I learned just over 17,000 words and for that needed to know somewhere north of 3000 kanji. ~2200 is just the joyou list but once you get into novels and the li

I learned just over 17,000 words and for that needed to know somewhere north of 3000 kanji. ~2200 is just the joyou list but once you get into novels and the like you can expect to encounter i'd say around 3500 would be close to maxing it out with the last 0.01% being another couple of thousand, but that's getting in to really obscure shit that only a smattering of the general population know. I learned kanji first before speaking. Learned to read and listen for about a year before venturing out to conversation clubs and the like. Without a shadow of a doubt reading massively, massively, massively boosted my ability in all other areas. Fastest way to learn new vocabulary. But I gotta be honest - I used to love kanji and found joy in it. These days I think Korean really got it right with their writing system. That shit is super logical. Kanji is a giant, beautiful pain in the ass.