The first phase (aside from the preparations beforehand) is
probably the most crucial of the bunch – learning the Kanji.
It’s not because it will teach you the most about Japanese, but
because so much in Japanese revolves around it. However, in this
phase learning the Kanji mainly means knowing what each
represents by its English keyword (though this will change
later). Pronunciation, or “readings” are not vital until phase
3. Yes, there are over 2,000 Kanji. Do you need to know them
all? Eventually, yes. There’s no getting around it, just through
it. RTK (Remembering the Kanji) helps immensely with this, so
use it. I’ll be writing more detailed articles about using RTK
in the future. Why is Kanji so fundamental to Japanese? If
nothing else, knowing the Kanji gives you an edge when you get
to sentences. Even if you don’t know them all, there’s a good
chance you can pick up on the general idea if you know 75% (or
better yet, all) of the kanji in a sentence. For instance, if
you’ve parked in a parking garage th