Honestly, a whole book could be written on just HOW to study kanji. Some people actually don't like learning by radicals, and rightfully so, as it can be confusing. The best thing, IMHO, is contextual learning. Kanji make up words, vocab, so you learn the most common readings through the words you actually need. Why waste time memorizing a bunch of mostly useless on-yomi? Even with names, you're going to start recognizing general rules for what makes what. That said, I like to use mostly Core2k decks with Anki, usually with sentences and audio readings for context. Otherwise, I'm here reading the newspaper clippings. Ultimately, it depends on what you wanna do with the language. If you just wanna read some shounen manga, you won't have to go so far, if you wanna read the classics, then you might just have to start getting into classical Japanese.
September 30, 2013 at 2:49am