greeting everyone!
am not sure if this question was already asked before, however I'd like to hear the advice of people experienced in the language.
now, i know what both the ON-yomi and KUN-yomi mean. i know their definition their history. when and how to use them. in short i already looked them up in various places until i completely understood their use.
the point that's still confusing for me is the way to approach the kanji memorisation. i will be writing two different approaches to learning kanji that grasped my interest and wait for your advice on wich one is better.
1- first is the absolute memorization ( the one am adapting at the time being): using different flashcard apps and software you can drill numerous kanji (up to 2000+) in your mind throughout daily routine, and then when it comes to jukugo or compound kanji, you just glue every possible pronunciation together until you find the right meaning and sound. but as everyone may know, every kanji has up to 10 meanings and pronunciations. so managing to memorise every single one along with it's kunyomi and onyomi is not an easy task at all and require a strong memory. not to mention the use of those two doesn't always abide by its typical rule.
here enters the second approach i want to try, but am still worried if it's effective or not.
2- memorizing kanji along with their kunyomi while at the same time acquiring the jukugo+onyomi as a vocabulary through reading experience (novels, VNs, random text...). that way you don't need to worry about learning the on-readings since you will consider the jokugo as a single word.
eventually, you will get accustomized with the on yomi reading being common to one character and then you will be able to guess how to read a jukugo right after the first time you stumble upon it.
while this approach personally seems to suit my mind, am still worried if it will let me cover most of the necessary kanji, vocabulary and expressions to read novels and be able to hold a casual discussion (yes casual discussions are enough). in the first place, the main purpose am learning Japanese is so i can read novels and translate them into English.
so with this, I'd like to hear your opinions about the best way to approach learning and memorizing kanji.
thank you.