Hi,

I posted here a few years ago when I first started studying Japanese. This forum was so much help and was very encouraging. Sadly, after about two years I pretty much gave up. It took me 1.5 years to get through RTK and, um, most of it has fallen out of my head.

I want to start fresh (again). I actually spoke to a Japanese person on a recent vacation. Just the formal greetings and introductions, but it was fun and I missed learning Japanese.

If you knew then what you know now, how would you re-start studying Japanese?

Altaira

RTK1 -> Core 2000 / Core 6000 Anki decks & Tae Kim's Grammar Guide -> http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt anki vocabulary deck for N2 & N2 Kanzen Master grammar book -> tanos JLPT N1 deck & N1 Kanzen Master grammar book.
(Along with as much exposure to authentic Japanese as possible, of course)

That's what got me to pass JLPT N1. For speaking & writing, after you've built up a decent vocabulary, start finding places you can speak & write in Japanese. Then practice, practice, practice.

(2015-11-15, 6:15 pm)Altaira Wrote: Hi,

I posted here a few years ago when I first started studying Japanese. This forum was so much help and was very encouraging. Sadly, after about two years I pretty much gave up. It took me 1.5 years to get through RTK and, um, most of it has fallen out of my head.

I want to start fresh (again). I actually spoke to a Japanese person on a recent vacation. Just the formal greetings and introductions, but it was fun and I missed learning Japanese.

If you knew then what you know now, how would you re-start studying Japanese?

Altaira

I also dropped out for a long while! What I did was I started RTK all over again and also Genki from lesson 1. I'm taking formal classes at uni as well but they're behind even my super-rudimentary level (which is to say they're teaching absolutely basic stuff like これ、それ、あれ), and I also intend to watch the Erin videos.

Once you're done with Genki, I think the best would be to 1) work on your vocabulary, 2) getting a Japanese friend/penpal and 3) translate simple texts (for example there's this book called Shin Mainichi no Kikitori which is intended for hearing practice but which has texts that are suitably simple for reading practice and vocabulary building at a Genki 2 level). That's where I'm at now, though, so I don't know if it's going to be effective yet (by which I mean take what I'm saying with a grain of salt!)

When I started learning Japanese, I didn't realize how much more I'd be relying on audio/TV immersion, rather that on reading (because, when I studied English, for instance, I would read a lot, and that's how I got proficient...a also had a lot more time to spend reading, back then). Unfortunately, with Japanese, it's pretty hard to get to a level where you can read literature. Especially when you have a job, and things to do.

I would focus a lot less on Kanji (I would probably just do the RtK super-light version, with 500 or so Kanji in it - just enough to allow me to read some manga and navigate Japanese sites). I also wouldn't bother with vocab and sentence reviews aimed primarily at helping me read.

Instead I would just do sentence reviews aimed mainly at improving listening comprehension: with Japanese audio and the sentence both in the question, and the ability to understand the sentence, and know what every word in it means, as the answer.

As far as immersion, I would take the path of least resistance: only watch/listen to stuff I enjoy, always watch it with English subs if they're available. In my experience, immersion works no matter how you do it. Subs don't really stop you from picking up new Japanese, if you make a little effort to pay attention. So I wouldn't bother trying to only do immersion "the right way" (most blogs I've read consider using English subs to be the wrong way), I would do it in whatever way I got the most enjoyment out of it.

(2015-11-17, 5:04 am)Stansfield123 Wrote: When I started learning Japanese, I didn't realize how much more I'd be relying on audio/TV immersion, rather that on reading (because, when I studied English, for instance, I would read a lot, and that's how I got proficient...a also had a lot more time to spend reading, back then). Unfortunately, with Japanese, it's pretty hard to get to a level where you can read literature. Especially when you have a job, and things to do.

Is that in part function of have different "literature Japanese" is from other Japanese, you think? What I have seen called the "hatred of the vernacular"?

I find that I can read academic papers (specialized words aside, but that's no different in any language; jargon is jargon), any involved e-mail communication between co-workers, most websites (outside of some articles on Wikipedia which seemed to be written by non-natives, or natives imitating literature style). And of course training manuals in Japanese, which I have to read daily, and is specifically written in vernacular for readability.

(And spoken Japanese which is basically 100% of my daily speech, and is by nature almost completely vernacular.)

And yet I have never really been able to read with much patience light novels, or novels, which all seem to share a general stylized version of Japanese. Or for that matter, manga.

I wonder how much of that comes from both spoken English and written English being done largely in the vernacular, as opposed to Japanese which seems in comparison to have a basic abhorrence of the vernacular.

Stansfield123 Wrote:As far as immersion, I would take the path of least resistance: only watch/listen to stuff I enjoy, always watch it with English subs if they're available. In my experience, immersion works no matter how you do it. Subs don't really stop you from picking up new Japanese, if you make a little effort to pay attention. So I wouldn't bother trying to only do immersion "the right way" (most blogs I've read consider using English subs to be the wrong way), I would do it in whatever way I got the most enjoyment out of it.

Agreed. The 'right way' to do immersion involves first and foremost, doing it. And if it is not necessary as part of one's job description, the only way to stick with it is to find something you find enjoyable and do it. 

Find something fun to immerse in and immerse. If you need subs to enjoy (of any language), then have at it.

