In this forum I think there is a tendency for people to brag that they completed RTK vol. 1 in 2 weeks or some incredibly condensed pocket of time. For the record I would like to state that it took me something like half a year. This is after multiple starts and stops and having lived for a while in Japan! I now have about 96% accuracy in my day to day reviews on Anki.

You would think things are over after RTK 1. Actually, it feels like I am just getting started. Now I have to tackle at least the common readings for each Kanji. Oh well. Let's all remember that it is the fight that makes us strong

So I'm going to briefly pat myself on the back and get to work!

Takizawa Wrote:You would think things are over after RTK 1. Actually, it feels like I am just getting started.

I've got to be honest, not once while researching, motivating myself up to doing, doing and ever after finishing, did I ever get the idea that things finish after RTK. In fact, pretty much most of everything I had read about RTK before finding this website was explaining how RTK is for most people the very beginning, and how it gave beginners an edge.

Probably just read different opinions, I guess?

The person who finished a bit before me on "congratulate me" thread took two years to finish (his anki deck http://i.imgur.com/uttHzpk.jpg)
I tell you, I'm more impressed with him than others, that's determination.

Anyway, don't people suggest not doing common reading?

The thing is, the unability to recognize any Kanji is a very huge obstacle. As you pass through RTK 1, you can read anything, recognize every single character, and thus be easily able to look up the words, or at least guess from the individual meanings and the context.

The completion of RTK 1 is not the end, but its completion means that the biggest obstacle is behind you and that you can follow a lot more paths that you couldn't before. The path to Japanese fluency is still far away, but there's pratically nothing anymore to stop you.

I don't think kanji is the biggest obstacle, it's just the perceived biggest obstacle and or excuse for why Japanese is hard. The real biggest obstacle is absorbing the critical mass of vocabulary required to make general reading and listening accessible. From there it's relatively smooth sailing. I've lived in Japan 6 years and the ability to write kanji off the top of my head is actually of somewhat limited usefulness. At any rate if you have a dictionary or smart phone with pen input you can look up (and get practice writing) kanji without having RTKed them all before hand.

Daikoru Wrote:The completion of RTK 1 is not the end, but its completion means that the biggest obstacle is behind you

I don't want to be a wet blanket but to be honest it isn't really remotely the biggest obstacle in respect to Japanese. That one is a bit of a two-fold procedure of years of vocabulary acquisition and being able to use them and understand them akin to a native. RTK is tiny in comparison. That isn't to say RTK isn't an undertaking and a half.

Started 10 years ago, and not yet finished (sigh)…
Kind of completed RTKlite, though.
Now adding kanji as I encounter them in new vocabulary.
Still having fun, so who cares!

uisukii Wrote:

Daikoru Wrote:The completion of RTK 1 is not the end, but its completion means that the biggest obstacle is behind you

I don't want to be a wet blanket but to be honest it isn't really remotely the biggest obstacle in respect to Japanese. That one is a bit of a two-fold procedure of years of vocabulary acquisition and being able to use them and understand them akin to a native. RTK is tiny in comparison. That isn't to say RTK isn't an undertaking and a half.

Not to mention he only knows how to write them, he doesn't even know pronunciation yet, and only 2k kanji. So even kanji isn't close to done yet.

nadiatims Wrote:I don't think kanji is the biggest obstacle, it's just the perceived biggest obstacle and or excuse for why Japanese is hard. The real biggest obstacle is absorbing the critical mass of vocabulary required to make general reading and listening accessible. From there it's relatively smooth sailing. I've lived in Japan 6 years and the ability to write kanji off the top of my head is actually of somewhat limited usefulness. At any rate if you have a dictionary or smart phone with pen input you can look up (and get practice writing) kanji without having RTKed them all before hand.

uisukii Wrote:

Daikoru Wrote:The completion of RTK 1 is not the end, but its completion means that the biggest obstacle is behind you

I don't want to be a wet blanket but to be honest it isn't really remotely the biggest obstacle in respect to Japanese. That one is a bit of a two-fold procedure of years of vocabulary acquisition and being able to use them and understand them akin to a native. RTK is tiny in comparison. That isn't to say RTK isn't an undertaking and a half.

