Guidelines

Please direct me to somewhere I might have missed if I'm out of line here. I checked the stickies and stuff so sorry, if I missed it.

I'm currently teaching myself Japanese and now know hiragana/katakana and around 60 kanji. I'm wondering what's a good strategy for learning? I don't know much about speaking japanese as of now. I know pronounciations, but not sentence structure and particles, etc. I was thinking of just learning kanji on my own until I can take classes or communicate with someone. What way did you learn it?

Also, just an extra question here. I've been learning kanji from a few different resources (internet, books, etc). For example, in some sources, the kanji ﾅ?L is said to have one kun reading (kai) and no on reading. But, another source will say that it does have an on reading (bai). Another example is the kanji 窶ｰﾂｺ. Some source tells me it has three kun readings when another source lists around 12 readings. How do I know if what I'm learning is the real deal?

Thank you in advance.

Glamour Parfait said:

I've been learning kanji from a few different resources (internet, books, etc). For example, in some sources, the kanji ﾅ?L is said to have one kun reading (kai) and no on reading. But, another source will say that it does have an on reading (bai). Another example is the kanji 窶ｰﾂｺ. Some source tells me it has three kun readings when another source lists around 12 readings. How do I know if what I'm learning is the real deal?
Thank you in advance.

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It depends, but generally sources that list only a few reading are listing the most common ones. Other sources may have more or less complete listings of all the possible readings - depending on the source, some may list outdated or very unusual readings as well.

As for which you should use, I suggest getting a beginner kanji dictionary to start off with, like the Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary by Jack Halpern. It will list the more common/useful readings, and it has an easier lookup method than traditional kanji dictionaries. Jim Breen's WWWJDIC online dictionary is good too; you can cut and paste characters from websites, and it generally lists pretty much all the possible readings for a character.

Download Wakan, it is a helpful tool, and lists outdated kanji, general kanji, popular kanji, common kanji etc.
It tells you outdated ones,
莫迦 for example is an outdated kanji compound for baka, 'stupid'
破家 is a kanji compound for baka
馬鹿 is the common kanji compound for baka

It's free to download http://wakan.manga.cz/?page=download&lang=en
click on: Wakan Complete Installer 1.67 etc.
I find it a good tool, even makes it so you can type stroke order in one section to find the correct kanji etc. It's worth using!