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Best complement to RTK? - Printable Version

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Best complement to RTK? - Nameless - 2011-11-25

Ok I have a problem, I have about 1026 kanji learnt, however, every time I try to learn more, I just start puking... I ... I need to learn vocabulary, but I am not sure which path to take, Tae kim's guide to japanese for example, implies you already know all the joyo kanji, Pimpsleur's method uses only the spoken one, whilst those based on the japanese order of kanji, have some I haven't learnt yet.

Therefore my question is, which book / audio would you recommend as a direct complement to RTK? I just would like to practice what I know, learn more vocabulary, and so on... I would take a dictionary, but there still would be gaps here and there...

Best complement to RTK? - Fallacy - 2011-11-25

I would recommend just taking a break, maybe lowering your cards per day, and spending the other time doing things you like in Japanese. This could be listening to music, watching anime, reading manga, or perhaps just Japanese TV or radio broadcasts. Whatever interests you.

Best complement to RTK? - Nameless - 2011-11-25

I have an urge to study, just not kanji... I feel like weird... I just don't feel like learning the kanji for [insert here some boring word]... if that was a boring japanese word instead, I would eagerly try to learn it, but individual kanji just feel like a 'meh'...

That said I will follow your advice.

Best complement to RTK? - Fillanzea - 2011-11-25

I'd recommend starting with one of the traditional-ish Japanese textbooks like Genki or Minna no Nihongo. They will have some kanji you don't know, but they'll introduce them slowly enough that you can learn them gradually and in context. And then, when you have a more solid foundation in grammar and vocabulary, you can make the call for yourself whether to finish RTK or keep going without it.

Best complement to RTK? - NoSleepTilFluent - 2011-11-25

quick go back and add Vocabulary to your kanji cards and all future cards.

example

Return

http://nosleeptilfluent.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/e38394e382afe38381e383a3-1.png?w=178

Best complement to RTK? - SomeCallMeChris - 2011-11-25

Try watching some stuff in Japanese even if it's subtitled - best of all, watch it with English subtitles and then again without. (When you've got a fair amount of knowledge already, do it the other way around, of course.) It's sort of like... passive studying. (Not very effective, but enjoyable and certainly does help with getting used to the sound of Japanese, at least when the subtitles are off.)

If I were to start learning vocabulary as a beginner halfway through RTK, I'd say to learn the vocabulary used in the grammar I'm going to study (Tae Kim's, Genki, whatever), but learn it in pure kana form. I guarantee that getting involved with Japanese words in Kanji will double your failure rate on keyword->Kanji reps.

(I've taken that as an acceptable loss because I'm coming to RTK after already knowing a lot of Japanese and getting sick of not remembering the Kanji, heh. After a while I just had to start reading stuff in Japanese again, simply watching videos wasn't enough... :O)

I don't study Kanji->keyword (nor do I recommend it), but if you do, you pretty much have to either stop doing so or suspend each character as you learn a real word using it... otherwise you have the two types of quiz competing with each other and messing up your ability to answer either.

You could also take any book/manga/article that you hope to read some day and simply look up each word and build your own vocabulary deck, but that might be better to do after covering at least the basics of grammar.

Best complement to RTK? - Nameless - 2011-11-25

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:quick go back and add Vocabulary to your kanji cards and all future cards.

example

Return

http://nosleeptilfluent.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/e38394e382afe38381e383a3-1.png?w=178
Is there an anki deck that already has that vocabulary? if so, what's its name?
Also, that is something I never thought of... and I will start implementing asap.

Best complement to RTK? - Nameless - 2011-11-25

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:I guarantee that getting involved with Japanese words in Kanji will double your failure rate on keyword->Kanji reps.

I don't study Kanji->keyword (nor do I recommend it), but if you do, you pretty much have to either stop doing so or suspend each character as you learn a real word using it... otherwise you have the two types of quiz competing with each other and messing up your ability to answer either.
You are right about that, even more, since I haven't used kanji at all outside the Reps, everything gets mixed up from time to time, for example, the kanji for divide and separate, drive me crazy.

I'll start with Minna no nihongo and stick with unknown kanjies' kanas.

Best complement to RTK? - SomeCallMeChris - 2011-11-26

I've started filling in little notes in the 'story' field in my anki deck (which is shown on the front side). I don't actually put the story in there but just little hints to help me disambiguate. I'm particular about not putting in any of the element keywords. Not sure what this site's SRS allows but maybe it can do something similar.

It's not actually important at all to remember the differences between 'steal' and 'rob' or whatever - the keywords could just have easily been the other way around. The important thing is that you know the characters and their general concept, not their particular word. So I don't think it hurts me at all and it certainly makes reviewing less frustrating. Smile

Best complement to RTK? - NoSleepTilFluent - 2011-11-26

Adding Japanese vocab words in addition to the english keyword will help eliminate some of the confusion on words like that. I think it helps if you do it yourself but i know the tanuki deck has examples in it already might be worth looking at.

Best complement to RTK? - Sebastian - 2011-11-26

You can also use Rikaichan (or better, Rikaisama) while studying and reviewing to check vocabulary for each kanji. You can also use [url=http://wakan.manga.cz/]Wakan[/wakan] to check words containing each kanji at any position.

Then you can review by column (if you're using this site) an add difficulty for each column. For example, the first time you review a kanji you only check the writing, the second time you check writing and at least one reading, the third time you check both things plus one word containing the kanji. That will make your fail rate go up, as well as the time it takes you to end your reviews. On the other hand, you will be certain that when a kanji goes into the third/fourth column, you'll already have knowledge about the character that you can put into use. Besides, that way you'll get lots of vocabulary.

That's just the general idea, you can adjust the details to fit your style and expectations.

Best complement to RTK? - Nameless - 2011-11-26

I'll implement that Rikaichan idea, so far I seldom used it.