Quoting both of these posts for emphasis, its true. Obviously most people on this board are very "Pro RTK" since, well, thats what this website was designed for. But still its importance is often over exaggerated, which is why if someone does want to commit to completing RTK, I'd suggest them to do it as fast as possible. 100x this if they aren't even studying any real Japanese until RTK has been completed.

RTK is relatively a walk in the park. Learning tens of thousands of words and how to use them appropriately is really hard...

jmignot Wrote:Started 10 years ago, and not yet finished (sigh)…
Kind of completed RTKlite, though.
Now adding kanji as I encounter them in new vocabulary.
Still having fun, so who cares!

You're learning vocabs while doing RTK too? I am asking because I am not finished yet and was thinking to do the same. I am doing RTK and grammar at the moment.

bimspramirez Wrote:

jmignot Wrote:Started 10 years ago, and not yet finished (sigh)…
Kind of completed RTKlite, though.
Now adding kanji as I encounter them in new vocabulary.
Still having fun, so who cares!

You're learning vocabs while doing RTK too? I am asking because I am not finished yet and was thinking to do the same. I am doing RTK and grammar at the moment.

I honestly think that you would be much better off just focussing on RTK1 and forgetting about vocab and grammar and whatnot til you get it done.

Yes, I do not know the pronounciations yet. Yes, I do not know any vocabulary yet neither. But there are a lot of websites that seemed ideal but that I couldn't access because I couldn't recognize a single Kanji. It frustrated me to see any Kanji since I couldn't recognize them nor make any sense from its shape.

Since I got at 1500 Kanji, I started playing Zelda in Japanese, on NDS. And there's something I can tell: learning the meaning of Kanji helped me A LOT. I learn vocabulary a lot more easily, I can guess the meaning of sentences a lot more easily, I sometimes associate words I already knew to Kanji and instantly make the word stick to my head. I never block anymore when I see a Kanji.

Now, I'm thinking on heading for vocabulary using websites that uses Kanji. One in particular which makes me drill through vocabulary in Kanji and uses "levels" to motivate, that's something I couldn't access before because it was frustrating to not recognize a single Kanji.

I don't know about you, but to me, it feels like the rest of the practice toward Japanese fluency will be easier. There was only one thing that demotivated me, and it was the unability to recognize the Kanji. There's nothing left to demotivate me anymore.

I was fed up with doing RTK only, at a rather slow pace. When I got around 1000, I switched to the "light" option and completed it, getting to about 1500 kanji. Then I started core2000, while taking conversation/grammar courses by Internet at JOI, and I am quite happy with that.
My retention rate is rather low, possibly due to age (I am 62), so everything takes longer. Therefore, I do not pretend to recommend the way I am doing, especially to younger people with higher memorization abilities. The lucky folks that can rush through the full RTK in one month are welcome to brag here : I am just jealous

bimspramirez Wrote:You're learning vocabs while doing RTK too? I am asking because I am not finished yet and was thinking to do the same. I am doing RTK and grammar at the moment.

Daikoru Wrote:Yes, I do not know the pronounciations yet. Yes, I do not know any vocabulary yet neither. But there are a lot of websites that seemed ideal but that I couldn't access because I couldn't recognize a single Kanji. It frustrated me to see any Kanji since I couldn't recognize them nor make any sense from its shape.

Since I got at 1500 Kanji, I started playing Zelda in Japanese, on NDS. And there's something I can tell: learning the meaning of Kanji helped me A LOT. I learn vocabulary a lot more easily, I can guess the meaning of sentences a lot more easily, I sometimes associate words I already knew to Kanji and instantly make the word stick to my head. I never block anymore when I see a Kanji.

Now, I'm thinking on heading for vocabulary using websites that uses Kanji. One in particular which makes me drill through vocabulary in Kanji and uses "levels" to motivate, that's something I couldn't access before because it was frustrating to not recognize a single Kanji.

