I'm having trouble with learning new vocabulary, while doing RtK Vol1. I've spent some time learning through it, I don't have a good studying strategy as of now (how many Kanji to do a day). I've been doing Tae Kim's guide and Genki 1, it has been helping but I need to review it more often. Advice will be good, thank you.

Well I'm in a pretty similar situation (in regards to what you are studying). I finished RTK by itself while listening to audio courses. As of right now I add 20 new sentences a day from Genki I and do about 2 sections of tae kim every week.

I found it easier to hammer out RTK before attempting serious studies. There are kanji in the beginning of Genki that you will come across all the way at the end of RTK. For example in chapter three when they introduce you to kanji, 勉強する、聞く　and 映画 are some of the words they introduce. Some of those kanji are found in the 1500-2200 range. If you don't recognize them from RTK it will much harder to learn.

Basically what I'm trying to say is getting RTK done will speed up progress. Coupling RTK with readings, sentences, grammar etc will slow down your pace substantially.

screamingfields Wrote:I've spent some time learning through it, I don't have a good studying strategy as of now (how many Kanji to do a day).

As for not having a solid strategy here's a good idea. Say you have 1000 kanji left in RTK. A very reasonable pace is 20/day. Make it a habit to do that everyday no matter what (make sure you do your reviews too). At that rate you could finish in 50 days. Once you finish you will be primed and ready to dive in to vocabulary and grammar. If you have trouble keeping consistent now or are lacking motivation it might not be a bad idea to reevaluate why you may be learning japanese. It's tough and a long journey. I'm not even that far in to it but I keep a pact with myself. I tell myself I will learn x sentences, review ALL flashcards, learn a little grammar and listen/watch native material every single day.

ryanjmack Wrote:Well I'm in a pretty similar situation (in regards to what you are studying). I finished RTK by itself while listening to audio courses. As of right now I add 20 new sentences a day from Genki I and do about 2 sections of tae kim every week.

I found it easier to hammer out RTK before attempting serious studies. There are kanji in the beginning of Genki that you will come across all the way at the end of RTK. For example in chapter three when they introduce you to kanji, 勉強する、聞く　and 映画 are some of the words they introduce. Some of those kanji are found in the 1500-2200 range. If you don't recognize them from RTK it will much harder to learn.

Basically what I'm trying to say is getting RTK done will speed up progress. Coupling RTK with readings, sentences, grammar etc will slow down your pace substantially.

screamingfields Wrote:I've spent some time learning through it, I don't have a good studying strategy as of now (how many Kanji to do a day).

As for not having a solid strategy here's a good idea. Say you have 1000 kanji left in RTK. A very reasonable pace is 20/day. Make it a habit to do that everyday no matter what (make sure you do your reviews too). At that rate you could finish in 50 days. Once you finish you will be primed and ready to dive in to vocabulary and grammar. If you have trouble keeping consistent now or are lacking motivation it might not be a bad idea to reevaluate why you may be learning japanese. It's tough and a long journey. I'm not even that far in to it but I keep a pact with myself. I tell myself I will learn x sentences, review ALL flashcards, learn a little grammar and listen/watch native material every single day.

This is very helpful. So as of now, I should not try to do as much grammar and do more Kanji? How should the review system work also? Should I first remember the Kanji, then after 3 days review and then after 30 days? Or do I just consistently review them everyday? As for how many Kanji I've done, I've completed around about 150 in the last few days, say 5 to 6 days, they are all in English keywords, as in RtK. Also I've tried to also review other Kanji with Japanese keywords (which very much slowed me down).

screamingfields Wrote:This is very helpful. So as of now, I should not try to do as much grammar and do more Kanji? How should the review system work also? Should I first remember the Kanji, then after 3 days review and then after 30 days? Or do I just consistently review them everyday? As for how many Kanji I've done, I've completed around about 150 in the last few days, say 5 to 6 days, they are all in English keywords, as in RtK. Also I've tried to also review other Kanji with Japanese keywords (which very much slowed me down).

How should the review system work?
It does not seem like your using an srs.... Your life will be 10000000x easier if you download anki. This website also has an srs system for the kanji but I personally did not like the settings too much. Either way you will need an srs for post RTK studies regardless. You can use anki for tae kim, RTK, vocabulary decks and anything in japanese you'd want to put on a flashcard. When you learn new kanji anki will tell you what to review every day. (Hence SRS "spaced repetition software").

If your confused about anki, just google it. There are guides and even youtube videos to help you get started. A great website is also japaneselevelup.com it's a great guide to help you on your quest to fluency. Nukemarines guide is also great, you can find it on this forum by using the search bar. But keep in mind you do not have to follow any guide 100%. I recommend doing RTK first, japanese level up and nukemarines guide does not.


Should I consistently review them everyday? I've tried to also review other kanji with japanese keywords.
Yes you should review everyday, anki will tell you what to review and when. These reviews MUST be done everyday. If not reviews will pile up and make your life more difficult than it should be. Do not even attempt japanese keywords - like I stated earlier just being able to recognize kanji and not be mystified by them is like taking a shortcut and realizing you saved yourself a ridiculous amount of time and headaches.

