Okay, so up until a month or so ago I've been a complete beginner when it comes to formally (I mean that in the loosest sense possible) studying the Japanese language. My experience with the language before I began to actively attempt to learn it basically amounts to several years of enjoying subtitled anime (I've watched DBZ, Naruto, Bleach, Samurai Champloo, Full Metal Alchemist Code Geass and other popular animes pretty extensively in my day) a decent amount of translated manga (if that means much of anything) and television / music scattered here and there. That's basically the extent, or limit, of my knowledge of the language and culture, just to let you know.

In terms of what I've been actually doing to study, I've been using Rosetta Stone level one and two weeks ago started using RTK 1, along with RTKana (Rosetta teaches Hiragana in a very scant and spaced out manner and I've yet to see a lesson in Katakana yet. There are Katakana characters if one chooses to read in hiragana/katakana form), as my Kanji and Kana learning resources.

As far as my progress goes, I'm about halfway through level one of Rossetta, 249 Kanji through RTK and have pretty much familiarized myself with hiragana to the point that recognizing and writing the characters doesn't require too much effort, with the exception of diacritics, digraphs and diacritic / digraph combos of which I'm still in the process of internalizing fully. I have yet to dip more than a toe into Katakana and am fully aware that Rosetta Stone has it's limits when it comes to explaining grammar, sentence structure, and the explicit meaning of certain vocabulary words which is why I'm here in the first place.

For the TL;DR version: What exactly do you guys recommend I do as a beginner in order to shore up some of the gaps I have between Rosetta Stone, RTK 1 and RTKana right now? I've lurked this site for a couple of days now and can't seem to find a strategy that works with what I've been doing so far.

tae kim (it's freE)

and learn from song lyrics with rikaichan.

I still consider myself a beginner but here is my two cents. It seems most people advocate devoting most of your time to finishing up RTK in the beginning get it out of the way. Once you have RTK under your belt it opens up a plethora of other options. From that point on it is really your choice in what route you want to go.

Nukemarine has an awesome guide that I follow http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

Basically find things that work for you; everyone has a different way to reach their goals. I think Nukemarine's guide is a great roadmap to learning japanese; albeit you can always take a different route to get to the same destination.

Ah, yes, I've heard of Tae Kim's grammar guide, but how do I go about using it? Is it beginner friendly? How do I incorporate it into Anki for review purposes? How regimented is it's lesson structure, if it has any? Should I shut up, download it and just begin?
Thanks for the responses so far, guys.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=10692

This is actually a question I've had before. There are some good answers there.

Got it, ryanjmack. I'll check that link out and see what I can make use of.

On a side note, does anyone else who has knowledge of or experience with Rosetta Stone Japanese know of some tips or pointers on how to utilize it most effectively (Anki flashcards, other review techniques, etc.)? Thanks.

eagles980 Wrote:Got it, ryanjmack. I'll check that link out and see what I can make use of.

On a side note, does anyone else who has knowledge of or experience with Rosetta Stone Japanese know of some tips or pointers on how to utilize it most effectively (Anki flashcards, other review techniques, etc.)? Thanks.

The most effective method is to not use it at all as it's pretty horrible.

egoplant Wrote:

eagles980 Wrote:Got it, ryanjmack. I'll check that link out and see what I can make use of.

On a side note, does anyone else who has knowledge of or experience with Rosetta Stone Japanese know of some tips or pointers on how to utilize it most effectively (Anki flashcards, other review techniques, etc.)? Thanks.

The most effective method is to not use it at all as it's pretty horrible.

totally agree. time is money. time spent on rosetta stone could be used on something that's a billion times more effective. so the uselessness of rosetta stone is exponential if you compare it to better methods which everyone linked to and mentioned.

Ouch! I didn't think it was THAT bad. I think it has some pretty effective ways of giving you some basic concepts to start with and builds upon that with a gradual introduction of newer concepts as you go along. I for one am using it as a convenient method to practice reading and learning some basic vocab exclusively in Hiragana, with quick references to the romaji if Katakana is used, since I haven't learned it yet.

Could you guys elaborate on why you think it's such a bad method to use and why the others mentioned here are better?