I don't know about you, but to me, it feels like the rest of the practice toward Japanese fluency will be easier. There was only one thing that demotivated me, and it was the unability to recognize the Kanji. There's nothing left to demotivate me anymore.

How long did it take you to complete RTK by the way?

Though its funny, because the person most unable to judge whether RTK is worthwhile is the immediate beginner, yet the value of RTK itself dimishes as a person studies through other methods and gains the familiarity with the characters another way. Its probably why it causes so many arguments and fights.

Did you try to actually learn any Japanese before deciding Kanji was far too scary, and you needed RTK? Your post implies you didn't really, since you begin by saying you don't know any vocabulary...

(oh and recognising characters to help you through Zelda is all well and good, but please don't confuse that with actually being better at Japanese. Its not Japanese until you can read and pronounce the word and understand it)

It took me about 5-6 months to learn all the Kanji. The last 3 were slower due to lots of homework (I currently choose to stay on hold because I don't have much free time anymore). And yes, I have also been practicing Japanese for months before tackling Kanji. I tried a lot of things, I needed a lot of tools, but lots of them were unavailable due to too many Kanji. I tried various methods for learning Kanji, but they were too slow and innefficient. I tried learning vocabulary, but nearly none of them stuck to my head.

I need logic to learn. If I find logic, I learn easily. That's why learning by radicals helped me a lot. That's why mixing Kanji to make sense of a word helps me a lot. That's why recognizing every single character in a sentence helps me a lot, even if I don't know their pronounciation. It's like having a mathematic formula with only unknown values, you get stuck unless you know these variables.

Ah, and the reason I play Zelda on NDS is that it has Furigana. It has a special feature that shows the Furigana of a word when you click on it with the Stylus. It's excellent for getting started and learning basic vocabulary in a fun manner, I find myself not clicking on words more often, because I learn their pronounciation over time. Of course, it isn't the best option, but it's my only one when I'm not next to a computer. I personally view Video games as a way to "test" my progress.

All fair enough, I suppose we all learn differently. For some reason I've never had any real problem with words sticking, so I've always learned vocabulary and Kanji together. This way to me feels much faster because I never had to spend that 6 months to do RTK, I guess we are all different.

Oh and actually I used to play that game on NDS, its actually really awesome how it gives you the Kana. Its a shame that not every game is like that one.

NightSky Wrote:RTK is relatively a walk in the park. Learning tens of thousands of words and how to use them appropriately is really hard...

Learning that many words takes time. But it's only hard if you learn them the hard way, by brute force repetition. It's not hard if you learn them through immersion.

On the other hand, RTK1 is an obstacle for everyone, there's no easy alternative to learning it (well, Heisig's method is the "easy" alternative, but it's still hard). It's an especially big obstacle for those of us who are used to learning languages without any significant effort.

Stansfield123 Wrote:But it's only hard if you learn them the hard way, by brute force repetition.

Aren't they effectively the same thing, though? Either way due to the sheer exposure it is going to end up stuck in your head, be it brute force of drilling them or the brute force of native exposure.

Stansfield123 Wrote:It's not hard if you learn them through immersion.

Doesn't that depend on the person being immersed? Your perceive of difficulty of a given exercise isn't the same as everyone one else. That is to say, extrapolating your experience as an across the board standard does little to value and measure the experience of others.

How would you approach the situation if someone found that learning through immersion was far more difficult for them as opposed to a more structured methodology? Do you simply assume they are wrong?

uisukii Wrote:How would you approach the situation if someone found that learning through immersion was far more difficult for them as opposed to a more structured methodology? Do you simply assume they are wrong?

Oooooh, to save time, please let me give you Stansfield123's answer before he does.

His answer is "Yes."

Immersion isn't as easy for everyone. There are some people that learn to speak Japanese over time, simply by listening to anime (of course, they don't learn to read/write). But in my case, I've been listening to anime for a lot of years, half of my playlist have japanese vocals, yet there's only around 10 words that I really learned from anime. This is why I need tools such as this website, immersion doesn't work well for me, especially on the listening part.

