Number of Kanji needed to read Japanese

Open Forum
1

Hi, I know this is a quite opened ended question, like "how many words do you need to … etc etc… " But all the same, I’m interested in anyone’s input.

Is it really possible to comfortably read a newspaper knowing the jōyō list of 2000-ish Kanji? Or is the list just the start of literacy?

I understand that the list doesn’t touch complex-kanji / kani-compounds; are these relatively easy to guess from their structure and context?

Thanks.

2

To read a newspaper, you need to know a lot of kanji compounds. 95% of the newspaper articles will encompass 600-700 of the most used kanji ( this is a wild guess) , but you will know next to nothing if you know just the meaning of individual kanji.

3

Thanks for fast reply. Okay, no free pass to reading. Back to studiyng.