Journal
Journal
Notes, opinions, and behind-the-scenes from the studio.
How many kanji do you need to know? The honest numbers, from N5 to reading a novel
There are 50,000+ kanji in the biggest dictionaries, 2,136 on the official jōyō list, and about 2,000 between you and a Japanese newspaper. Here is what the numbers actually mean — and which ones matter at each stage.
Spaced repetition: the science of remembering more, with less effort
How spaced repetition works, where it comes from, and why it let me learn 300 kanji and 1,000+ Japanese words in 18 months — with Anki for vocabulary and Kanzen for kanji.