this word, and remember that this word means “milk”, specifically cow’s milk.
By studying like this you’ll eventually build up knowledge of kanji, what they mean, how to write them, and what readings they have.
Studying kanji in a vacuum can be interesting, and isn’t a complete waste of time if you enjoy it, but it’s general a better use of your time to learn them in context, as part of vocabulary study.
If you wish to progress to being able to write kanji by hand, it will take a lot of work and a detailed understanding of the concepts in the above linked video. Also check out this video.
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