Learning Kanji & Japanese: Your Questions Answered

Kanji are the Chinese-derived characters used in written Japanese. Each kanji carries a meaning, and they're used to write the core of most words (nouns, and the stems of verbs and adjectives), while hiragana handles grammar and katakana handles foreign words.

For example, in 食べる (to eat), the kanji 食 carries the meaning and the hiragana べる handles the grammar. Kanji also make Japanese far easier to read: compare 寿司を食べるのが好きです。 with すしをたべるのがすきです。 Without kanji, it's hard to see where one word ends and the next begins.

There are over 50,000 kanji in total, but most are rare or obsolete. The official Jōyō list of kanji for everyday use has 2,136 characters, and that's the set most learners aim for.

So don't let the big number scare you. You only need a small fraction of them, and the most common ones do most of the work.

Around 2,000 kanji (the 2,136 Jōyō kanji) lets you read most everyday Japanese, like news articles and novels. But you can start reading much sooner: the 1,000 most common kanji cover roughly 90% of the kanji you'll see in typical text.

That's exactly why the 90 Day Challenge focuses on the 1,000 most common kanji first. It's the fastest route to actually reading real Japanese.

The best way to learn kanji is to break each one into its components, link them with a memorable visual story (a mnemonic), review with spaced repetition flashcards, and see the kanji in real words and sentences. It's far faster and longer-lasting than writing kanji out over and over.

For example, 玉 (ball) is 王 (king) plus one extra stroke. Picture a king kicking a football, with that stroke as the ball flying off his boot, and you've got it. Using this approach I went from struggling with ~200 kanji to learning up to 150 new kanji in a day.

To learn kanji fast as a beginner, start with the simple building-block kanji (like 日, 口, 人 and 木), learn the most common kanji first, give each one a mnemonic story, and do a small, fixed number every day, around 10 to 15, with daily flashcard reviews.

Speed comes from consistency and good memory hooks, not marathon sessions. At about 11 new kanji a day you'll reach 1,000 kanji in 90 days.

With memory techniques and consistent daily study, you can learn the 1,000 most common kanji in about 90 days (around 11 per day) and all ~2,000 everyday kanji in around 6 months. With rote memorisation it often takes years.

Speed really depends on your method. When I relied on brute force, I struggled with the first 200. With memory techniques, some days I was learning 100–150 new kanji fairly comfortably.

Kanji feel hard at first because there are thousands of them and most have several readings, but they're very learnable. Kanji are built from a few hundred repeating parts, so once you know the parts and use mnemonics, each new kanji gets easier than the last.

The hardest part for most learners isn't the kanji themselves. It's using a slow method, like writing each one 50 times, and burning out.

You forget kanji when nothing meaningful connects them in your memory. Give each kanji a vivid mnemonic story built from its parts, review it with spaced repetition, and use it in real words and sentences so it's reinforced in context.

If your Anki reviews keep piling up with cards you keep failing, that's usually a sign the kanji never had a strong "hook" in the first place, not that you need more reviews.

Radicals are the building blocks that kanji are made from. There are 214 traditional radicals, and many kanji are just two or three of them combined. Learning radicals first makes complicated kanji much easier to remember.

For example, 森 (forest) is simply three trees 木, and 明 (bright) is the sun 日 plus the moon 月. Some radicals also change shape inside other kanji: 人 (person) becomes 亻, and 火 (fire) becomes 灬.

On'yomi is the reading that came from Chinese and is usually used when a kanji is part of a compound word. Kun'yomi is the native Japanese reading and is usually used when a kanji stands alone or is followed by hiragana.

For example, 山 (mountain) is read yama on its own (kun'yomi), but san in 富士山 (Mount Fuji), the on'yomi.

The easiest way to remember kanji readings is to learn them through vocabulary rather than memorising lists of readings. Each word gives you one reading in a real context, and a mnemonic that links the sound to the meaning makes it stick.

For example, 必要 (ひつよう, necessary): hit (hitsu) your (you) chest and do what's necessary. One story gives you both the meaning and the reading.

Yes, it's worth learning basic stroke order. It makes your handwriting readable, helps you recognise handwritten kanji, lets you use handwriting input to look kanji up, and writing a kanji out a few times helps you remember it.

You don't need to drill it for hours. In the 90 Day Challenge you follow the stroke order three times, then write the kanji once from memory. That's enough.

Kanji are Chinese characters that were adopted into Japanese, so many look the same and share meanings. But Japan and China simplified characters separately in the 20th century, so many now look different, and most kanji have several Japanese readings, unlike the usually single reading in Mandarin.

For example, the traditional character 賣 (sell) became 売 in Japanese but 卖 in simplified Chinese. Knowing Chinese gives you a big head start with kanji meanings, but you still need to learn the Japanese readings.

Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig is worth it if you want to learn kanji meanings fast using mnemonics. Its main drawback is that it teaches keywords before readings and real vocabulary, so it works best paired with words and sentences you actually use.

