A lot of beginners are scared off by the idea of kanji, but do you need to learn kanji to know Japanese? 2 x 46 kana alphabets are hard enough but kanji has more than 2000 characters! So is it necessary and really worth the effort? Whether you really need to learn kanji or not depends on your goals in Japanese. If your aim is to be able to take holidays, chat with people or watch anime then the time sink is probably not worth it. If you are looking to read manga or live in Japan then you will...

As a native English speaker, Kanji can seem crazy intimidating. With thousands of characters it looks like it never ends! It's a big reason that students drag their feet because learning can be tedious and repetitive. If you focus, does it really take that long though? Most people who want to learn the 2000 Jouyou Kanji take around 1-1.5 years if they are going at a steady pace. The timing is similar for N1 kanji lists. This of course depends on a lot of factors so let's take a look at how...

Learning kanji is pretty boring. It's a huge task that involves lot of self study and memorisation. Even if you’re in a classroom setting you are often just given lists of kanji to study between classes. Unfortunately, kanji is something most Japanese learners have to tackle eventually so how can you get through it the least horrible way possible? To make kanji less boring you need to understand the way you learn and how to mix your own interests into the content. Allowing yourself to take...