The official Daily Use Kanji include just under 2000 kanji. However, the "essential kanji" that you pretty much HAVE to know number at 881 and are all learned by the 6th grade. The remainder are to be learned in secondary-education.

If you include the official Name Kanji (jinmeiyō kanji 人名用漢字), then there are about 2200 characters, for a total of a bit over four-thousand.

See: Introduction to Kanji - Japan Reference

Yeesh, better get on it. Four years should be plenty, though, if you really work at it. I've been at this for four months and I have a pretty good grasp of grammar, know three of the four writing systems, am learning kanji, and building up a useable vocabulary. For self-teaching, that's not too bad, I guess. Imagine how much I could learn in four years! Of course, I am finally enrolled in a formal course at my college, so that'll definitely be a big boost.

My recommendations: Take as many Japanese classes as you can in high school (if you have J-Classes there, I know some don't), never watch an English-dubbed Anime again--only watch Japanese dub, try to find friends who share your interest so that you have someone to talk at (yes, 'at' XD)--better yet, find friends who already speak the language, if you can--, spend a lot of time on the internet poring through whatever resources you can get your hands on. If you're lucky enough to graduate at 17, see if you can't take a summer course in Japanese at a local community college. After all that, seeing as it seems you have a goal that's to be reached at 18, take the JLPT (I assume you're going to Japan at 18?) .

Four years? Two years is enough to learn the so called "essential" 2000 kanji.

If you learn 3 kanji a day for two years straight, you will have almost 2200 kanji under your belt at the end of those two years.

Lol, true, but learning a language isn't strictly mathematical. If it were, I'd suck at languages, too XD .

But, I agree, a year should be more than enough to learn enough Kanji to get by in Japan. Two to be able to read Japanese literature.

As with any language, though, reading is the easy part. Speaking and listening are where you get caught up.

I'd say it depends. For German, speaking is by far the hardest part for me. But with Japanese/Chinese, it's sooo much harder to write than it is to speak/read.

I am Chinese , so I know the meaning of Kanji even though I cant pronounce it in Japanese , hahaha, that's what u call advantage~ XDD

SakanaMidori - there are well more than 6000 kanji.. hell even one dictionary i use has a lookup system for more than 12,000 and there are well more than that.

as for learning kanji... don't just learn to recognise them with flash cards etc.. learn to write them too! the fact is you will have a hard time remembering them unless you are using them regularly so you should perhaps follow the grade levels of schools in japan and then get books suitable for each level. then you will know the kanji in the book and be able to read it and retain it in your memory.

at DragonShade just don't get caught thinking of the wrong meaning when you see the characters.. eg 手紙 is not what you think it is in chinese haha.

I have also learned ancient Chinese, there are lots of words share the same meaning 走る（走　Means run in ancient chinese but means walk or go in modern one, but still means run in Japanese).. beside, I memorize Kanji quick enough ~haha

To be honest, kanji isn't what you need to "get by" in Japan, but a good understanding of converstational Japanese is.

I knew gaijin that knew 2000-3000 kanji...could read any town name on a map...knew kanji that even Japanese people weren't familiar with...but they didn't know how to ask where the nearest train station was.

I definitely agree with the speaking and listening part. I sound like a robot when I talk. I wish I could sound more colloquial... Watching Japanese talk shows? Don't even get me started.

Your are suppose to learn Hiragana first and then do the Katakana. If you only know katakana and you have to write something it may seem like you are emphizing everything you are saying. Also japanese native words are written in hiragana so it seems a little silly to learn first the system of writing used to write foreign things and then learn the one for natives things.