Hi,

I have read a bad review on Amazon.com about RTK2 and the argument seemed very valid. These two paragraphs struck out the most for me:

".....For my money the method employed in Kanji in Context (Japan Times) is much more efficient and what's more actually DOES take you a good way towards literacy. Kanji in Context concentrates on teaching kanji meanings and readings in the context of the vocabulary associated with those kanji. A consequence of this method is that you begin to acquire a native-like appreciation for how a kanji is likely to be read - even in previously unseen compounds. You are able to make practical use of the knowledge (i.e you are able to read Japanese) long before you reach the end of the book. Another good little book for starting to acquire that level of familiarity is "Decoding the Kanji" by Habein (Kadansha International)

The main value of this book is in pointing out those few kanji elements that act a reliable (more or less) guide to at least one "on" reading. But that is a small part of the whole and that information can be found on the web for free. Heisig's first volume is excellent for developing a familiarity with the kanji but volume 2 achieves too little gain to be worth it, particularly when better alterantives are available."

Does anyone else agree here? I flipped through RTK2 and found that it really only does give one example per kanji, as well as only one onyomi reading. Can anyone else confirm that something would be better for a more complete study? Also, when I got to the kunyomi section of the book, which was probably less than 1/10th of the entire thing, it only seemed to give the readings for maybe a hundred or less characters. Aren't there supposed to be around 2000 of these? I'm confused...

Is Kanji in Context really all that's promised for it? It seems as though RTK2 doesn't live up to the beauty of RTK1.

Thanks

Opinions vary. A lot.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1591

Read through the topics in this RTK2 + 3 section.

Kanji in context would probably be more difficult than RTK2 for just onyomi readings. But kanji in context is teaching a lot more. It's like a textbook for kanji.

It all depends on your Japanese ability. If you're at the advanced beginner/lower intermediate level, and you don't need any training wheels, then KiC isn't bad. But it's not as complete as they'd like you to think it is. Some kanji don't get the "sentence treatment," so they don't have a "context." But they do cover ~2,000 or so in total. If you can find the Tanuki corpus (not Tanaka), it follows the KiC order as well, and gives a lot of extra sentences for each kanji.

Kanji Odyssey covers 1,110 of the most frequently used kanji in sentence forms, usually 3 sentences per kanji, with 2-3 different readings, depending on how many readings there are. It doesn't cover every reading, and it's for advanced beginners as well, but there's more hand-holding than in KiC. (i.e., there are English translations.) Also, it uses a lot of words you'll see in newspapers and such. I like its vocab selection a lot.

RTK2 is actually pretty handy if you approach it with the right frame of mind. If you look at it as a way to replace the RTK1 keywords with Japanese Keywords, then it's excellent. BUT doing that takes work, and you have to buy into the way Heisig orders the kanji. And he chooses some pretty useless words sometimes just to reinforce oddball readings. BUT RTK2 will help you own the On-yomi. (Not so much with the kun-yomi.) So what it does, it does well-- if you bend it to your will. I've been meaning to do that, but I don't have time for it now. My plan is to use the order in RTK2, but to replace some of the words with more usable ones, and then replace my RTK1 deck with it.

It all boils down to "What works for you?" And the only way you'll find out is by trying things out. It also depends a LOT on your Japanese language ability. Actually, I think RTK2 is best for rank novices, because it isn't sentence-based. You just need to be able to read kana for the most part. (And have finished RTK1.) RTK2 has some tricks to it-- pure and semi-pure and mixed groups are useful concepts. But the rest is just brute force, baby.

Other methods will require some amount of grounding in basic Japanese, because they're sentence-based. So if you don't want to do RTK2, and you're a novice, then your next step would probably be something like JFE, MNN, Genki, or UBJG to get you comfortable with grammar, then go on to something like KiC or KO.

There are other methods, too, but I don't know anything about them, so check the link in the post above.

Great tips, thank you both very much !

What I would do if I didn't already know the onyomi readings, would be to mine tons of sentences (ala AJATT) from a combination of textbooks (Japanese for Everyone is my favorite, along with Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar) and manga. That's grammar + Kanji readings, and will boost your Japanese ability significantly.

