Forllows are my simple idea. 1. about a word of one kanji characters. Usually be used in a word that is read by japanese readings. most of these has one meaning. ex) 動く [ugo ku] = move, 歩く [alu ku] = walk 2. about a word of 2-4 kanji characters.　( 熟語 [juku go] ) most of these also has one meaning. ( both of chinese and japanese readings is used. ) ex) 　野菜 [ya sai] = vegetable, 名誉 [mei yo] = honor 石頭 [ishi atama] = bigotry ※ for example, 名 [mei] is used in many idioms ( 名を上げる [ na wo a ge lu ], 名を連ねる [ na wo tsu ra ne ru ], 名も無い [ na mo na i ], etc ... ). in this case, you may think "名 [mei] has many meanings...", but meaning of a idiom also is one. Don't be preoccupied by just one "名". 3. you should learn just one kanji character just for writing. you should learn words of 2-4 kanji characters or idiom or words of japanese readings for reading, understanding and of course writing. How about these ideas ? sorry about my poor english... ( - v - ;ゝ

In the beginning for kanji... I wrote them over and over! Yeah I know this is a hard way to do it, but it helps (for the simple / easy to write kanji) Kanjis like: 一、二、三、四、、、、日、火、金、木、、、上げる、下げる、お願いします・・・ Those are simple ones but I wrote them over and over. When you learn the easy ones then you can combine them into more complicated ones (and you can learn those without writing them) like.. 木＝Tree,　But.....　森＝Forest　 (this has 3 kanji radicals of 'tree' in it). Of course not every kanji is like this, but in the beginning it helped me. I reccomend you prepare for the Japanese language proficiency exam (like Level 4 (easiast), or Level 3). Once you start studying for those tests you will pick up vocabulary and kanji at the same time which will help you. Im studying for Level 2 right now and use flashcards that I group together and carry around every day. It helps for review. I also use www.renshuu.org/ which is awesome for studying kanji as well.