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+--- Thread: RTK Lite? Explanation/How to (/thread-4895.html)
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - leonl - 2010-01-26
As I understand its a method of doing the jlpt 2 kanji using the heisig book. Is their a list or something thats been created for use with this or will any list of jlpt 2 kanji work. I ask all this because I have firmly set a goal of either JLPT n3 or JLPT 2 for this December I am in my second year of college Japanese, this summer I will be taking an intensive 3rd year level intermediate class(in addition I'm also building anki decks for last year's material and this year's as well) but I still see kanji as my weak point. Anyway, if anyone can tell me more about RTK Lite I would be grateful.
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - Nukemarine - 2010-01-27
I saw your post on The Japanese Page but Yudan had already replied. Here's the thread that discusses it.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=993
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - Koos83 - 2010-01-27
This December? You mean in 11 months? You can totally finish RTK full version by then, easily. I work more than fulltime and I did it in 5 months (have about 90 left to go, but I hope to be done by the end of the week).
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - yudantaiteki - 2010-01-27
But finishing all of RTK does not equal JLPT 2. You also have to study for all the vocab, grammar, reading, and listening.
RTK lite is nice for people who want to get some of the benefit of RTK without having to commit to the full system, and then when they finish that they can decide whether to immediately do the rest of RTK, do the rest of RTK while working on other Japanese stuff, or completely ditch RTK and do more traditional studying.
How fast you can finish RTK depends much more on your personal motivation and how much you like studying the system than it does on the actual amount of free time you have in the day.
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - leonl - 2010-01-27
Koos83 Wrote:This December? You mean in 11 months? You can totally finish RTK full version by then, easily. I work more than fulltime and I did it in 5 months (have about 90 left to go, but I hope to be done by the end of the week).Thanks to everyone for the replies. I wanted to answer this post specifically. I am doing RTK Lite because I want to try the system without doing the whole book, secondly writing kanji has always been my weakest area, thirdly I dont see the point in doing 2000 kanji when 1100 will be more than enough for the JLPT 2, also in class even though we do learn on and kun yomi of kanji in class are focus is primarly on reading words so we tend focus much more on combinations, then the actuall kanji themselves.
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - Koos83 - 2010-01-28
Well, if you have trouble writing the kanji, RTK is perfect for you as well, because it really breaks each kanji down into parts you will immediately recognise and also know how to write. In this way, you can build up most kanji.
Also; why do only 1100 now when, if you're studying Japanese, you'll have to learn the full 1945 one day anyway? If the focus is on learning kanji combos then isn't it better to know all the seperate kanji that the combos are built up out of?
But perhaps that's just my opinion.
I just think: if you're going to put in the effort, go all the way. 
RTK Lite? Explanation/How to - yudantaiteki - 2010-01-28
You don't have to learn the entire Jouyou set; I don't know the entire Jouyou set and I do just fine.
The reason for stopping earlier is the problem of diminishing returns. Someone did a frequency count on all of Wikipedia, which is a great resource since it involves so many different subjects and types of writing.
These are the statistics quoted:
173 kanji make up 50% all kanji in Wikipedia.
454 kanji cover 75% of all kanji in Wikipedia.
874 kanji cover 90%
1214 kanji cover 95%
2061 kanji cover 99%
2456 kanji cover 99.5%
3489 kanji cover 99.9%
As you can see, the more kanji you study, the less use you get out of each additional kanji. Am I saying you should get to 1100 or 1214 and stop? Of course not, but once you get beyond 1000 or so I think it's much more efficient and useful to study additional kanji through reading things you are interested in. It's unlikely that you will need literally all 1945 Jouyou Kanji, and it's pretty likely that you will need some kanji that are not on the Jouyou List (or in RTK 1).
Now, if you really like RTK 1 and are motivated to do the whole thing, that's fine. But for someone who wants to get into reading Japanese as quickly as possible, the RTK lite may be a much better choice. As I said before, using RTK lite does not mean that you are permanently barred from studying the other kanji in RTK 1; once you finish RTK lite you are free to go back and do the rest of the kanji later, or not. It gives you a choice, whereas regular RTK forces you to learn all 2050 (or whatever) kanji before you can move on.