Leave Kanji untill later

Yes, there are Hiragana and Katakana you need to know when you start learning Japanese. And there’s another set of characters: Kanji.

Do you think you need to learn Kanji? The answer is yes, but not until later. The Japanese sounds are already written out in Hiragana so there’s no need to get yourself overwhelmed. The kids in Japan spend 9 years to master all the 2000 kanji that they are required to know by law.

Each grade comes with a target number of Kanji, and they go through all of them over time. In the mean time, they keep writing their sentences using Hiragana and Katakana.

That’s basically you.

If you’re at an early stage of learning Japanese, the whole point is to use the language in speaking and in writing. Using is more fun and meaningful than memorizing because your brain is more active when you do something more creative. When you can have a conversation or two in Japanese somewhat comfortably, start working on Kanji. When you do, learn the kanji for the words you already know like instead of writing わたし, write 私. This way, you are naturally adding a new character to your system. If you need help with the conversion, you can look at the Dictionary section of the app.

That’s logical and that’s how Japanese people develop their language skills.