I've not used the Japanese Rosetta Stone, but I think it's probably a good thing to do while you're going through RTK. Something that is very listening/speaking based will build a good foundation, I think.

eagles980 Wrote:Ouch! I didn't think it was THAT bad. I think it has some pretty effective ways of giving you some basic concepts to start with and builds upon that with a gradual introduction of newer concepts as you go along. I for one am using it as a convenient method to practice reading and learning some basic vocab exclusively in Hiragana, with quick references to the romaji if Katakana is used, since I haven't learned it yet.

Could you guys elaborate on why you think it's such a bad method to use and why the others mentioned here are better?

Why are you learning kanji before katakana? Why are you learning words in hiragana if they're commonly spelled with kanji? Why are you using romaji ever? As for Rosetta Stone, it's extremely slow compared to just reading a guide on grammar, which is not only quicker, but more informative.

My advice...

1. Stop using Rosetta Stone. It's basically worthless for learning Japanese.
2. Get yourself some basic hiragana and katakana workbooks. Something like Kodansha's Hiragana/Katakana Workbooks would work fine. Spend a few weeks working through them.
3. Buy a basic Japanese textbook. I recommend the Genki series but there are others out there like Japanese for Busy People, Minna no Nihongo, or Japanese the Manga Way. Whichever book you pick make sure to pick up the audio cds and workbooks.
4. Plow through your textbook while doing RTK on the side.

Pretty simple but effective.

PS. Anki is a neat tool for flashcards and memory retention.
http://ankisrs.net/

Yo I started RTK in February, but I made sure to learn the kana beforehand.

There are loads of ways to approach Japanese. Go with whatever you feel most comfortable with/interested in. These are milestones I planned for myself. You might like the structure/progression, but maybe not. Something to think about in any case.

1. Learn the Kana on Anki
Find Hiragana/Katakana decks with audio
http://www.nihilist.org.uk/ (stroke order font)

2. Start and finish "RTK 1+3 with 2010 Jōyō Kanji" deck (20-200 new cards/day)

3. Start and finish "Core 2k/6k Optimized Japanese Vocabulary" deck
3.1. Start and finish "ADoBJG" deck(s) or read through Nihongoresources' grammar guide.

4. Start and Finish "Minna No Nihongo 1 Vocabulary Complete" deck (FINALLY SOME VOCAB)
4.1. SRS remaining kanji from frequency data (wikipedia/novels/news sites).

5. Start reading NHK News Easy articles and watch corresponding video reports. L-R (Listening-Reading) audiobooks with L1 and L2 transcripts. Listen to Japanese news reports/radio dramas/podcasts on your immersion iPod/mp3 player, casually shadowing words/phrases/sentences.
5.1. Buy the Intermediate and Advanced Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar and a Japanese novel IN PRINT OR ON KINDLE (writing style modern, or at least not too archaic) to read. Look up unfarmiliar vocab on jisho.org and read about unfarmiliar grammar with the dictionaries. Read another couple novels.

6. Get active on Lang-8. After several entries, look for Japanese peeps to chat with on Skype.

For someone who isn't busy, I guess each step ought to take...

Kana: 2 weeks
Kanji: 3 months
Core 2k/6k deck and grammar deck/book: 5-6 months
Minna No Nihongo 1 Deck and frequency kanji: 4 months at the most

Listening and Watching/Reading* Japanese: forever
Writing and Speaking Japanese: forever

*the only things left worth inputting into Anki by that point will probably be limited to complex grammar, new vocab from reading, and new vocab from novel/news/blog frequency data, which can all go into one deck.

BOOM. Then work on accent and go visit Japan. Sorted(?)

Good luck 8)

I really think it would be smart to concentrate fully on RTK before doing any other studies (except for learning hiragana and katakana), for me at least it has been a tremendous help.

What I personally have been doing since completing RTK1 is to do Tae Kim's guide with the anki deck, and Core6k for vocabulary. It have worked out pretty good so far and I'm making fast and noticeable progress, so I guess that's what I would recommend (though I haven't really explored other methods that much).

I think Tae Kim's guide is really good, most of the time he explains well and has good examples on each grammar point. The anki deck with 700 sentences is also really useful in combination with the guide to remember what you've read. I've also tried Genki but I like Tae Kim's guide more, I think he explains things from a more natural and logical point of view. But I guess you could try both and see what you prefer.

