Thanks! I think getting comfortable with characters fairly early is important, as it helps shift your mindset into the right place. That said, I don’t think this project really works until you’re comfortable with at least ~60 characters.

There's a language learning method where you just listen to audio, until you develop a basic familiarity with the language. (Then learn reading and writing later.)

You listen to audio you don't understand yet, and over time your brain begins to pick up the patterns. It takes a lot of time but you can do it in the background, because that processing happens subconsciously. So you can get that time "for free".

I learned it from this guy https://alljapanesealltheti.me/index.html

But he got it from linguist Stephen Krashen and his Input Hypothesis of language acquisition. (i.e. that the way babies and kids learn languages, thru osmosis, works for adults too.)

I think the ideal solution is somewhere in the middle, starting with something like Pimsleur which is the same idea (audio and repetition) but more structured and focused, to give you that "seed" of vocabulary and grammar, before you flesh it out with the "long tail" of the language.

I recently changed all my language flashcards to be like this. Anki is probably the best option. I have the field with the Hanzi, but just configure my cards not to show it at the moment, so I break the habit of translating everything to characters in my head when I'm trying to listen. It's worked well, and the characters will be there when I decire to do something with them again.

In the late 1800s/early 1900s there were books published "in words of one syllable" -- e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonder...

More: https://triviumpursuit.com/childrens-books-in-words-of-one-s...