Even only being able to write 200 is a pretty low estimate for natives. That total only takes you to 2nd grade elementary school kanji knowledge. Sure, they’ll forget which kanji is used for which word and whatnot, or they’ll swap out one shape for another in one part of a kanji, but they can write far more than 200.
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yes.
You can recognize a kanji or a word and understand it just fine without knowing how to read it. At least that’s how I would differentiate it.
Wow, they even have English furigana for all the text
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I suppose, but I knew that wasn’t what Jonapedia meant anyway. 
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What are you talking about? Don’t take more advice from your friend, sounds like he’s either dumb or like to make things up. I don’t know which is worse.
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Japanese native speakers actually recognise closer to 3000 kanji. They can maybe handwrite half of those, though this number is decreasing as younger generations rely on word processors.
Yes, here or somewhere else
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Lots of people have already touched on this but there are probably 10,000+ kanji in total, but most Japanese people only know around 2000-5000, but definitely not 200. If you want to be able to read native content aimed at adults, learning 2000 kanji should be what you’re studying towards. Also, even if you don’t plan on reading much, I find that kanji helps me memorise words ALOT easier.
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Here is today’s news page for reference.
I’m guessing I know around 700 kanji in total. I need to look up words very often but I’m starting to get better.
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I’m at 810 kanji roughly at 24, you’re probably at 900.
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I do enjoy WK’s style of Kanji teaching, but definitely always learn Kanji alongside words simultaneously. Either learn from WK or go read some Japanese books/Vns/News and if you find a word with a new kanji, (this is what I do) Put the Kanji in something like Anki and rip the English concept/meaning for it and put the word(s) in the sentence area. There are some kanji to this day I won’t recognize on its own, but the second its paired with a word it all comes flying back. Saw 糖度 yesterday and couldn’t recognize the first kanji and looked it up and realized it was just Sugar aka 砂糖. Felt really dumb.
“Yep. That there is a kanji.”
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What do you mean by all 2,000 kanji?
There are ten thousands of kanji (50,000 I think). However, they teach around 2,100-2,300 in Japanese education system up to highschool education. So 2,000 kanji is still not up to native level. Your friend clearly didnt know what he was talking about.
200 kanji is clearly not enough if you want to read native materials. (I’m not talking about children story or games that aiming at kids)
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I totally get that kanji can seem intimidating, but it really isn’t when you start to get into it. Quite the opposite, you realize how important it is and would find many words damn near impossible to learn without the kanji initially. I would go so far to say that kanji makes japanese much easier to learn. It sounds backwards but it isn’t. Many words you can guess if you know the kanji in isolation.
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Another thing to remember is that nearly all the people natives interact with have kanji names, and they rarely have furigana on them. That as a baseline alone prevents people from dropping to 200.
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Kanji are really interesting imo. You won’t regret learning them! The ability to guess the meaning of words without actually knowing them is so helpful.
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I would be very wary of any advice your friend gives you.
In fact, I would probably not listen to any of it. If you’re serious about learning, take advice from people who have gotten to where you wanna be.
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Let’s take it up a notch. Cut the friendship and move to a different continent. Change your phone number so that he has a hard time getting in touch with you ever again.
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Tbh, they do want kids to be able to read signs about danger and not littering, so they use hiragana or simple kanji most often.
Signs with various other useful info though are fair game.
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