In your list of things to do I'm about to finish core 6k and I've been working through intermediate grammar dictionary and its anki deck.

At this point I'd say the intermediate book is not nearly as useful as the basic grammar book. Many grammar points in the book can easily be understood by mastering the basic grammar well. It's more like a self-feeding process at that point. I don't regret buying the book for reference, it has given me quite a lot information and helped me work out some issues. Frankly there are certain grammar structures in the book I'd say belong to the basic grammar edition.

I really feel like I have little reason to ever buy the advanced grammar book though.

I also started reading NHK Easy halfway through core 6k. I definitely would recommend starting to look into native material way sooner than post-6k with rikaisama etc. You can that way also start collecting vocabulary related to your interests to Anki and have a large library of common words to YOU ready to be drilled after finishing core or even before it. You will also get a feel of what vocab you truly "get" in the wild and what words need a better explanation than a simple English one word translation to "get".

Of course, these are merely my observations, but I guess another point of view can't hurt can it?

EDIT: as for Tae Kim's guide, it really opened my eyes to the basic concepts of the language but I still felt it was quite lacking to truly understand some important aspects of the grammar and some things were explained poorly. Of course this is different to everyone but for example the use of particle "ni" and its usages was not properly explained in my opinion. It took me quite a while to realize how much the verb used with it changes the meaning. Say, with ageru and morau, or the passive form.

Holy heck, Batman, that's a lot of stuff I need to work on! Thanks for the input so far, people.

Egoplant, I feel that getting myself familiar with the Kana most before completely immersing myself in the Kanji (I've pretty much been doing a lesson a day in RTK and splitting up those that include more than 25 for the next day) will serve me better in the long run seeing as it's the base of the language. Isn't that pretty standard? I say learning to crawl before I run is the best option right now.

kitakitsune, I already have Remember the Kana and I'm mostly working through that and reviewing what I've learned with a basic pronunciation to Kana deck I've managed to create. I've used some of the premade ones found on the Anki website, but I can't figure out how to use them properly seeing as this little blue box keeps popping up where the stroke order (?) is supposed to appear. I've installed the font and everything but nothing seems to work there. As for your advice on getting a textbook, would Tae Kim's Grammar count? I'm kinda low on funds and don't really want to spend money on textbooks (I've spent way too much in that department this semester, heh).

Animosoph, those look like pretty good goals to work towards. I'll check out some of those resources and see what I can do. Might I ask how far you've gotten since you began and how your study schedule is like on a typical day?

AlgoRhythmic, I don't really want to put all of my focus on RTK right now because I want to get the basics of grammar and vocabulary down at the same time. I think that kind of path offers at least a little bit in variety and will give me the least opportunity for burnout seeing as I'm not really a 'sit down, it's study time' kind of guy. I'd like to do Tae Kim and core2k/6k but would like some pointers on which methods would be best for getting through them.
How do you get your listening / speaking practice in BTW?

Betelgeuzah, thanks for the input. When do you think I'll be ready to pull vocabulary from sources I'm most interested in exploring? After RTK 1 and 2? Some time before? Right now? I'm a complete novice when it comes to Kanji and vocab as I said, and would love some tips in that department.
Also, Do you know of any grammar resources that explains the things Tae Kim didn't go into detail about?

eagles980 Wrote:AlgoRhythmic, I don't really want to put all of my focus on RTK right now because I want to get the basics of grammar and vocabulary down at the same time. I think that kind of path offers at least a little bit in variety and will give me the least opportunity for burnout seeing as I'm not really a 'sit down, it's study time' kind of guy. I'd like to do Tae Kim and core2k/6k but would like some pointers on which methods would be best for getting through them.

Sure, whatever works best for you is of course what you should be doing. I do believe doing RTK concurrently with grammar and vocab will limit the help it will provide, but you should still do it your way of course. I just do them in the straight forward way, reading the guide first and then just set the anki decks to introduce a set amount of new cards each day (10-20 or something) and just do what anki tells me to every day.

eagles980 Wrote:How do you get your listening / speaking practice in BTW?

