Re: Where is the best place to start learning japanese kanji?
It's one thing to know how to read kanji words. It's another to figure out what they mean. There are two or sometimes three ways to read each kanji character and that's the bane of people learning Japanese. However, to figure out what they mean is easy and doesn't necessarily involve learning how to read them. You can just copy and paste kanji words you find online, and look them up in some E/J online dictionary like this:
http://www2.alc.co.jp/ejr/index.php?word_in=%95%D7%8B%AD&word_in2=%82%A0%82%A2%82%A4%82%A6%82%A8&word_in3=PVawEWi72JXCKoa0Je
To see how "??" is read:
http://www2.alc.co.jp/ejr/index.php?word_in=study&word_in2=%82%A9%82%AB%82%AD%82%AF%82%B1&word_in3=PVawEWi72JXCKoa0Je
???(gaikokugo):
http://www2.alc.co.jp/ejr/index.php?word_in=foreign+language+&word_in2=%82%A9%82%AB%82%AD%82%AF%82%B1&word_in3=PVawEWi72JXCKoa0Je
Don't be intimidated. I'm also learning how to read them on an everyday basis although I'm japanese. Sometimes I don't know how to read them exactly but I know what they mean.
There will be some ways to learn how to read them. There must be some websites that tell you how to read. You can ask here if you don't know how to read them though you know what they mean.
One thing I want to stress is that you don't have to be perfect when it comes to kanji and that the words you really need to know how to read exactly are only those that come up in everyday conversation. What's the point of learning how to read kanji words that rarely or never come up in daily conversations? These words appear only in books or newspapers and never come up in everyday situations.
PS. As you see, the dictionary website "Space Alc" would be the best website for you as many kanji words come with furigana.
This is in fact the most used online dictionary among Japanese people as well.
Learning kanji has something to do with pattern recognition and it will need some getting used to. But anyway you don't have to speak kanji. It has only to do with reading. I think the important thing is to skip some things that are not practical and instead focus on other things that are more essential. In this age of the Internet, you might not need to learn to write kanji.
Translating an entire paragraph at once using some translation website out there ends up in gibberish almost all the time. The tedious process of copying and pasting every kanji word to see what they mean using Space Alc might be the fastest way when you try to read e.g. a newspaper article.