However, immersion is a necessary step toward fluency. If you only learn Japanese using theory and tools, you won't get much practice, you won't get used to reading and listening, their grammar won't become natural to you. You need to practice with real Japanese stuff.

I personally feel that immersion gets easier as you go through the theory. Learn the theory, then as you go back to immersion, make that theory become instinctive. I currently begin with video games that fits the level I have reached in my theory (hence why I play a game with furigana currently), then eventually I'll work with Raw anime (and finally watch that one anime that has never been translated), and to attain true fluency, I'd go play a MMORPG on a Japanese server (do they use Skype?). By the end, I should be fully immersed outside of school and would stop using all tools made for learning.

NightSky Wrote:

uisukii Wrote:How would you approach the situation if someone found that learning through immersion was far more difficult for them as opposed to a more structured methodology? Do you simply assume they are wrong?

Oooooh, to save time, please let me give you Stansfield123's answer before he does.

His answer is "Yes."

You're right, my answer is yes. But:

Daikoru Wrote:Immersion isn't as easy for everyone. There are some people that learn to speak Japanese over time, simply by listening to anime (of course, they don't learn to read/write). But in my case, I've been listening to anime for a lot of years, half of my playlist have japanese vocals, yet there's only around 10 words that I really learned from anime. This is why I need tools such as this website, immersion doesn't work well for me, especially on the listening part.

This is not what I mean by "learning through immersion". Far from it. Immersion doesn't mean "not paying attention".

First off, when it comes to Japanese, the basics of the writing system must be brute forced. There's no way someone can figure out to distinguish the Kanji from each other without some form of systematic study of radicals and the characters they form. But, aside from that, learning Japanese is similar to learning languages that use an alphabet.

Immersion isn't just "passive viewing of media". It consists of any method that employs non-didactic resources to ACTIVELY or passively study a language:
1. http://temp.learnlangs.com/step-by-step/...in_30_days (I don't agree with the claims being made in the article, but it does accurately describe the method)
2. extensive reading
3. I forget the name, but the reading method described in buonaparte's stickied thread
4. repeated viewing/listening of native media, first with eng. subs, then without
5. the study of native media with the help of a dictionary, followed by repeated listening (i.e. songs)
6. plain old watching of media with subs, but PAYING ATTENTION to the language that's being learned, and actively identifying individual words and grammar patterns; for me, this is only possible in small doses, eventually my attention drifts; but it is possible.
7. watching TV without subs, even if you don't understand (i.e. sports - I hardly ever watch sports anywhere except on JSports ( http://www.jsports.co.jp/program_guide/m...index.html ); this serves not so much to learn the meanings of new words, but rather to learn which sequences of sounds are words; you may not learn what a word means, but if you learn that something IS a word, that's a job half done; you of course need to be familiar enough with the language to be able to figure out where one word ends and another begins; I did couple this with the brute force study of 100 or so sports related terms in Anki - but this is a minimal effort

etc, etc. (I'm sure I'm forgetting many, many more)
And finally: a combination of any or all of the above, always making sure to keep it easy and fun, rather than hard and tedious.

I am aware that I must pay attention. But really, the only words I learn are those that are isolated (like when they yell "nigero"). Aside from that, I am unable to tell words apart from each other, I am unable to notice any structure in grammar. I have already tried to learn some songs without reading the lyrics, I can't even be sure I got the right pronounciations (and they often really aren't correct). In fact, I have hearing problems even in my first language (I often make people repeat).

That's why I cannot start immersion from anime and songs. I have to do so starting from written medias, but for most, I needed to learn Kanji. Which is yet another reason to why learning to recognize all the Kanji is my biggest obstacle.

Daikoru Wrote:I am aware that I must pay attention. But really, the only words I learn are those that are isolated (like when they yell "nigero").

It's 逃げる (にげる, means to escape), and yes, that's an easy one. There's also 握る (にぎる), which is almost an antonym (means to grasp/seize), to go along with it.