Not at all actually. Right now I'm 100% focusing on reading/writing (the reason I'm writing is because I find that it makes my reading more solid at the same time). I'm mostly interested in reading since that's pretty much why I'm even learning the language from the start, so I'm probably not the person to give pointers to anyone considering listening/speaking. I do plan to do it in the future though.

eagles980 Wrote:kitakitsune, I already have Remember the Kana and I'm mostly working through that and reviewing what I've learned with a basic pronunciation to Kana deck I've managed to create. I've used some of the premade ones found on the Anki website, but I can't figure out how to use them properly seeing as this little blue box keeps popping up where the stroke order (?) is supposed to appear. I've installed the font and everything but nothing seems to work there. As for your advice on getting a textbook, would Tae Kim's Grammar count? I'm kinda low on funds and don't really want to spend money on textbooks (I've spent way too much in that department this semester, heh).

Tae Kim's guide is a pretty decent grammar supplement but that's it. The textbooks I recommended are better resources for you because they give you a more comprehensive foundation in Japanese compared to core and Tae Kim.

I strongly suggest saving money or procuring a textbook through more cheaper means (wink wink)

kana, kanji, words, collocations, sentences.
and authentic context.


try to get to used all these factors using whatever tools you feel are efficient.

the best source is media, but the other options include tae kim, japanese the manga way, and core.

eagles980 Wrote:Ouch! I didn't think it was THAT bad. I think it has some pretty effective ways of giving you some basic concepts to start with and builds upon that with a gradual introduction of newer concepts as you go along. I for one am using it as a convenient method to practice reading and learning some basic vocab exclusively in Hiragana, with quick references to the romaji if Katakana is used, since I haven't learned it yet.

Could you guys elaborate on why you think it's such a bad method to use and why the others mentioned here are better?

The only way to convince you is to offer you better alternatives.

There are two ways to study Japanese: from sources that are didactic, and from sources that aren't (manga, anime, movies, books, songs, radio, including used with SRS or other learning techniques like passive listening, various reading methods, etc.).

I think didactic sources are OK, but boring. I think they're all boring, but to varying degrees. Here's one that's less boring than Rosetta Stone: https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/

Aside from being boring, Rosetta Stone is also ineffective. It hasn't even been designed to teach Japanese, it just uses the same format and content in every language. It's ridiculous to think that could work. Something like Human Japanese (also a piece of software), then Tae Kim and the Anki deck (or a Grammar textbook like that manga one - I forget the exact title- if you're not interested in using Anki), combined with the site I linked to above, would be far more effective, as far as didactic sources go.

I won't go more into the non-didactic side of learning Japanese, because this site is loaded with suggestions already.

^^^

A lot of people here have mentioned sources for "study". Many of these suggestions might give you the impression that you'll have to work hard and wait a long time to fully enjoy the language.

It is of my belief that you shouldn't fixate so much on what tools you're going to use next or when you're going to finish, (a.k.a. the method) on the contrary, you should focus on enjoying the process.

(the tools and suggestions mentioned here are all helpful, but remember the purpose--to enjoy the culture)

kitakitsune Wrote:Tae Kim's guide is a pretty decent grammar supplement but that's it. The textbooks I recommended are better resources for you because they give you a more comprehensive foundation in Japanese compared to core and Tae Kim.

I strongly suggest saving money or procuring a textbook through more cheaper means (wink wink)

Ah, the good old textbook method. Although I'm not the biggest fan of them, I'd much rather deal with the dry, structured lesson format of a textbook than something like a dry UNstructured list of vocabulary to memorize like core2k/6k, although I'm not above doing that if necessary. What I'm really looking for is something like an effective language learning program or some form of interactive media, seeing as Rosetta Stone is apparently garbage if the comments here are any indication, heh.

Hyperborea Wrote:Easiest way to start is to get one of the audio based courses and work it while you do kana, RTK, and into Core2K. There are a bunch of these (Assimil, Michel Thomas, Linguaphone, etc) with most of them being similar in goals and results though they have differences in approach and some like one more than the others.

I'll check some of those courses out and see if it's something I can get into. I already listen to podcasts during half of my free time, especially when it comes to commuting, and would love to take advantage of that. Thanks for the input!

