[steven]

It's my opinion that spending time learning the stroke orders of kanji and kana and all that is a bit of a waste of time. It'd be worthwhile to understand the general rules, like how you usually start on the left and work your way right (same thing with up to down)... other than that is, in my opinion, overkill. As you have bigger fish to fry when learning the language.

Incidentally, Japanese people put stroke orders on arabic numbers and the alphabet as well. Did you know that? I'm sure there is some kind of "stroke order" for the alphabet, so to speak, but it's not like anyone really cares. That's not to mention that the Japanese stroke order of the alphabet seems to be unintuitive (of course that's my opinion). As far as arabic numerals go, try writing a "7" in Japan the way it is here. They won't accept it on any documents or forms that you have to fill out. Sometimes they will mistake it for a "1", so they want you to write it like this: " '7 " (I'm not sure if you can read that, but hopefully if you can you get what I'm saying).

Ironically, I've heard Japanese students who are learning English stressing over the stroke orders of their alphabet, as if it mattered... oh wait, it does because some teachers might brign it up! Sorry for this little aside, but the moral of what I'm saying is that you should apply as little of your native languages rules and characteristics as is mentally possible to the second language that you are trying to acquire.

MMM, I agree that part of the purpose of writing kana / kanji over and over is to increase recognition as much as it would be to learn "how" to write them.

As far as shortcuts in Kanji learning, it is my opinion (which is contested quite a bit apparently) that knowing the words to which the kanji are applied to helps to remember kanji. There are, of course, many kanji that are used for words that would normally not be used in everyday conversation (like technical terms and the like) which would be unrealistic to assume you'd know before you started studying them. I would argue that you shouldn't be learning those words before getting the basics down, though.

Finally, I want to say that when practicing kana, it might be a good idea to actually say them outloud. That will help you connect the sounds to the symbols. Don't just use some online pronunciation guide, try to find some material that you can actually listen to. Also, if you have the means and are really serious about it, try recording yourself saying all the kana and compare it to whatever material you've been studying from. Sometimes you will find that your pronunciation is different from what you expected when you go to listen back to your recordings! It's very similar to practicing an instrument-- your voice and throat muscles are after all an instrument, so why not practice accordingly?