The Kanji Athletes method is similar in using memory techniques, but I've added extra techniques I found effective through personal experience, and combined them with vocabulary and real Japanese from day one.

WaniKani is a well-designed paid app that teaches around 2,000 kanji and 6,000 vocabulary words over 60 levels, using radicals, mnemonics and spaced repetition. It's worth it if you want a structured kanji-only system, but it's slow-paced by design and doesn't teach grammar or give you speaking practice.

Its first few levels are free, so it's easy to try. If you want kanji, vocabulary, grammar and a community together, with a person you can ask questions, that's the gap Kanji Athletes is built to fill.

Japanese uses three scripts together. Hiragana is used for grammar (like particles and verb endings) and native words, katakana is mainly used for foreign loanwords, names and emphasis, and kanji are meaning-based characters used for the core of most words.

You'll often see all three in one word. 消しゴム (eraser) uses kanji (消), hiragana (し) and katakana (ゴム).

Learn hiragana first, then katakana, then start kanji. Hiragana and katakana have 46 basic characters each and can be learned in a few days to a couple of weeks. After that, start kanji straight away rather than putting them off.

A lot of learners avoid kanji for months because they seem scary, and it slows everything else down. Vocabulary is much easier once you know the kanji it's written with.

To learn hiragana and katakana fast, give each character a visual mnemonic, learn it alongside a couple of simple words, and test yourself daily with flashcards. Most people can learn both scripts in one to two weeks this way.

For example, with あ (a), you also learn あめ (rain) and あさ (morning), so you're reading real words from the very first lesson.

Furigana are small hiragana printed above or beside a kanji to show how it's read. You'll see them in children's books, manga and learner materials, and they're a great way to read real Japanese before you know every kanji.

For example: 必要ひつよう. The small ひつよう is the furigana.

The US Foreign Service Institute estimates around 88 weeks (about 2,200 class hours) for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency in Japanese. You can reach basic conversation in a few months of daily study, but fluency usually takes a few years.

The biggest time sink for most learners is kanji. Speed that part up with memory techniques and the whole journey gets a lot shorter.

Japanese is one of the harder languages for English speakers, and the US Foreign Service Institute puts it in its hardest category. The writing system is the main challenge. Pronunciation is quite easy, and the grammar is very regular once it clicks.

Harder isn't the same as impossible. The difficulty is mostly the kanji, and that's exactly where the right method saves you the most time.

For English speakers, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin are all among the hardest languages to learn. Japanese is usually considered hardest to read because of kanji with multiple readings. Korean's alphabet is quicker to learn, and Mandarin adds tones but has simpler grammar.

If you already know Chinese characters, Japanese kanji meanings will come much faster, though you'll still need to learn the Japanese readings.

You can't become fluent in 3 months, but you can make huge progress. In about 90 days you can learn hiragana, katakana, the 1,000 most common kanji and the core grammar and vocabulary for basic reading and conversation.

Honestly, 90 days is a big challenge and not everyone hits it on schedule. But having a clear target and a daily number (around 11 kanji a day) makes a massive difference compared to studying with no plan.

The fastest way is to learn kana in the first week or two, learn the most common kanji with memory techniques, build vocabulary on top of those kanji, study core grammar, and get lots of real Japanese input and speaking practice alongside it every day.

• Kana: hiragana and katakana first
• Kanji: the most common ones first, with mnemonics
• Vocabulary: words built from kanji you already know
• Grammar: the essential patterns, with real examples
• Input & output: listening, reading and speaking from early on

Yes, many people learn Japanese through self-study. The hardest parts alone are knowing what to study next, checking whether your Japanese is right, and finding people to practise with, which is where a structured course and a community help.

That's a big reason I built Kanji Athletes as a community. Even if you're more introverted, you can learn a lot just from reading other members' questions.

Duolingo is good for building a daily habit and getting started with hiragana, katakana and basic phrases, but on its own it won't get most people to real fluency. It teaches relatively few kanji in depth, gives limited grammar explanations and offers little real Japanese input.

It works best as a light extra alongside a proper kanji method, grammar study and real Japanese content.

Anime helps with listening and picking up natural phrases, but you can't learn Japanese from anime alone. It works best as comprehensible input once you know some basics, and anime Japanese is often very casual or dramatic, so words like 俺 (ore) don't suit every situation.

Use anime as a reward and a reinforcement tool. Every word you've studied that pops up in an episode sticks a little harder.

Learn them together. Learning a kanji alongside a couple of common words that use it gives you the meaning, the reading and a real word at the same time, and each new kanji makes future vocabulary easier.

That's how every kanji lesson in Kanji Athletes works: 日 comes with 一日 (いちにち, one day) and 五日 (いつか, five days).

The fastest way to learn Japanese vocabulary is to learn each word with a memory technique that links its meaning and pronunciation, test yourself with active recall, see the word in real example sentences, and review it with spaced repetition like Anki while getting daily Japanese input.

