^Yeah that sounds like it takes some getting used to. : / I guess I got used to things like Japanese not having spaces between words, though...it probably just takes practice. Lots of practice XD
Also, on a side note, to anyone who is learning/knows spoken AND written Japanese, how did you learn it? Did you teach yourself, or learn it through classes/a relative/some other method? It looks so tricky to learn kanji and furigana in particular, I can't fathom how people go about learning it >.<
I learned from a mix of classes and self-study. I took one Japanese class in high school and a few university classes, and there was a two-year gap between them where I learned most of the kanji on my own. Tried to do it all in one semester by picking 100 kanji completely at random from my dictionary every week and making flashcards of them XD It worked pretty well, but I forgot a ton of them if I didn't practice them constantly, and there wasn't enough time to practice 2000 flashcards constantly.
If I was going to do it again, I'd go a little slower and add in more reading practice with books/websites/manga/song lyrics etc. so that I could get a better idea of how they're all used in real life. I always remembered kanji better when I could associate them with a favorite character or something. I'd also try to do a better job of learning simple ones first and complicated ones later, since the complicated ones are usually made out of a bunch of simple ones.
It's also important not to despair at how many kanji there are. Learning 2000 kanji sounds terrifying, but learning
a few kanji is actually really fun ("The 'nin' in 'ninja' is 'blade' plus 'heart'?! How can something BE that cool?") and as long as you keep doing that they'll add up. And the more you know, the easier it is to learn new ones because you'll recognize parts of them.
For kana, it helps to write out stuff like character names and song lyrics, and to avoid romanizing stuff so you force yourself to read it in kana every time.
Basically, have fun and don't worry about how little you know (it keeps you from trying). Remember that every manga chapter (or whatever) has SOMETHING you can figure out, even if it's just someone shouting someone else's name.
...That was kind of long and disorganized, but I hope it helps some : )
