Hi Chip,

Tackling the Kanji is a monumental task - one that frequently causes me despair... I recently (about 3 weeks ago) got serious about becoming fluent and literate in Japanese. Also, I should note that I'm not starting from scratch - I took a year and a half of Japanese at University about 10 years ago and am married to a Japanese woman.

Here's what I'm doing:

1. I photoread 3 Kanji dictionaries (did it while I was in the library). I did this mostly just to "seat" the info in my inner mind through direct learning. I don't really expect recall, just a sense of familiarity.

2. I'm using a program called KanjiCan which breaks the Kanji into "logical pieces" and then builds them from those pieces. Easier for adult gaijin to learn than rote memory.

3. Every night I photoread 2 Japanese to English and one E to J dictionary as well as my two college textbooks. I alternate my purpose between increasing my Japanese vocabulary and comprehending Japanese grammar.

4. Before I do #3, I listen to Personal Genius. Then each night I listen to Memory Supercharger.

5. I use the E to J translating tool at www.rikai.com to help me read several newspaper articles each day from Mainichi Shinbun.

6. I'm regular-reading and working my way thru the old textbooks.

When I started this, I could barely form a complete sentence, could recognize maybe 50 Kanji and reading the newspaper articles made no sense at all.

Tonight I read a couple of sentences to my wife for clarification and her remark was "Wow, your reading has really gotten smooth."

In addition, I've found that I have an intuitive sense of what the articles are saying - if I don't think about them too much or too literally I can pretty easily understand them, although I still need help with the Kanji and a dictionary.

Now I can recognize around 150 - 200 Kanji, although I don't know all of their on and kun readings yet.

I can say a couple of sentences in Japanese pretty much correctly although I am far from being able to carry on a conversation.

So, to summarize, my progress has been pretty fast. Not as fast as I want (let's face it, I want instant fluency ) but I think much faster than the "traditional" way.

Let me know if you need any help finding any online or computer resources.

Mike