# In which order should I study Kanji?

I recently got back from a trip to Japan and it made me want to learn basic Kanji again. It would help decipher restaurant menus and navigate the city. Besides it's really fun to figure it out. This a-ha feeling never gets old.

As soon as I got back home, I worked on my Flashcards app to make it possible to separately study different languages in one account. After a week of work, I was able to make it so that I can study Korean and Japanese separately.

Next, I built a feature to batch import basic Kanji into my account. I've been using the amazing KANJIDIC. It's an XML file that contains a bunch of information such as the Kanji, the grade in which it's studied by Japanese students, and the order in which it appears in popular Kanji study books. Which Kanji study book should I base my learning on though? KANJIDIC mentions so many books:

Nelson (Classic), Nelson (New), NJECD, Kodansha Kanji Dictionary, Kanji Learners Dictionary, Kanji Learners Dictionary number (2nd ed), Remembering The Kanji, Remembering The Kanji number (6th ed), Gakken, O'Neill's Essential Kanji, Henshall, Kanji & Kana, Kanji & Kana number (2011 ed), Sakade, Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Henshall Guide, Tuttle Kanji Cards, Crowley, Kanji in Context, Kodansha Compact Kanji Guide, Maniette.

To help me decide, I've generated an MD table of the first few hundred Kanji by book. Each column lists out the Kanji in order from one book. I've also sorted the columns from the closest to the grades to the furthest. What I mean by that is that the Japanese Ministry of Education has decided on 80 Kanji to be studied in Grade 1, 160 Kanji to be studied in Grade 2, 200 Kanji to be studied in Grade 3, etc. So for the first 80 Kanji of every book, I check whether the Kanji's grade is Grade 1. Repeat for all the rows. It is more easily understood as this formula, assuming I'm listing out the first 500 Kanji for each book:

$\sum_{i=1}^{500}|kanjiGrade_i - expectedGrade_i|$

In order to keep this post clean, I've posted the results for the first 1000 Kanji for 21 different books in this post. The results are unequivocal. There is a huge difference in ordering depending on the book.

Let's just see a smaller sample of the first 300 Kanji for 4 different books.

Henshall Guide Crowley Kanji Learners Dictionary Nelson

You can see that the Henshall Guide has strictly followed the grades defined by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Crowley deviates a bit from it, and the last two books completely deviate from it.

Henshall and Crowley start by teaching numbers, the simplest Kanji possible: 一 (one), 二 (two), 三 (3), 四 (4), 五 (5). Kanji Learners Dictionary start by teaching 川 (river), 小 (small), 水 (water), 心 (heart), 旧 (old) and only teach 一 in position 2850. What? Nelson (New Edition from 1997) seems to be listing a lot of rare and advanced Kanji right off the bat as well.

Now let's compare Crowley and Henshall. Crowley teaches 国 as the 4th Kanji, which seems odd since they could have taught 口 (34 in Henshall, 200 in Crowley), 王 (47 in Henshall, not even listed in Crowley) and 玉 (48 in Henshall, not even listed in Crowley) first. This pattern repeats for many Kanji in Crowley.

So even though on paper, Crowley and Henshall are close, Henshall is the best by far in my opinion.