Kanji isn't so bad - most of the more complex characters are built up out of smallers ones, and even the smaller ones, as the article breifly hints at, have a p

Kanji isn't so bad - most of the more complex characters are built up out of smallers ones, and even the smaller ones, as the article breifly hints at, have a primary radical that roughly categorizes it - learn the radical for "water", and you can identify all the seafood on a menu, even if you can't read a single character. They're actually really helpful for both comprehension and reading speed, like learning latin root words would be for English, but a lot more consistently applicable, so it gives you a lot of leverage. The stroke order seems annoying at first, but it's pretty consistent, and actually really helpful for memorizing. The different pronounciations also seem intimidating at first, but for the most part: - One's for composing with other characters - Others are mostly variations on that one for fluidity, where people will still understand you if you get it wrong - There may be one for when it's used on its own, that gets used so often you quicly think of it as basic - Anything else is probably an edge case that you'll never see tl;dr: Don't let the Kanji intimidate you