I first learned hiragana and skipped katakana because I heard it was mostly for foreign words so I decided to start learning kanji. After struggling to find a good learning method I kept hearing about RtK1 so I tried the sample and have learned about 109 kanji so far and the method is pretty effective.

I read that James stops giving stories after the 300th or so kanji and you have to make up your own so if I buy the book what is exactly in it? I thought the whole reason to buy the book was because of the stories?

There are user-based stories here. http://kanji.koohii.com/ (this forum's website). You have to register another account because it's separate from this forum. I didn't realise until somebody pointed it out for me.

I think you'd benefit more from learning both kana. They don't take very long.

Learn カタカナ now so it isn't an issue down the track. While it may be for "mostly" foreign words, those words come from a range of languages and simply trying to find a 1-1 word in English (or any single European langauge) is going to get you into trouble down the track.

Not only that, but both kana are used extensively in native material, from blogs to manga, to signs, etc. The Japanese use katakana in many other means aside foreign words.

Also, onyomi readings are often written in katakana. For example, if you were looking up the readings for 人 and came across ジン、ニン, what would you do if you didn't know katakana?

You can get the book for Heisig's advices and primitives. I am guilty I rarely use his stories. I always grab stories here in koohii or I make my own. The crazier the story is, the better.

You should definitely learn katakana too. At least the basic if you want.

The book orders the kanji by there components, presenting them in an order that is much easier to learn than the normal frequency/Japanese school system based ones, and lists the components of each kanji. Heisig also points out the differences between very similar radicals, names the components that for some reason aren't considered radicals, and lets you know when a combination of radicals is common to many kanji and deserves a name of it's own.

It's all very useful stuff, but you can certainly learn kanji without it. The question is: do you already feel comfortable learning any kanji you come across, or do you need still need help? If you're worried about the lack of stories you can use the ones on this site, but they can be a little confusing if you haven't got the book and you'll miss out on a lot of the help Heisig provides, so I would recommend you get it if you're not yet ready to go it alone.

Thanks for the answers. I'll learn katakana soon. If I do get his book is there an edition you recommend or just get the latest one (whichever one that is)?

A quick note on katakana; they are useful for learning kanji too as some user stories make use of them (probably just 5 kanji in total, but they become freebies when you know your kana).

Book edition does not matter much. The latest edition has more kanji to accommodate the recent additions to the jouyou kanji: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jōyō_kanji

However, once you are done with any edition you will be fully equipped to learn any kanji you see in the wild, so even with an old edition learning the extra 200 jouyou won't pose any challenge at that point.

Hi I just started too!! I recommend using mind maps to study Kanji because they are best for any type of learner.
I personally think kanji mind maps are awesome! I remembered more than 10 kanji characters in a matter of days through mind maps. I also recommend reading a book called ''Read Japanese Today'' by Len Walsh. It helps a lot as it provides a pictorial mnemonic method and describes the origin of most kanji characters.

btw the best mind maps I had found so far are at lannilan.com/category/knowledge-base/

Best of luck

loveanime001 Wrote:Hi I just started too!! I recommend using mind maps to study Kanji because they are best for any type of learner.
I personally think kanji mind maps are awesome! I remembered more than 10 kanji characters in a matter of days through mind maps. I also recommend reading a book called ''Read Japanese Today'' by Len Walsh. It helps a lot as it provides a pictorial mnemonic method and describes the origin of most kanji characters.

Three things:
1) Nothing is best for any type of learner
2) This forum is associated with a site that uses a method in which 10 kanji in a matter of days would be seen as outrageously slow
3) Don't spam