Earlier quoted context omitted.
> First, you don't need 10k kanji to read. About 3000-5000 depending on what you read is enough. You’re still grossly over-representing what is needed to read Japanese. 1. 10k characters is utter nonsense. I assume that people conflate the 10k words needed for JLPT N1 with characters. They are totally different, since words are often combinations of characters. 2. Joyo kanji has 2,136 characters. All government docum…
Well you admit yourself in your 5th and 6th points that I'm right. I chatted as soon as yesterday with someone studying Vietnamese dictionaries written in kanbun and nôm, so indeed that person need to know a lot of kanji. That's not representative of the whole society, but you can't rule out the existence of those people. It's also telling that the biggest dictionary of Chinese characters is the Daikanwa Jiten, compi…
We might be talking past each other. I’m speaking specifically of non-native learners of Japanese.
I think you overrepresented for non-native learners of Japanese (who don’t get the benefit of 9 years of joyo kanji education), but you were closer to “right” than most.
Most learners of Japanese should focus on about 1000 kanji (roughly kyouiku kanji). This is easily learnable in a year for most people, and that amount will get them over 90% of text coverage that general learners will be reading.
Pretty much no learner should have an initial goal of learning 3000 kanji. Once they learn the 2000 joyo, pass N1, and probably do some tertiary education in Japan, then maybe they can choose to move that direction, especially if they plan on being a professional in Japan. Unless they find it to be a fun hobby, I would ask them why they are choosing to reach that level as a goal. The 2000th to 3000th most frequently used characters have very low utility, and this knowledge is far beyond “need this to survive/thrive” level. Some people who answer the “how many kanji” question in English-speaking forums (not you) seem to treat 3000 characters as almost semi-literate, and this couldn’t be further from the truth.
For a learner of Japanese, I would never recommend that anyone start with an initial goal of 5000 kanji. For anyone who ends up there, it would usually just come naturally over time to anyone being an academic (most likely in some sort of language or linguistics field)… and the masochists who try to take kanken 1.
Finally, to address your initial comment about 3000-5000 kanji being enough depending on what someone reads, I would put that number at more like 1200-1300 being enough with very mild use of a dictionary or lookup function on a computer/phone for learners. This will get folks though the vast majority of kanji in newspapers, magazines, and general audience books. At that point, just reading and looking stuff up will add to their kanji knowledge base organically.