When's an estimated time until I'll be able to briefly read and comprehend

[Shiota]

To me, learning kanji means to learn all its onyomi and kunyomi, learn the meaning(s) of the kanji and be able to write it in the correct order. Now I wouldn't say you would be able to remember any of the 2000+ kanjis instantly if you want to after one month but you can go to an extent where you can start learning more vocabulary and make sense of them. But I think it's impossible if you use the method used by most people. Like learning the most common kanjis first. I used the radical method to learn kanji. It's best described in the kanjidamage website so I'll quote from there:

The genesis of this method was conversations that I had with two scientific guys (basically mathematicians applying their knowledge to linguistics). Neither man had ever met the other, nor read the other's work, but they both said the same thing: the most logical, efficient way to study was going from simple-to-complex forms.

They said, "Start with a set of the most basic kanji. Then try to combine every kanji in that set with every other kanji in the set – and lo! You will be able to construct several new kanji just by re-arranging the kanji you already know. No learning big, complex kanji from scratch. After you've learned all those kanji – ONLY THEN do I teach you a new radical. Then the process repeats: I combine that new radical with all the kanji you already learned, and see how many NEW kanji result - and then repeat, and repeat, and then pretty soon you're reading whatever bullshit manga you're into!

The system makes learning easier, because once you've learned around 200 kanji, you can learn 12 NEW kanji just by learning ONE SINGLE 3-stroke radical and combining it with the first 200! Just like English: imagine if you learned 10 letters, and then someone taught you one new letter. . . imagine how many new words you'd have access to.

So that is the systematic method which allows one with enough determination to learn 2000+ kanji in a month.

 

[Mike Cash]

I'm curious what your native language is. Would you mind telling us?

 

[Shiota]

My native language is Bengali. I doubt you heard about it.

 

[Mike Cash]

My native language is Bengali. I doubt you heard about it.

I'm an ignorant undereducated bumpkin, but I've heard of Bengali. Take it as a high compliment, but your English is too perfect for it to be your native language, especially as a 17 year old. I wish more native English speaking youth had your command of English.

 

[Shiota]

I'm sorry for doubting but most of the people I talk to on the internet have never heard of it. Thank you for your kind words. Although I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, I'll take them as compliments.

 

[Mike Cash]

I'm sorry for doubting but most of the people I talk to on the internet have never heard of it. Thank you for your kind words. Although I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, I'll take them as compliments.

The compliment was entirely sincere.

 

[lanthas]

I wonder: you say you learned 2000+ characters with their stroke order using the KanjiDamage method (that is, ordered by visual complexity and grouped by similarity), but the KanjiDamage list consists of only 1700 characters and does not present stroke order at all. Did you take a different 2000-character list and apply the KD ordering method to it?

I'm curious since learning the KD list as-is (with sample words, without stroke order or writing practice) took a year for me, even though I also spent 1-2h per day. Even after that, reading texts was still incredibly slow at first as I had to pause to reconstruct the mnemonic for every single kanji; and even now, I still need to sometimes look back to a kanji that I forgot.

 

[Shiota]

How exactly did you go about 'learning' the list? Could you elaborate, please?

 

[lanthas]

I learned using mnemonics presented by the list in combination with ones that I made myself, which I'm sure many people do.

For each character, I looked at the visual breakdown into smaller kanji and radicals as given by KD - where each of those has an associated meaning. E.g. 試 = 言 (speak) + 式 (ceremony).
Then I looked at the sample words and either associated them with similar-sounding words that I already knew, or broke them down into shorter words and syllables, which again results in a list of meanings. E.g. ためす sounds like だます, こころみる can be broken down (pronunciation wise) into こころ + みる. For syllables, I used things like げん = generic/generate, びょう = sick (as in びょうき), つ = closed (as in German "zu"), り = laughing (as in French "rire") etc.

Then I made up one story that incorporates all of these meanings and is ideally related to something I've seen in real life/a movie/a game etc., so a step further from KD which gives separate mnemonics for the visual and the pronunciation aspect. Conveniently, at the time when I learned 試, I had just been to a marriage ceremony (式) where the bride's father made some jokes during his speech (言). So I associated the kanji with that scene: the father takes a moment of reflection (looks at his heart - こころ・みる) wondering whether he'll be able to deceive (だます) the audience with his joke. In the end he decides the best way to find out is to simply try.

