Our 3 Options

Three options? Not two?

Correct. Since we all must use the organic method at some point, we only have to decide (1) whether we'll use the mnemonic method, and (2) when we'll use the mnemonic method, which gives us three options:

Option #1: Learn the meanings of the kanji using the mnemonic method, then learn everything else with the organic method.

Option #2: Learn the meanings of the kanji using the mnemonic method while simultaneously learning everything else with the organic method.

Option #3: Skip the mnemonic method and dive straight into the organic method.

I'll explain a bit more about what each of these entails...

💀 Option #1 💀

Mnemonic Method → Organic Method

This is the approach that I used to recommend for everyone. You focus 100% on learning the meanings of the kanji for a few months, then you worry about everything else after that.

People following this method would complete the 97-Day Kanji Challenge presented in the next section of the course. By completing the challenge, they would know all of the meanings of the 2,136 常⽤漢字 (じょうようかんじ // general-use kanji).

After the challenge is finished, they would move on to our other courses, putting a particular focus on the Vocab Mastery course, which is a good resource for leaning kanji in context (i.e. learning things like kanji's readings via vocab acquisition) and also a good way to reinforce the kanji meanings learned during the 97-Day Challenge (because the flashcard decks in Vocab Mastery also list the Heisig keywords for individual kanji in every new vocabulary word).

Some benefits to this approach include the fact that you will learn vocab more quickly and easily if you already know the meanings of individual kanji and that getting kanji out of the way quickly makes it much less likely that you'll get discouraged and quit studying Japanese altogether.

The major downside to this approach is that if you take too long to finish the 97-Day Challenge (because some people take much longer than that), you run the risk of getting discouraged when it feels like you've been studying for months but don't have anything to show for it (i.e. your ability to use Japanese is not visibly improving).

💀 Option #2 💀

Mnemonic Method / Organic Method

I sense that this approach may end up becoming the most popular. In a way, you get the best of both worlds: You can learn the meanings of kanji at an accelerated rate by following the 97-Day Challenge (though perhaps not completing it that quickly) while also making motivating progress with, say, the Vocab Mastery course, so it really feels like your Japanese is getting better.

The downside is that some people (me, especially) have a hard time focusing on multiple things at once. You are more likely to successfully complete the 97-Day Challenge if you dedicate all your free study time to learning the meanings of kanji (i.e. studying with the mnemonic method).

I learned the meanings of all the general-use kanji during a 3-month spurt of mnemonic madness back in 2012. Would I have managed to get through everything if I had also been trying to learn other things and not 100% focused on learning kanji meanings? I'm not sure. But I came close to quitting many times during that 3-month span, so I suspect that things might not have gone very smoothly.

But, yeah. This is an attractive option.

💀 Option #3 💀

Mnemonic Method → Organic Method

Some people dislike the mnemonic method. They dislike the idea of the 97-Day Challenge. And that's fine.

It is entirely feasible to learn the meanings of kanji simply by studying the other materials that we provide in NihongoShark courses. We know that this is the case because the mnemonics with which you originally learn the kanji meanings serve as nothing more than crutches to help you keep moving along until you develop a large enough sight vocabulary to read Japanese without thinking about each individual character.

After years and years of encountering written Japanese, I don't rely on the mnemonics I created back in 2012 to recall the meanings of kanji. I don't even remember the vast majority of mnemonics that I used back then because I know and can recognize plenty of vocabulary containing kanji. Thus, it stands to reason that someone could skip mnemonic learning.

There is one major downside to this: It takes a long time to get comfortable with the majority of kanji characters by only using the organic method.

If you take Option #3, you will eventually master the kanji, but you will have to endure several years of feeling like kanji are an insurmountable difficulty. For example, on multiple occasions I have spoken with people who have graduated with degrees in Japanese but still complain that they have trouble with kanji. It must be the case that these people have made a lot of progress using the organic method, even if some of their learning materials were sub-par. But they still feel like they have a long way to go, still feel discouraged.

You can jump straight into the organic method and forget about any of this mnemonic mumbo jumbo. If you do, however, you will need to be extraordinarily patient and not lose faith that your Japanese sight vocabulary will eventually get good enough that you won't feel intimidated by kanji anymore.

If you choose Option #3, you can skip the entire next section of this course.

If you choose Option #1 or #2, then please read on, fellow student...