any good kanji-teaching tools out there?
 

I've just started to learn kanji (I'm a complete beginner) and there are lots and lots of programs and tools to help one to do that... none of which seem helpful.

Quite many of them teach the kanji symbol but no readings, just the English word. In some cases the translations are rather misleading.
...This seems a bit odd. Why would I want to learn a picture and the corresponding English word? I want to speak the language too.

Another thing, even though some programs allow one to set the level, they still teach kanjis that I don't think I'll be using in the near future. Finding a tool that suits my puny vocabulary is not the point, just a little more common kanjis...Or is this asking too much?

Just, if anyone knows any good tools, I'd like to hear.

If oyu have AIM I can send you an PDF on all the kannji steps.

Look for a good textbook and tutor. The best thing is to find a class. Kanji and Japanese language learning require years of dedicated study, and your best bet is to get that from a professional.

I bet for many people it is as difficult as medical school or law school, but no one asks for a program that teaches orthedpedic surgery online.

I am not picking on you, LadyQ, this is a VERY common question here...maybe I'll make a thread about it...

I think this would be a very good idea. I'm starting up Kanji too. My teacher is insisting on my when doing my weekly writings, to use Kanji for characters she's actually shown us before. I still have a hard time remembering it, and might go back to Hiragana.

You NEED to use that kanji you've learned, or you will never get passed a 6-year-old level in writing. Also, kanji helps your vocabulary and comprehension SO MUCH. Sentences only written in hiragana look like gibberish to me. Kanji are the anchors to getting your ideas across. Your teacher is right. Use them!

I couldn't have said it better myself! SSJup81 has a good teacher. Not only will you look like a 6-year-old if you write everything in kana, you will also be permanently unable to read anything written in Japanese....books, magazines, websites, restaurant menues, etc. You need to WANT to learn kanji for your own good, and not because you want to please someone.

While the two systems of kana are important in their own ways, the most important words in any short writing will be in kanji 99% of the time. To me (and I'm sure to many other Japanese) Japanese written only in kana looks like a row of cold sushi rice. Without the colorful pieces of fish on top, it doesn't look too appetizing. The kanji are the fish.

I'm not going to a class. Sure it supports the economy and all, but I don't want to be taught things I can learn by myself. (^__^ I guess I'll never be a surgeon then.)

I did buy a text book and it sucks, haven't touched the thing in ages. I use internet resources and so far I'm doing great. My friend is taking a course, good for her but in the same amount of time I've learned much more. Different things suit different people. Kanjis are the hard part because my brain gets lazy... That's why I need some sort of tool to work with. (and thanks for the offer BakaCrisis, but I don't have AIM) I'll keep looking.

Yeah, I know that. Kanji does make sentence reading easier. I just wish there was a way for me to comprehend it better.

only 1 way to comprehend it better and that is constant practice and revision...
not 100% interesting but only method that works unfortunately

To be honest, i found the teaching of kanji at the university i studied at in Japan to be not very productive. although all the material we were learning with was written with kanji we had furigana on top of that to make it easy to read.

i know about 600 kanji so far and about 2500 compounds to go with those kanji.. I have learnt these since october last year. i'm still learn 5 each day with new compounds. I'm completely self taught on the kanji front.

because of my love of learning kanji i find it pretty difficult to read japanese without it, as MMM mentioned, reading something written entirely in kana is a pain.

mind you before i started really learning kanji i already knew probably 100 or so of them visually but not able to remember how to write them so i wasn't completely new to kanji when i started getting stuck into them.

I have said many times on this forum how i learnt kanji and it is surprisingly not so different to how japanese learn themselves, repetition, repetition, repetition.

Tips:
learn the radicals - they are what make up the kanji eg 月 is a radical in 服 (you can see it on the left there) knowing these radicals makes it easier to remember how to write the character and they are mostly a guide to pronunciation (beyond being pictorial representations, this was their use in creating the characters in Chinese and thus has a flow on effect to Japanese).
work from either the same order as taught in Japan or go with the order in the Japanese Language Proficiency Tests, i went with the latter.
learn your kanji with compounds, verbs etc, this will help you to remember the different pronunciation. you can do this by working of known vocabulary. lets say your vocabulary is 600 words strong at the moment and you are learning the character 日 (day,sun,counter for days) in your vocabulary you should have learnt the word for tomorrow 明日, (あした) the word for today 今日 (きょう) etc, and now you are learning uses for that character.

kanji are great and once you get past the beginners barrier to them they really become more enjoyable to learn and how the words are made up with them.

Some Kanji I do know right off. My problem is actually writing them. I don't know the correct direction for most of these characters presented to me.

Oh, and for words like "today" and "this week", that's easy to remember because of the first Kanji there. I know that it's "ima" which means "now", so I remember that it's "present tense", for the most part. I also know the kanji for "day". It was one of the first ones I recognized.

What do actual Japanese Elementary School students start off with? Is there a good book on how to write Kanji? I know repetition is the key, but I'd still like to start at the beginning, to be completely honest.

i have the tuttle books with 250 kanji in each and they are pretty good, they give compounds that start off easy and get more difficult as you learn more. they show stroke order and sometimes some extra information about the characters origin etc. I didn't use them after about the first 30 or so characters just because i went ahead with my method i stated earlier.. stroke order is really dead easy to pick up.. learn the radicals and their stroke order and you pretty much will know the stroke order for every character out there.