If you know quite a bit of the language already, then something like Kanji in Context or Kanji odyssy.

There are also onyomi mnemonics out there if you just want to learn the onyomi readings before anything. Kanjitown and Kanjichain.

rich_f Wrote:If you can find the Tanuki corpus (not Tanaka), it follows the KiC order as well, and gives a lot of extra sentences for each kanji.

Only 4 results from searching for "Tanuki Corpus" came up on Google... are you sure this title exists under that spelling? Do you have a link? Also, could you talk more about it? If it has all of the Joyo that Kanji in Context has + more sentence examples and better explanations, then perhaps I should be working towards getting my hands on that instead of anything else... comments?

rich_f Wrote:Kanji Odyssey covers 1,110 of the most frequently used kanji in sentence forms, usually 3 sentences per kanji, with 2-3 different readings, depending on how many readings there are. It doesn't cover every reading, and it's for advanced beginners as well, but there's more hand-holding than in KiC. (i.e., there are English translations.) Also, it uses a lot of words you'll see in newspapers and such. I like its vocab selection a lot.

There is a 2001 Kanji Odyssey out that teaches 2000 kanji. Do you know if this 2001 version is a revised program that covers more than the 1,110 you claimed above?

Thanks

Kanji Odyssey and 2001 Kanji Odyssey are the same thing. It technically covers 2001 kanji, but only the first 1110 have example sentences. The last 891 only have the reference materials, which are things like stroke order diagrams, out of context readings, and things like that.

Tanuki was posted on this forum before, check out this thread. It doesn't have much explanation and no translation; only a few words in japanese for every sentence that rephrase the meaning, so you have to learn the grammar elsewhere. It's a pretty good resource though, I'm using it myself and like it.

Here's the first sentence from the simplified file:
Sentence: 一どでいいから、宇宙旅行をしてみたい。
Kana sentence: 一どでいいから、うちゅうりょこうをしてみたい。
Word: 一ど (いち)ど
Explanation: 一かい。

I do find it a little inconvenient that it uses rather advanced (in Heisig order that is) kanji words in the first sentence (宇宙), but if you're through with RTK this shouldn't be a problem. I think 2001:KO is more gradual about it.

Yeah, but Tanuki is a good resource if you're doing KiC, because KiC is short on sentences. (In spite of the high cost of the books.) And Tanuki follows the order in KiC exactly, which is really handy if you're using that book.

Personally, I prefer KO to cover those first 1110 or so kanji, because the books are designed to give you a solid grounding in frequently-used Japanese vocab, so it's in order of usefulness for adults, rather than in order of usefulness for grade-schoolers.

Either way, it's a long-term project for me. I may go over to KiC after that, though, to cover whatever KO doesn't. And then there are always dictionaries to raid as sources for sentences. I may pick up the CD-ROM that has KO volume 3 on it, and just follow its order and look up my own sentences to get the vocab.

I also like the mysterious Tanuki Corpus.

I'm not sure if Kanji Odyssey's value has much to do with a gradual increase of vocab exposure. Some sentences are fairly basic, but one of the first sentences in KO deals with "exports of Japanese enterprises" which doesnt seem any more basic than "outer space" themes.

But just like many people, I do prefer Kanji Odyssey because of its organization of kanji based on frequency of use. I also like how the new vocab tends to be repeated later. Its a highly recommendable series. I haven't used Tanuki for long enough to know whether the vocab repeats to the same degree. Does anyone else know?

You're right, Dragg. KO is definitely not for beginners, and you need to have some patience with it. The vocab does build up over time, though, and it does reuse words that seem really difficult at first.

I found the best way to deal with all of the extra vocab was extra short sentences added to the pile, just to get reps of those new words up to the point that my brain started to say to itself, "Oh, this word keeps coming up. Maybe it's important? I guess I should try to remember it."

The one thing KO has over KiC however is more sentences (on average) per kanji, and English translations (albeit a little Engrishy at times) of the sentences and vocab.

I haven't had time to play with Tanuki, although I really should.