Hiragana & Kanji
 

So I'm wondering how much Kanji you need to know. From the Japanese people that I've met they all seem to know the entire alphabet, etc for Hiragana, but I not all of them know all of Kanji. And I understand that Hiragana is the main form of Japanese, just Kanji is used often as well. I'm not entirely sure how this works but how much of each do you really need to know for a fluent lifestyle level? And for a singing level? How long does it take to learn those levels if you are taking college courses on it (with the assumption the variables are on average).

When I took a japanese intro course at my college the teacher told me around 2000 kanji to be able to read a newspaper fairly easy.

Searching around my own finds that you need around 3000-5000 to be fluent enough in kanji.

Personally, I just want to be able to have conversations & read and write some. I guess it depends on which direction you're headed.

Japanese students learn approximately 2,000 kanji in school. This is what is considered necessary to be literate in Japanese. These kanji will usually not appear with furigana in newspapers, books, or magazines (unless it's written for children or using an irregular reading). Most Japanese adults know more than those basic 2,000 - upwards of 3,000 for your average adult, 5,000 for scholars.

I'm not sure what you mean by "not all of them know all of Kanji." If they're native Japanese, they should know pretty much all of the Kanji that are in use. There are some that are no longer in use (though I expect most people would know a lot of those anyways.)

There is something like 2500-3000 in use iirc (I don't know where 5000 came from, I've never heard of that many outside of Chinese) and if you want to be fluent you should understand all of them. There are thousands upon thousands of compounds that you also need to know (which also frequently change the pronunciation.)

You would have to take like 15 years of Japanese courses to learn them all if you didn't do any outside study. In other words, Japanese courses aren't going to teach you all of the Kanji - They should teach you quite a few of them with compounds, but there just really isn't enough time to teach all of them.

It's also not really correct to say that Hiragana is the 'main' writing form - Kanji are used when writing almost as frequently as possible. Katakana is also very common. It would be correct to say that all three combined are their main writing system.

[quote=jesselt;711781]I'm not sure what you mean by "not all of them know all of Kanji." If they're native Japanese, they should know pretty much all of the Kanji that are in use. There are some that are no longer in use (though I expect most people would know a lot of those anyways.)
QUOTE]

I'm a Japanese native speaker and unfortunately this is not entirely true. Most people know Kanjis which are taught by the time you graduate from high school, but it not all the kanjis in use. There are actually Kanji exams for Japanese people. You are asked to tell how to "read" kanjis on university entrance exams.

My recommendation is to get the text books for real kids in Japan, and learn from them step by step. Realistically speaking, once you learn Highschool level Kanjis you are fine.

By the way, we still be able to "guess" the meaning of a Kanji from a radical orr things like that when we don't know the meaning of a kanji or how to read (pronounce) it.

Several years ago, I investigate how foreign people learn Kanji for Japanese language.

Learning first 300 kanji could be painful but next 500 could be easier because he knows basic radicals and see the configuration of each kanji. With these 800 kanjis, you can compete with 10-12 years Japanese kids and can learn more kanjis in daily life.

As for me, I could read about 5000 or more kanjis and could write perhaps 2000-3000. Using PC, I quickly forgot how to write kanji day by day.

so what's a good way to study kanji?

i already know kana and recently started studying kanji. i can read only a little less than 100 kanji, but if you asked me to write one of them i wouldn't be able to.

what's a good way to learn how to read AND write kanji at the same time?

That's easy. Practice, practice, practice. Pick the Kanji you wish to learn and do nothing but write it, over and over, for an hour.

Yes, an hour. No breaks, no TV, no distractions. Write it. Refer to your source now and then to ensure you're not introducing errors.

The next day, pick another kanji. Practice it for an hour. Finish by doing five minutes of yesterday's kanji without referring to the source until the end to ensure you got it right.

If you have more than one free hour a day, do two Kanji a day, or more. Just don't forget to have a comfort break between kanji hours.

If my research proves correct, 'scholars' (take that as you will) in Japan do not only learn Japanese-language kanji. From what I can gather, it's like how in English, we take on Latin phrases for medicine, science, philosophy, etc. Although they are not actually English, we use them as if they were.

There are multiple readings for most kanji - the onyomi and kunyomi. The onyomi is the "chinese" reading (or, rather, the japanised pronunciation of the chinese reading), and the kunyomi is the Japanese word that the kanji is used for.

Many kanji have up to around five readings - multiple onyomi and / or kunyomi.

Hurrah!