[steven]

I can see what you're saying... but I guess we just disagree on this one.

My main point is that the basics of spoken language should be learned before the written parts of it are attempted, as this seems to be a more natural process.

"English or Chinese speaker, chances are you are already equipped with 10-20% of the Japanese vocabulary."

I don't know about chinese... but I do appreciate the fact that there are a lot of loan words from English in Japanese, but their pronunciation is very distorted and their meanings often differ from the original in subtle to extremely different ways. There are a ton of words in English that are loan words from latin based languages or french, but there is an idea called "false friends" that plays a huge role in misunderstandings. I'm not sure where you got your 10-20% from either.

You might have something with the importance of learning things in a set... I think there is something to that. I think it is absolutely benefitial to learn the kanji of a word (as long as it's a reasonable kanji that is used) when you learn the written form of that word.

People definately slow down their language for me... that's very true, but the second they realize I understand them they go into normal speaking mode immediately, and I can tell the difference. In fact, I have to tone down my dialect when I figure out that someone isn't from around here so they'll understand me better.

With all that aside, I am probably an example of waiting to long to seriously study kanji (by my own standards even). I feel like an illeterate person would... reading something takes such a long time, so I'll just have my girlfriend read whatever it is to me and then with a bit of explanation I'll get it.