For those who decided to use RtK2 or similar methods to deliberately learn on-yomi: how do you review them?

For example, if you use anki and it presents you with the card "人口" for the kanji 口, how do you evaluate your card? Do you focus mostly on the reading of the kanji 口 on this particular word, in the light of "test only one thing per card" rule? Or you basically treat it like a vocabulary card and you pass or fail the card based on your knowledge of both the reading and the meaning of the compound?

Personally I bought the book but I don't use it. I just use an RTK2 Anki deck. I find that as I use that deck, plus a couple of others, along with reading, I'm sometimes able to intuit the reading of new words. I sometimes get it wrong, for example I guess しょう but the reading is じょう、but it's all about exposure and repetition.

I haven't done RTK 2 yet, but when I do, I intend to memorize all of the perfect groups and then probably the pure groups too. There are anki decks for this. Check out pages 2 and 3 of this thread starting with this post.

So you will review only the reading and ignore the compound meaning?

I've seen the most common rtk2 deck has this format:

Front:
晴天
晴てん

Back:
せいてん

When you will review this card, you will answer "せい" given that the kanji has 青 as a signal primitive?

So you review the kanji only and the compound is there only to give the context necessary to know which reading is used (considering kanji where a signal primitive signals more than one onyomi)?

I understand right? Sorry for the naive question xD

I did RTK2 way back in 2001 with good old flashcards. I didn't try to learn any compounds while I was reviewing the cards, just the on and kun yomis for each one. I was reading novels by the end of the year.

I'm not saying it was easy, but I loved using RTK2. Never understood all the hate or apathy it seems to get.

GreenAirth Wrote:I did RTK2 way back in 2001 with good old flashcards. I didn't try to learn any compounds while I was reviewing the cards, just the on and kun yomis for each one. I was reading novels by the end of the year.

I'm not saying it was easy, but I loved using RTK2. Never understood all the hate or apathy it seems to get.

I understand what you mean and I agree with you. I did something similar but stupid, that is review them in isolation (see the "kanjidamage" method), like 精　→　せい；　清　→　せい； and so on. With kanji on front and on-yomi on back.
After all it was very useful and now I'm on the same position as you, as I can read novels and learn new words easily because of that. But as for reviews it is a little troublesome, especially for kanji with more than one common onyomi.

So I am moving to a format similar to the RtK2 one:

Quote:Front:
晴天
晴てん

Back:
せいてん

and for cards with multiple readings I have one card per reading (人口→じんこう；口調→くちょう；).


and I was wondering if I must focus only on the reading, as you said, or on the compound too. But some of those compounds are uncommon and difficult, so I feel I don't want to learn them now, but I want to review the kanji reading as I already know it xD And it also counts as a kanji review for me, as this is the only deck I have. So, to ditch a kanji from this deck only because I don't want to learn its compund now, would mean to lose the kanji itself.


GreenAirth, beside this, do you do vocab cards too? For example for words with non-standard readings? Or you learn the exceptions only by means of native materials?

cophnia61 Wrote:I did something similar but stupid, that is review them in isolation (see the "kanjidamage" method), like 精　→　せい；　清　→　せい； and so on. With kanji on front and on-yomi on back.
After all it was very useful and now I'm on the same position as you, as I can read novels and learn new words easily because of that. But as for reviews it is a little troublesome, especially for kanji with more than one common onyomi.

I did it with the kanji on the front and all the readings on the back. I can look at a kanji and cycle through the common readings pretty easily, often instinctively, in my head.

I learned how to read compounds either by, unsurprisingly, reading or, to a far lesser extent, through vocabulary lists. I've never actually used anything to ensure I've read every kanji in a compound and I can't say I've suffered in any way because of it.

cophnia61 Wrote:do you do vocab cards too? For example for words with non-standard readings? Or you learn the exceptions only by means of native materials?

I've learned exceptions through exposure rather than any kind of systematic approach. I've used lists for short periods in the past, but most of my knowledge has built up through experience.

RTK2 is the book I've benefited from most in all my years of using Japanese, but the main reason I can read comfortably (not perfectly) and speak fluently (not perfectly) today is simply because I've never stopped reading, speaking, listening and, when the urge takes me, writing Japanese over many many years.

GreenAirth, thank you very much for writing your experience here!
I'm pretty much like you, when I read I save all the sentences which contain a word I don't know, with the intention to make a vocab card later, then I forgot it for like two weeks and when I return to it I realize I remember them without any need to put them on Anki.
Also if I start to put vocabs on Anki I know it will make me tired so after that I will stop reading ._. So if I have to chose between Anki and books/subtitles I chose the latter xD
So I've decided to review only kanji (readings included) and I've noticed that the rest takes care of it (words meanings, and exceptions too).
After reading your post I'm even more confident on this and I will continue by all means to review only kanji knowledge (readings included) and let native media do the rest, but from now on I will switch to the RtK2 format with the kanji/kanji reading I review inserted in the context of a word.

cophnia61 Wrote:So you will review only the reading and ignore the compound meaning?

That's right, but only for perfect and pure groups because it will be pretty easy to memorize and be sure of the correct reading of 1/4 of the kanji I read. It should take a little over a week to learn ~200 groups and be confident of the reading of >500 kanji. That seems to be an excellent ROI. The remaining 3/4 kanji, I'm not sure what I'll do, but probably a hybrid of memorizing common readings separately and then drilling vocabulary containing the kanji.

At some point, memorizing readings of kanji with a lot of exceptions will be less efficient than simply memorizing the compounds. I'm just not sure where the line is.

Another question for thosew who did or are planning to do RtK2:

there are some kanji which share the same word, for example 森林. I've seen that the RtK 2 anki deck has two cards, one for 森 and one for 林.
As I'm doing my own deck from scratch I wonder if it is better to do this, or to do only one card with the word "森林" and use it to review both kanji. It's almost obvious to me that the first format is best:one card per kanji, even if they share the same compound. It seems good especially for those like me who are prone to mix up readings. But maybe there are arguments against it too. So, just to be sure before I start xD

Also, what format do you find best to review?

森林

or

森りん

森林 is fine for me. That's how I'll see it when I read a book or a web page.

森林 - two cards I would assume, as you want to test readings not vocab.

Now that linked deck looks like a nice deck. It seems to take the compounds from Heisig 2, but the Signalprimitives are not included (copyright reasons). Heisig 2 has received "hate or apathy", but this way it looks not much different like a vocab deck which covers the readings as a side effect.

If you center the cards around the Signalprimitives it might look like below (example kanji from the linked homepage). Probably not ideal (not clear cut) especially for mixed groups.

甬

[semi-pure]
つう 痛
通
よう 踊


or perhaps with example compounds
つう 痛 腹痛 ふくつう stomach ache
通 交通 こうつう traffic
よう 踊 舞踊 ぶよう dance; (classical) dancing