Doing such an in-depth breakdown and mnemonic creation for every single character of course takes time, but it was much more effective than rote learning - where I was forgetting characters constantly - and therefore also faster overall. In fact I'd say this is the only way that works for me. I still use it for new characters I encounter that are not in the KD list.

Now tell us how you went about it, since it's apparently 12x as efficient

 

[Mike Cash]

I suspect he may be about 12x smarter than most of us.

 

[Shiota]

That's all good and everything, using mnemonics, breaking the kanji into smaller parts. I have also done the same thing. It's like you said, the KD website has 1700 not 2000. The next couple hundreds I checked from the jouyou kanji list and used the radicals of KD. I had to make a few and give mnemonics but that wasn't as hard after doing all those first. But I didn't make my own mnemonics for ALL the 1700 kanji the KD site had already provided. I know, some people will find it easier to remember if they connect it to some part of their own experiences. I didn't do that 'cause I didn't feel the need and the KD mnemonics were really good. Of course, a lot of them were weird but that's what mnemonics should be like. And I think that's one thing that took quite a lot of your time.
The next would probably be the method. I used the spaced repetition method or spaced repetition system. I used Anki for this, which I think is the best SRS application out there considering all the decks available currently. Now, there are quite a few KD decks out there but among them, in my opinion, this is the best: Ultimate KanjiDamage Deck. This deck also contains the stroke order, which you asked about. I didn't spend much time on each kanji. Since this is the spaced repetion system, you just have to concentrate, take in the mnemonic, and while you keep on repeating (the Anki app will 'space' the words you know well or don't know well accordingly) you will eventually not need the mnemonic to remember at all. Every night, I used to review once more before going to sleep, which I think helped.
If you still don't want to believe me, then fine. But please spare me the sarcasm.

 

[lanthas]

With an order of magnitude of difference in study time, I hope you can understand I'm at least somewhat skeptical. 2000 characters in 31 days with 2h/day equates to about 110 seconds total for each character, to go from "never seen it before" to "confident that I'll still remember its meaning, readings and stroke order a month from now". That's not exactly a lot of time, especially if you also include writing practice (which I did none of by the way).

But if it really did work, that's good for you of course.

 

[Shiota]

I actually gave more time to each character as I reviewed the new words I learnt that very night once again. Let me just ask this then, did you study by the spaced repetition method? I think this one thing can make a lot of difference. I have completely learnt what I know from the Internet. And If I know something that happens if you try to learn by yourself is that you might slack off pretty easily. Did you put in the same amount of effort every single day for a year? I mean if it took you a whole year did you only learn 5 to 6 kanji a day?

 

[lanthas]

I also learned everything by myself (didn't take any classes), at a rate of 10 kanji from the KD list per day - when I wasn't revising. Didn't use SRS though. Finally, I did skip a day now and then - but never more than a day at a time. You're absolutely right in that respect... It's very easy to start slacking off, and the longer you do so, the harder it becomes to start working again. So I had to keep my discipline on that point.

 

[Shiota]

Let me try to explain how the SRS application, Anki, helped me to reduce the time spent. At first, when I used it, it was like imposing a rule, or a teacher on myself by inputting the number of new cards I will learn each day and review. I felt like I had to do it. In fact, it was like a teacher because when you see a new card, there are three buttons you can press - bad (shows the card again quick in that study period), good (same but a bit later) and easy (which pushes it 3 days later). So, for example, if you pressed 'good' first and then when it asked you again you couldn't remember and pressed bad, just like a teacher would test you on the parts you are weak, it will ask you again. So this application, Anki, plans out your whole study period for you. And let's face it, you might forget to review a few cards now and then when you've gone quite deep in (like 700 or 800 kanjis), which builds up and you keep on wasting time. I don't know if I was able to explain it properly, even if a little, but I wrote all that in a hurry 'cause I'm currently not at home and I hope you see my point here.