I'm currently in the middle of my first year studying the Japanese language (using the Genki series, if that's relevant). I've been learning the kanji of most of the vocabulary items in the chapter - beyond the relatively simple kanji in the list that accompanies each lesson. I'm doing this since I've studied some Chinese in the past, and so I'm used to learning how to write characters/kanji (I do recognize that the two writing systems differ in some major ways, though).
My Japanese language teacher has been supportive of my learning the kanji in the textbook, but she has made a couple of comments about kanji usage in general that I want to understand a little bit better. They may be gross overgeneralizations - I don't really know. In any case, these comments are:
(1) Japanese people of my generation (I'm in my mid-twenties), and each passing generation, tend to use fewer and fewer kanji in their writing. Japanese women also tend to use fewer kanji in their writing than Japanese males.
(2) There are some kanji that have fallen out of use. She uses the following as descriptive examples:
宜しくお願いします: now usually written as よろしくお願いします
其れ／此れ: now written as hiragana (それ／これ)
有る／在る: now written as ある
The issue is - how do I know if a given kanji is obsolete, rarely used (or used by elder males), or just not used by my generation? I really don't want to overuse kanji any more than I need to.
This may not be so relevant, but I'm deaf, so this issue is especially important because the only way I can express myself in Japanese is through writing. I want to be able to use the "appropriate" amount of kanji in my writing
Thanks!