Your learning method is of course going to depend on who you are as a learner. Ryoko mentioned that Japanese begin learning at a young age, and I would like to point out that adults can probably learn more efficiently than children, through various strategies. Just to give you an idea, the kyouiku kanji is a list of 1,006 kanji in 6 years. I learned more than the 2,136 jouyou in just about 5. I think most university Japanese courses would have you at over 1,000 in 4. But, that is reading them, not writing. I can't write all 2,000 some from memory, but considering the use of computers in everyday life writing them isn't really all that necessary. Working on my last set of kanji, I made a schedule to learn the meaning of 5 new kanji a day. That's quite a bit but even if you did something like 2 a day, or 5 every week day with breaks on the weekend, you're still going quickly. Some people will argue that you'll want to study the readings of the kanji like that as well, but most people think it's best to learn the kanji in the context of learning new words. They don't really learn kanji separately at all. I only do the meaning separately from the words, so that if I see a compound word I haven't learned, I can probably still understand it. Anyway, as I said earlier, methods really vary depending on the person. It's best to find a method and schedule that works for you that you feel comfortable sticking to.

Jordan is right. However each person have her/his own way to remember and practice. Some remember with writing, some do with reading sentences...Besides, it depends on the purpose why you want to know kanji. So, I hope you find your own way to learn them. There are so many kanji that are not taught in school and I think very few people know all, probably it seems impossible and there are many that I don't know plus I forgot a lot of kanji I could write because of PC and cell phones.

interesting... good point

Hi, I wonder if I understood well about your question because of my English, however, I'd like to tell you my opinion. We learned kanji from when we were 6 years old and it is said that after finished the 9th grade, we can read the Japanese newspapers, but please remember that it's said about the Japanese people who have Japanese family, live in Japan and can watch, listen and read Japanese everyday and it depends on the person. Some cans read much kanji even when they are small, some can't read/ write well after the 9th grade. So I think it's more difficult for the learners and about "how much it will take", all are depend on the person, some can remember fast but some don't. "To speak well" and "to read well" aren the same, but if you want and make your effort, it's possible to read them. Good luck to you.