NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I never learned how to read the kanji characters! I took a semester of Japanese at school and I got good at it, especially at speaking and pronunciation. I was able to form my own sentences without any help from the book and without sounding like an American. Only problem is I have no one to practice with and we only learned how to read hiragana and katakana. Kanji was taught in the second semester and I haven't taken that class yet. (
View formatted comment » )