lantia wrote:For me to really start learning japanese, I feel like needing to master the kanji first, since I learn languages mostly by reading books (and listening to the music, or the movies...) which is difficul to do without that knowledge x)
That is how you are used to learning other languages. But you will not be able to learn Japanese that way. This inability to read is a huge disadvantage in learning Japanese, relative to learning Italian, for example.
You will learn kanji alongside the other facets of the language (grammar, vocabulary, etc.) You can't master kanji first as a preparation for learning Japanese, in the way that you would learn the Cyrillic alphabet as a preparation for learning Bulgarian.
It just takes years of hard work, patience and determination. After years of study you still may not be able to read a newspaper. The only short-cut to learning more quickly is to go and live in Japan for a period of 8 months or more.
Somebody advised me to learn kanji along with the vocabulary, not separately - just kanji + readings + example words. It sounds reasonable and I got a feeling it just might work, but there comes the same problem again. There are kanji easy to remember, to write down, those most basic ones which are covered in the kanji textbook I have. Those, and some more difficult ones up to 10 strokes. But how am I suppose to learn all the other kanji those words consist of? I´d always mess up the stroke order, not to mention it would heavily differ from the written version itself.
How are you supposed to learn? There are numerous methods and learning aids, including textbooks, flash cards, Java programs for mobile phones, and so on. Usually you start by learning simple kanji one at a time, practising writing each one over and over until you remember it. This is a very good starting point. But this method doesn't scale well; after you have learned 100-200 symbols by this method you'll realise that it's just not fast enough. After that you will use flash cards and your passive knowledge (ability to recognise) will quickly far outstrip your active knowledge (ability to reproduce).
A lot of people recommend "Remembering the Kanji" by Heisig. I am not familiar with it but it's supposed to be a very good method if followed correctly.
Two general points I would make:
- you get a false impression of kanji when you are first learning them. You start by learning dozens of simple characters, and you think that there are thousands of such forms, ever more complex. But in fact most of the kanji are made up of simpler kanji, in ways which often carry information about their sound and their meaning. So a kanji that looks scarily complex at first sight, for example: 潮, is made up of three parts: water+wheel+moon = "tide"! So it's actually easy to remember even though it has 15 strokes.
- kanji don't (usually) stand in splendid isolation. They are combined together to form words. It is simply not enough to learn the sounds and meanings of each kanji - you have to learn to read words made up of 2 or more kanji. This makes a nonsense of the question "how many kanji do you know?" A student could learn 時 and 計 but not be able to read or understand 時計 (a watch).
If you guys know about something like that, or you have a better tip for making my incapable hands and worthless brain learn kanji, please let me know ^_^
Your brain and hands are no more incapable than anyone else's. Everyone has the indignity of writing childishly when they try to learn this unfamiliar script. Anyway the need to write kanji (as opposed to reading them) is less than it used to be - the computer does a very good job of selecting the correct kanji for you.
The most important thing is to take pleasure in learning Japanese. It is a very long-term project and when progress is slow, you have to give yourself credit for every little step along the way. I have been at it for years and my ability is still very limited.
) so I moved up to learn kanji. However I´m completely lost there 