Aspiring Wrote:kana, kanji, words, collocations, sentences.
and authentic context.
^the most important factors
try to get used all these factors of the language using whatever tools you feel are efficient.
the best source is media, but other options (that ive used) include tae kim, japanese the manga way, and core.

I'll keep all of that in mind. Thanks.

Stansfield123 Wrote:I think didactic sources are OK, but boring. I think they're all boring, but to varying degrees. Here's one that's less boring than Rosetta Stone: https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/

Aside from being boring, Rosetta Stone is also ineffective. It hasn't even been designed to teach Japanese, it just uses the same format and content in every language. It's ridiculous to think that could work. Something like Human Japanese (also a piece of software), then Tae Kim and the Anki deck (or a Grammar textbook like that manga one - I forget the exact title- if you're not interested in using Anki), combined with the site I linked to above, would be far more effective, as far as didactic sources go.

I don't really mind didactic sources of learning and actually prefer them seeing as attempting to break down and internalize my favorite anime and manga SEEMS like a chore and would hamper the "fun" aspect of watching and reading them respectively. Now that I think about it, though, what better method could there be to learning a language I'm interested in than analyzing and learning directly from the shows I already watch all the time? I'll do a bit of research and try to figure things out there. Maybe a combination of all of the above would be best?
I'll check out all the resources you cited regarding didactic learning methods and will see which ones work for me. Thanks for the response!

I would like to add that watching anime with subs alone doesn't work to teach you Japanese. However, watching anime with English subs, and at the same time doing other more direct things to study the language, will work together.

If you don't know anything, you'll never pick up words just from the subs. But if you already studied a word (even if you haven't learned it, but only saw it once or twice), you will pick it up when watching something with English subs.

For instance, I've come across 古里 (ふるさと) exactly once before today. Today, I watched 僕の彼女はサイボーグ (Cyborg Girl) with English subs. 古里 (ふるさと) was used several times. I seriously doubt I'll ever forget the word. Without watching this movie, it would've taken me ages to brute force the word into my memory.

I agree with AlgoRhythmic and Betel and I'm adjusting my approach accordingly to start listening and reading and shadowing native material during Core. I think Algo is right in recommending RTK be done in isolation. There is no other way to go through it so quickly while acquiring a strong enough retention rate to make kanji recognition easy. Memorising ~3000 associated keyword(s)-kanji in about 3 months is certainly worth the time investment. eagles, I'm 2500 cards into the RTK deck I recommended. I'm only just staring to see some kanji that have no common words listed to them on jisho.org and/or are used only in names. I've been suspending those cards but I might just stop here and begin the core deck today. I'm also adding to my milestones to speak as much Japanese words/phrases/sentences as I can, even if it's just broken Japanese.

Animosophy Wrote:I think Algo is right in recommending RTK be done in isolation. There is no other way to go through it so quickly while acquiring a strong enough retention rate to make kanji recognition easy. Memorising ~3000 associated keyword(s)-kanji in about 3 months is certainly worth the time investment. eagles, I'm 2500 cards into the RTK deck I recommended.

When you say you've done 2500 cards, you don't mean JUST the keywords, do you? Spending time learning the Kanji as quickly as one can is a fine way to go about studying, but dedicating months to JUST recognizing the characters without including vocabulary, grammar, or speaking and listening of any kind is a bit (very, rather) lopsided. You've just completed the first half of learning Kanji with only recognition and the limited keywords Hiesig provides and haven't even started on the character readings (RTK 2, essentially), if what you've written is any indication. I'd much rather take the standard approach of learning the basics of every aspect of the language, Kanji included, and build my understanding up from there, than spend months exclusively learning a single aspect of the language only to find out that I have absolutely no way to immediately apply the vast majority of what I've learned.

Retaining what I've learned so far when it comes to Kanji is a breeze even though I'm spending a lot of my time learning other things as well. Although, to be fair, I'm going at a rather relaxed pace of around 20 a day depending on the length of the lesson. Learning the related Kanji within a lesson (or splitting it up if it contains 30+) without bleeding into the unrelated ones of subsequent lessons is the best way to go about maintaining a 95%+ retention rate even on the first few reviews, I think.