Putting this into a separate page because it deviates from the "short intro" idea of my language guide, but it's still critical for learning certain languages.
For simpler writing systems like Korean's hangul, the Arabic alphabet, or Japanese kana, there is not much instruction required here. Just spend a few days learning them any way you like, and you'll get more and more comfortable over time.
As a disclaimer, I have not learned either of these languages. This is a compilation of advice from friends who have, though I have studied a few hundred Chinese characters using this method.
Why learn the characters?
For Chinese and Japanese, some resources will probably say you can just learn with romanization (or bopomofo/kana) and worry about learning the characters later, but learning the characters first is a huge advantage and the best path to learning your Target Language. The big downside is that this requires a dedication of studying the characters for 2~3 months before you can start learning the language itself.
Heisig
Japanese learners can use Heisig's Remembering the Kanji which teaches ~2200 kanji. Complete this book entirely before you start learning Japanese.
Chinese learners can use Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi series. After learning the 1500 characters in the first book, you can start learning Chinese. Then you will learn another 1500 from the second book in parallel with learning the language.
Memorization
While you learn the characters from these books, you can put them into Anki to remember them forever. There are two formats you can use for your flashcards.
| Kind of card | Description | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production | The front of your Anki flashcard should be the keyword/meaning of the character, and the back should be the character itself. You test yourself on your ability to reproduce the character from memory (i.e. draw it out on paper). | More effective; battle-tested; teaches you handwriting | Hard; high % of learners quit at this stage; not strictly required if you don't want to handwrite early on |
| Recognition | The front of your Anki flashcard should be the character, and the back should be the keyword/meaning. You test yourself on your ability to recall the keyword from seeing the character. | Easy; more likely to stick to it; can always go back and learn production later when fluent | Does not ensure you actually recall every stroke; newer and less tested/proven |
To balance "time to completion" with "daily review burden", 20 new characters per day is a good pace.