I will say outside of owarai bangumi, it is hard to watch things repetitively for me which I find the best practice, so that is where I stay. Owarai bangumi fills all my needs: unscripted free form vernacular speech, varied accents, frequent Japanese subs embedded in the video, and stands repeat watching, generally.

(I simply cannot effectively quote posts with the new software. I think I fixed it, but ...)

[ファブリス]

kapalama Wrote:(I simply cannot effectively quote posts with the new software. I think I fixed it, but ...)

Hi kapalama, are you using the rich text view or the source view? If Rich Text causes issues in your browser, try to write the bbcode in source view. Copy/pasting may not be reliable. Note that CTRL + SHIFT + V lets you paste text without the Rich Text formatting.

Indeed that is odd because doing a "Full Edit" on your post and preview without any modifications displays the text fine. Could be that some javascript is not running properly? If you use any javascript blocking extensions, you may have to disable it for the rich text edit functionality.

(2015-11-17, 9:02 am)kapalama Wrote: Is that in part function of have different "literature Japanese" is from other Japanese, you think? What I have seen called the "hatred of the vernacular"?

Yeah, that's part of it, but the biggest issue is the writing system. It just takes too long to learn to read Japanese, compared to other languages.

It's still possible to learn Japanese mainly through reading, but it takes a lot more time spent studying (learning how to read), than learning Japanese through listening. Of course, with the latter method, you still have to learn to read afterwards (or at least, improve your reading skills to become fully functional)...but at least you'll be doing it while already understanding the spoken language.

My biggest mistake thus far is trying to learn and understand spoken japanese without learning kanji.  After I learned a few thousand vocabulary words(kana only) I still wasn't able to understand what people were saying at all.  I found myself needing to be able to read what was being said in order to understand.  Finding or converting text to kana was turning into a real time sink.

I'm currently about 3/4 of my way through RTK at the moment and it's making a big difference in being able to follow along and understand spoken japanese.  Knowing kanji has also made learning vocabulary much easier, as kanji provides meaning and pronunciation queues.

If I were to start again, I would finish RTK in recognition mode first and then core2k, tae kim, then start with some easy native media.  I originally did rtk lite, but ended up running into too many unknown kanji, so I'd just push through and learn all 2200 because it'll save a lot of time in the end.

Thanks for the replies!

Oddly enough, I recently started the Mango Languages Japanese program available for free through my library. I'm enjoying it and remember enough that I don't feel like an idiot. Yet.

I'm thinking about starting RTK again.

I have a bookshelf of Japanese language learning books (Genki, Busy People, Modern Japanese, etc.) and none of them worked for me. Bad brain!

(2015-11-26, 4:07 pm)Altaira Wrote: I'm thinking about starting RTK again.

I would suggest not to do this. I don't even think RTK is worth it the first time around, but since you already did it once you have a knowledge of how kanji are constructed even if you forget every single meaning that's easily enough to just start learning actual vocabulary. RTK will probably just kill your motivation again, and if it doesn't it's still probably not really worth much at this point. If you want to learn to write I would suggest just memorize the radicals after you are already decent at reading in a year or two, no reason to put writing ahead of everything else. I'm not sure why this seems to be the accepted method by people.

(2015-11-26, 6:12 pm)kameden Wrote:

(2015-11-26, 4:07 pm)Altaira Wrote: I'm thinking about starting RTK again.

I would suggest not to do this. I don't even think RTK is worth it the first time around, but since you already did it once you have a knowledge of how kanji are constructed even if you forget every single meaning that's easily enough to just start learning actual vocabulary. RTK will probably just kill your motivation again, and if it doesn't it's still probably not really worth much at this point. If you want to learn to write I would suggest just memorize the radicals after you are already decent at reading in a year or two, no reason to put writing ahead of everything else. I'm not sure why this seems to be the accepted method by people.

I think RTK is worth it the first time around, but I agree with your suggestion of not starting over.

For me, the first time going through RTK was magical. It felt like I was carving a path through a mountain range. The second time it felt like I was spending a lot of time retracing my steps with very little benefit.

RTK is useful in demystifying kanji. It changes the characters from random scribbles to logical structures. In my opinion, this is the strength of RTK. Going through it a second time, I realized I was just using it as an inefficient vocab list. So my suggestion to the OP would be to get a beginner oriented vocab deck instead of starting over.

I don't think you need to see kanji as logical structures to be able to recognize them. I don't think RTK is horrible, I just don't think it's necessary to learn to read and sort of a waste of time. I wish people would just try learning some vocabulary to see how easy it is before they commit to some 3+ month course, but everyone thinks they need to "learn the kanji" first.

(2015-11-17, 10:13 pm)yogert909 Wrote: After I learned a few thousand vocabulary words(kana only) I still wasn't able to understand what people were saying at all.  I found myself needing to be able to read what was being said in order to understand. 

Same here.
I am a completely visual learner, that's why.

Besides that, my "If I knew then what I know now" would be to turn off rikai-chan!!! It became an unnecessary crutch and seriously hindered my progress.

Also I need to stop writing down every single interesting word/phrase. Many are uncommon and/or unimportant and it is a waste of time. If it is actually important enough, it will probably pop-up again and again and I can learn it by repeat exposure.