I'm hoping finish up RTK1 in less than a month, and I see 2 options:

-Add RTK3 on, then combine RTK2 and the second half of RTK 3
-Do RTK2, then never come back to the series again, and either learn new ones in reading, or find a better list.

So all I want to know is if I spend the extra effort on 3, will it pay off more than having to fend for myself learning the more common non-joyo kanji individually?

(Note: I'm using the updated 2010 RTK)

In my opinion, RTK2 and 3 are not worth your time.

RTK2 consists of mainly structural analysis and overview of the characters, which I found to be boring. You may disagree and like this analysis, if so, then by all means... But I personally wanted to get down to actual Japanese at this point.

That's exactly why I also decided on skipping RTK3.

I've read through many posts discouraging me to do it, as the kanji included in it really aren't that 'important'; meaning that you'll just pick them up along the way, and keep the infrequent ones for when you actually want to learn them.

Instead, my advice is to focus on other things like grammar (Tae Kims) or vocab (Core 2/6k or start your own deck).

One important lesson I've learned is that no matter how many kanji I know, actually reading & understanding a text takes much more than that. Compound words and little quirky grammar will send you spinning around, guessing at all the wrong things. Better to start exposing yourself to some real vocab and taking your Japanese to the next level.

Good luck!

Yeah, RTK2 is not really recommended by very many people at all since it just isn't all that helpful. Learning readings outside the context of words is just... significantly less than optimal, in my opinion.

I think RTK3 is useful, but only after you've attained a high enough level in other areas. I didn't end up doing RTK3 until after I had already passed JLPT1. I see kanji pop up from it all the time in the things I'm reading, but it's mostly things to do with detail and flavor. For example, the novel I'm reading now is big on descriptions of nature. It's nice to know which trees those are that are swaying in the breeze, but I admit that it isn't all that necessary.

RTK1 prepares you mostly well enough and demystifies kanji enough that learning new ones from there comes fairly easily. RTK3 is more about being a comprehensive kanji nerd. There's value in that, but there's other things that would probably be way more beneficial depending on your level in other areas.

Don't do RTK3 right after RTK1, it will distract you from Japanese. Do it in one or two years from now, or even more if you find you're fine without it.

I think I'll be taking this advice for myself.

*Locks away RtK3 book for an indeterminate amount of time*

ColdCore Wrote:Instead, my advice is to focus on other things like grammar (Tae Kims) or vocab (Core 2/6k or start your own deck).

Well, I guess I should say that I already took 3 years of Japanese in High School, and before starting up RTK, was working on those exact two resources you mention, so I have a bit of grammar and vocab already. I take it most people here started with RTK, but I just now found out about it, and want to hit the kanji really hardcore.

So my question isn't really whether or not to use RTK2; I've been looking it over, and I think it will be a great tool, paired with some reading. I am just wondering how common the Kanji are in RTK3, and if I can find a better list.

Well, RtK3 has 誰, 頃, and 狙 for example, and they are quite useful - there are a lot of rare kanji there though.

Stian Wrote:Well, RtK3 has 誰, 頃, and 狙 for example, and they are quite useful - there are a lot of rare kanji there though.

To be fair RtK1 6th edition includes all of those. It reduces the brand new Kanji in RtK 3 to about 800, maybe a little less.

Yeah, 6th ed. vol 1 has 2200, and 3 has 800. I mean, it says in the intro to the 3rd volume that he uses some kind of frequency list.. so maybe I should just trust it.

erlog Wrote:Yeah, RTK2 is not really recommended by very many people at all since it just isn't all that helpful. Learning readings outside the context of words is just... significantly less than optimal, in my opinion.

RTK2 does provide a word for each joyo kanji on-reading and the expectation is to learn the kanji in words. The kanji are organized in the first section by phonetic element, and after that by word usefulness or something like that. It's useful to have an awareness of the role of phonetic elements and which ones are relatively more reliable.

But RTK2 doesn't strike me as ideal, either. It's easy to find a list of common words for each joyo kanji. There's also some value in learning readings together to develop a sense for which kanji have several or unusual readings (as with books like Kanji in Context.) And it'd be better to study kanji words in sentences with audio, if possible. (2001KO offers that and I think KIC has an app with audio.)

About RTK3 kanji, I recall a couple threads where people listed which ones they considered more common/useful.