Daikoru Wrote:Aside from that, I am unable to tell words apart from each other, I am unable to notice any structure in grammar. I have already tried to learn some songs without reading the lyrics, I can't even be sure I got the right pronounciations (and they often really aren't correct).

Why try to learn them without reading the lyrics? There's no law against reading the lyrics.

You should read the lyrics, read the translation, go over the lyrics and the translation side by side several times while listening to the song, and only then start listening to the song without lyrics. In fact, with your first songs, you will pretty much learn the lyrics and translation by heart before being able to follow along just by listening. And it will still take concentration to follow along. This is all very much analogous to the way small children learn songs by heart in their first language, btw. (and to the way teenage girls everywhere learn English as a second language)

At least that's how I did it. You should do all this only if it works for you. If it doesn't (and you might very well find it boring, if you don't really love the songs you're studying), then there are a million other sources to learn from besides songs.

I don't think specific methods and sources work for everyone. But there is a method and source for everyone. If there really isn't, then that's because that person has no interest in the target language and culture. In that case I'm confident that no method will work, didactic or immersive.

Stansfield123 Wrote:

Daikoru Wrote:I am aware that I must pay attention. But really, the only words I learn are those that are isolated (like when they yell "nigero").

It's 逃げる (にげる, means to escape), and yes, that's an easy one. There's also 握る (にぎる), which is almost an antonym (means to grasp/seize), to go along with it.

Daikoru Wrote:Aside from that, I am unable to tell words apart from each other, I am unable to notice any structure in grammar. I have already tried to learn some songs without reading the lyrics, I can't even be sure I got the right pronounciations (and they often really aren't correct).

Why try to learn them without reading the lyrics? There's no law against reading the lyrics.

You should read the lyrics, read the translation, go over the lyrics and the translation side by side several times while listening to the song, and only then start listening to the song without lyrics. In fact, with your first songs, you will pretty much learn the lyrics and translation by heart before being able to follow along just by listening. And it will still take concentration to follow along. This is all very much analogous to the way small children learn songs by heart in their first language, btw. (and to the way teenage girls everywhere learn English as a second language)

This is how I started teaching myself Japanese :/ I would print out the lyrics and then write them down in a notebook, and then I'd go through the Japanese lyrics and the English translation and pick out words that I saw appearing multiple times (光、涙、溢れ出す、抱きしめる) and that's how I learned my first few hundred words. It took me years before I was able to listen to a song and pick out words the first time around. Even now I still have a bit of trouble "understanding" the whole thing at once.

But yeah, definitely do this, it helps. I mean, you know, if that works for you and whatnot.

AkiKazachan Wrote:This is how I started teaching myself Japanese :/ I would print out the lyrics and then write them down in a notebook, and then I'd go through the Japanese lyrics and the English translation and pick out words that I saw appearing multiple times (光、涙、溢れ出す、抱きしめる) and that's how I learned my first few hundred words. It took me years before I was able to listen to a song and pick out words the first time around. Even now I still have a bit of trouble "understanding" the whole thing at once.

Well, yeah. There's no getting around the minor detail that learning a language is a function of two main factors: 1. time spent actively learning and 2. volume of natural language processed; and that in the case of Japanese, that time spent is up to 2000 hours, and the volume required is exactly one crapload.

So one must not only spend as much time as possible, but also process as much volume as possible. But, despite some of the claims I found by following links to the depths of the Internets, from buonaparte's stickied thread, fact is that early on it's only possible to process very little volume of a new language.

There's no way relying on songs alone is enough. But it is a useful component, it has pros and cons:
- songs are a low volume source, obviously, best suited for early study, when processing larger volumes is impossible anyway.

- on the upside, if you process enough songs (and also use other methods, in parallel), after a while listening to any Japanese music becomes learning without studying. That's what you wanna aim for in every area of your immersion: a stage where you have enough comprehension that you can listen to new source material and follow along with zero effort - a point where passive and active listening are no longer two different things. With pop music, that stage is much easier to reach than with novels or even television.