This thread is really premature, but I couldn't help but ask this now.

When I finish my textbook, JFE, I am really confused as to what to do next. Here are some things I've heard thrown around here:

- KO2001
- Core2k & Core6k
- Kanji in Context
- Kanken Master
- Kanken ステップ

I pretty much want to do the thing from above which will cover the most kanji.

I know what KO2001 and Core are.

I've heard of Kanji in Context, but how many kanji does it cover? More or less than KO2001? Which is better?

And then, are Kanken Master (...) books and Kanken ステップ books made by the Kanji Kentei test people? What's the difference between them? I'm really confused : (

Is it true that the ステップ books together cover all 6000+ kanji and their compounds required for level one of Kanji Kentei? In that case, would it be better to work through the ステップ books instead of doing KO2001 or Core, or Kanji in Context?

Thanks if you can help me understand what these resources are. I looked them up on google but the sites are in Japanese that I am not able to understand. Yes, it's way too early for me to post this since I'm only about 1/4 through JFE, but I'm trying to avoid studying microbiology at the moment, and this questions have been bugging me for a while. Thanks if you can answer some of them.

KiC covers 1947 kanji; all the Jouyou plus 賄 and 誰.

The ステップ books only go through level 2 of the Kanken, so they only cover the 1945 Jouyou. I would not recommend them at this stage; the test is intended for native speakers and so it contains a lot of things that are supposed to be obscure/tricky for native speakers, rather than what is good for a second language learner.

I think you may be thinking of the Kanzen Master books, which is a line of study materials for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I wouldn't recommend them as a resource for specifically studying kanji; they're useful if you want to do the JLPT.

Kanji in context is a great kanji book. I have been using it along with JLPT books for 2 years now. It's more or less ordered by frequency which is a plus.

how do things stack up in terms of KO2001 versus Kanji in Context?

They both cover the same amount of kanji pretty much right, so out of these two which is the better resources?

Also, would it be worth doing the Core series as well as one of the above? Or is there so much overlap as for it to be not worth it.

Kanji in Context was very helpful when I was at that level. I owe a large debt to the book for improving my Japanese.

Keep in my mind that while Kanji in Context is great learning resource it is not intended for beginners. It assumes that the learner possesses high grammar knowledge and has already mastered 250-350 kanjis. The book doesn't provide any English translations for its example sentences either. Once I'm finished with KO2001 (760字 down) I will start KiC.