Knowing a word means knowing four things: its meaning, how it's written, how it's said and when to use it. 私, 僕 and 俺 all mean "I", but they aren't interchangeable.

The best way to learn Japanese grammar is one point at a time: a simple example sentence, a one-line explanation, several more examples, a comparison with similar grammar, and then writing your own sentences and getting feedback. Memory techniques help for easily confused points like particles.

For example, なる (to become) is used for change: 先生になりたいです。 (I want to become a teacher). Then compare it with する (to do) and 変わる (to change) so they don't blur together.

Japanese particles are short words, usually one hiragana character, that come after a word to show its role in the sentence, like the topic (は), the object (を), the destination (に) or where an action happens (で). They work a bit like English prepositions, but they come after the word instead of before it.

For example, in 学校で勉強します (study at school), で marks school as the place where the studying happens.

に marks a destination, a point in time, or where something exists, while で marks the place where an action happens or the method used to do it. So you live in Japan with に (日本に住みます), but you study at school with で (学校で勉強します).

A quick test: if something is being done at the place, use で. If something is going to or existing at the place, use に. で also marks the tool or method: バスで行きます (go by bus), 箸で食べます (eat with chopsticks).

Both に and へ can mark where you're going, and often either works (日本に行きます / 日本へ行きます). The difference is emphasis: へ stresses the direction you're heading, while に stresses the destination you arrive at. に also has many other uses, while へ is only for direction.

Here's the memory technique from the course: HE (へ) walks toward his destination with his KNEE (に). へ is also pronounced "e" when it's used as a particle.

Remember Japanese particles by giving each one a vivid memory picture tied to its sound, learning them through lots of real example sentences, and comparing easily confused particles side by side, like に vs で and に vs へ.

For example: HE (へ) walks toward his destination with his KNEE (に), and you do things on the DEck (で). Then write your own sentences with each particle and get them checked.

Yes, Anki is one of the best tools for reviewing Japanese thanks to spaced repetition. But it works best as a supplement: pair it with memory techniques so cards actually stick, and with real Japanese input so you can use what you learn.

Popular free decks like Core 2k/6k are a good start. Kanji Athletes includes ready-made decks that match each lesson, so you don't spend hours making cards yourself.

Comprehensible input is Japanese you can mostly understand, pitched just above your current level. The idea comes from linguist Stephen Krashen, who argued that we acquire languages by understanding real messages rather than by memorising rules.

For a beginner that might be a slow podcast for learners. Later it's anime, YouTube or novels. Studying kanji, vocabulary and grammar is what makes more Japanese understandable, and every time you meet a word you've studied in real content, it sticks harder.

Immersion works best when the Japanese you immerse in is mostly understandable. Total immersion from day one is slow and frustrating for most beginners, so combining focused study of kanji, vocabulary and grammar with daily input at your level is usually much faster.

Think of study as what makes immersion possible, and immersion as what makes study stick.

The JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) is the most widely recognised Japanese test for non-native speakers. It has five levels, from N5 (easiest) to N1 (hardest), tests vocabulary, grammar, kanji, reading and listening, and is usually held in July and December.

There's no speaking or writing section. Some test locations only run it once a year, so check your local test centre.

The JLPT hasn't published official kanji lists since 2010, but commonly used estimates are about 100 kanji for N5, 300 for N4, 650 for N3, 1,000 for N2 and 2,000 for N1.

These are kanji counts only. Passing each level also needs vocabulary, grammar, reading and listening.

There are no official vocabulary lists either, but common estimates are about 800 words for N5, 1,500 for N4, 3,750 for N3, 6,000 for N2 and 10,000 for N1.

Learning vocabulary through the kanji it's written with is the fastest way to build these numbers, because every kanji you know unlocks many words at once.

Kanji Athletes is an online Japanese learning community on Skool, run by Lloyd. It teaches kanji, vocabulary and grammar using memory techniques and real Japanese, and includes the 90 Day 1,000 Kanji Challenge, Anki decks, quizzes, activities with feedback and an active community.

There's also the Study Zone with input resources and study playlists, the Kanji Athletes app, arcade mode games and collectibles, because I want studying to be as fun as possible.

Most apps cover one piece of Japanese. Kanji Athletes combines kanji, vocabulary, grammar and comprehensible input in one system, adds a memory technique for every kanji in the challenge, and gives you real feedback and a community, with a real teacher you can ask questions.

It's also built around a clear goal: the 1,000 most common kanji in 90 days.

Kanji Athletes costs $10 per month, or $50 per year on the annual plan (about $4.17 a month, or 7 months free). Both plans include a 14-day money back guarantee.

If you're not happy in the first 14 days, just send me a message and I'll give you your money back.

Yes. It includes a kana course for complete beginners, and the kanji, vocabulary and grammar courses run from beginner to advanced.