KIC is meant for early intermediate, so it might be a good resource at your level, reich_deja. There are 2 workbooks, the reference book is basically just a kanji & word list, and an app. You might still be able to access the KIC sentence anki deck by showing someone proof of purchase. (Word repetition is already built into the workbooks, though.) There's also a Tanuki deck/list which might have been based on data from KIC's earlier software (brief J defns and sentences, no audio)

If I were in your situation (and not preparing for a joyo-based exam), I'd use KIC for the first 1600 or so (KIC order) to get a solid foundation (learned vocab plus strong ability to predict unknown word pronunciations) and then learn any other kanji as they appear in the stuff I like to read. Some non-joyo will be more useful to you than certain joyo kanji, etc. Building a larger and relevant vocabulary using more common kanji will be far more useful than knowing one or two random words for a huge number of uncommon kanji.

I own RTK2 and spent a few days on it before deciding that it wasn't for me. Instead I went through Core 6000 and if I found the onyomi for some kanji difficult to remember, I would come up with a quick sentence containing a mnemonic for remembering it. I took inspiration from the kanjidamage.com but I didn't use the site for learning the Kanji, just for some ideas for mnemonics.

I've heard a lot of people here do that.. but how are you sure that you know the readings for every kanji? It seems a bit disorganized for my taste.

Also, I don't see how people say RTK2 is inefficient. Before I discovered the series, I did just what people seem to do here, to do it in context; and to try to look up every single kanji as I read, (let alone remember it) was really frustrating. And even with the the help of having done RTK1, I still think it would be an inefficient study method.

reich_deja Wrote:I've heard a lot of people here do that.. but how are you sure that you know the readings for every kanji? It seems a bit disorganized for my taste.

Also, I don't see how people say RTK2 is inefficient. Before I discovered the series, I did just what people seem to do here, to do it in context; and to try to look up every single kanji as I read, (let alone remember it) was really frustrating. And even with the the help of having done RTK1, I still think it would be an inefficient study method.

I kind of do it on a word by word basis. When I see a kanji with a reading that I don't know come up, that is when I go through making up a mnemonic. When I did it with Core 6000, I would go through 100 words at a time scanning them for new readings before adding them to the SRS. Yes, it is not complete and thorough. But, in fact it would probably take a while until you actually encounter every kanji in RTK1 in the wild. If you are the complete and thorough type and don't want to do some work each time you see a new reading, then RTK2 or something similar might be right for you. But note that you are not ensured to know the reading for a word since the word may have kanji with multiple onyomi or it may use the kunyomi even though there are multiple kanji in it. And then there are still irregular readings too.

reich_deja Wrote:I've heard a lot of people here do that.. but how are you sure that you know the readings for every kanji? It seems a bit disorganized for my taste.

Also, I don't see how people say RTK2 is inefficient. Before I discovered the series, I did just what people seem to do here, to do it in context; and to try to look up every single kanji as I read, (let alone remember it) was really frustrating. And even with the the help of having done RTK1, I still think it would be an inefficient study method.

Nobody really suggested doing it by brute force. There are resources like Core and Kanji in Context that can ease you into it, and also make sure you get the coverage you need. There is a version of Core that I think was re-ordered to be really close to N+1 style where it builds on itself steadily over time.

I mean, whatever works for people is fine. It's just RTK2 isn't what tends to work for most people, and combining the grammar/reading practice with teaching kanji readings seems to be the route most people are finding works well for them. Most people aren't jumping from RTK1 to native sources like you're implying. They're typically using a structured intermediate step that gives them comprehensive coverage of kanji readings via words in example sentences.

I decided at one point to go through RTK3, but gave up because I couldn't find words for half the characters and when my girlfriend flicked through the book she couldn't understand why I was spending time on it. Finishing RTK gives you everything you need to learn all the additional characters you want - when/if you need them at all.

Can you read Japanese at a comfortable pace without a dictionary? Can you speak as freely in Japanese as you can in your mother tongue? Can you write notes without spending time struggling to recall kanji? Can you follow conversations or TV without ever losing the plot? RTK3 won't help you improve any of these things. Unless the answer to everything is yes, your main goal is simply learning new kanji, or you don't have any time constraints, there are much more important things you can be getting on with. The last thing you need is something else binding more of your time to SRS.

What percentage of RTK3 kanji would you say is actually useful? I'm not sure if it's comparable though, because I'm using the newest addition, where all the obvious ones like 誰, 頃, and 狙 mentioned above are moved to RTK1.

reich_deja Wrote:What percentage of RTK3 kanji would you say is actually useful? I'm not sure if it's comparable though, because I'm using the newest addition, where all the obvious ones like 誰, 頃, and 狙 mentioned above are moved to RTK1.

What do you mean by "useful"?

Beyond a certain point, you're better served learning kanji from things you're interested in reading, not from an arbitrary list.