I hope I made it a little easier to understand

ryanjmack Wrote:

screamingfields Wrote:This is very helpful. So as of now, I should not try to do as much grammar and do more Kanji? How should the review system work also? Should I first remember the Kanji, then after 3 days review and then after 30 days? Or do I just consistently review them everyday? As for how many Kanji I've done, I've completed around about 150 in the last few days, say 5 to 6 days, they are all in English keywords, as in RtK. Also I've tried to also review other Kanji with Japanese keywords (which very much slowed me down).

How should the review system work?
It does not seem like your using an srs.... Your life will be 10000000x easier if you download anki. This website also has an srs system for the kanji but I personally did not like the settings too much. Either way you will need an srs for post RTK studies regardless. You can use anki for tae kim, RTK, vocabulary decks and anything in japanese you'd want to put on a flashcard. When you learn new kanji anki will tell you what to review every day. (Hence SRS "spaced repetition software").

If your confused about anki, just google it. There are guides and even youtube videos to help you get started. A great website is also japaneselevelup.com it's a great guide to help you on your quest to fluency. Nukemarines guide is also great, you can find it on this forum by using the search bar. But keep in mind you do not have to follow any guide 100%. I recommend doing RTK first, japanese level up and nukemarines guide does not.


Should I consistently review them everyday? I've tried to also review other kanji with japanese keywords.
Yes you should review everyday, anki will tell you what to review and when. These reviews MUST be done everyday. If not reviews will pile up and make your life more difficult than it should be. Do not even attempt japanese keywords - like I stated earlier just being able to recognize kanji and not be mystified by them is like taking a shortcut and realizing you saved yourself a ridiculous amount of time and headaches.

I hope I made it a little easier to understand

I use Anki but so much so, I've been confusing myself in the order in which I should be learning. So first RtK, then vocabulary with the Rtk2? Also I have seen japaneselevelup (and it helps) and nukemarine's guide (which also helps).

screamingfields Wrote:I'm having trouble with learning new vocabulary, while doing RtK Vol1. I've spent some time learning through it, I don't have a good studying strategy as of now (how many Kanji to do a day). I've been doing Tae Kim's guide and Genki 1, it has been helping but I need to review it more often. Advice will be good, thank you.

I suggest learning between 1-20 kanji a day. Reviews last a long time after you're done with 2k kanji, so there's no need to rush them. (For example, my longest kanji interval is 10 months from now).

Assuming you use Anki, consider using "kanji dark" in conjunction with cb4960's Kanji Word Association Tool.

Kanji Dark-Deck
KWAT

To summarize the process:
Kanji Dark is an Anki Deck with an "optimal sort by complexity and radical frequency".
KWAT is a tool that creates an importable .tsv deck based on the kanji you know.

*The tool requires that you either manually make a txt file of known kanji, or create a filtered deck of mature kanji using only "prop:ivl>=21" (21 days being "mature") and export that into a txt file.

On grammar, continue reviewing grammar at a comfortable pace. Do all three simultaneously (kanji, words and grammar), but adjust amount learned based on priority and interest. Work at your own pace.

screamingfields Wrote:I'm having trouble with learning new vocabulary, while doing RtK Vol1. I've spent some time learning through it, I don't have a good studying strategy as of now (how many Kanji to do a day). I've been doing Tae Kim's guide and Genki 1, it has been helping but I need to review it more often. Advice will be good, thank you.

I had the exact issue. My native language is Polish, so I learning new english keywords was hard for me.

What I did was to add polish translation to every English keyword. On top of that I copy-pasted a long definition copied from dictionary for each keyword to know how it is used in sentence and what it means.

So sometimes even though I don't know the English keyword I just look at it's dictionary definition to figure out what it means and which Kanjis it refers to. xD

Of course every time I made a mistake and confuse two Kanjis, I update their definitions to make them distinct from each other.

The issue is that I am not exactly remembering the vocabulary itself. I use Anki, I remember it for some time but I can't seem to remember it later on. How do I improve this? This happens particularly when I am trying to remember more than a few words. Should I start reading Japanese material? As it could improve the grammar/vocabulary. I have fewer problems remembering Kanji also (I also haven't went through Japanese keywords of Kanji but that is something else).

Oh. I see. I wouldn't worry too much about remembering vocabulary while learning with RtK 1. It is easy to learn it afterwards once you finish RtK while reading manga, etc. While learning RtK 1 I added some example vocabulary/sentences to my Anki deck, just so I would know how the Kanjis is used.

It is quite easy to forget reading if you just read a word without the context that it was used By the time I finishes RtK 1 I knew reading of just about half of Kanjis.

Once you know learn all Kanjis from RtK 1 you can start learning vocal for example from Core 2k/6k deck. That's what I'm doing right now xD. I thought about doing RtK 2, but I gave up on that idea. It is too hard for me to learn new words without having any examples of how they are being used. Core 2k/6k has included audio as well as images, so it is great.

Everyone is different. So do whatever you think is best for you.

Is there a way in which I can learn the vocabulary while doing RtK 1? Or should I just remain learning Rtk 1 by itself and not learn any of the keywords from it?

The best way is probably to create your own Anki deck.

What I did was to create an Anki deck with hesig keyword on the front. On the back I placed the Kanji, the story, some 1-2 japanese words that use this kanjis and examples of the usage of those words. I spend some additional time checking how the kanji is used and putting an example or two from the Core 6k deck.

For each kanji I would draw it on my iPad/iPhone app(Midori/Japanese) to find it quickly and lookup it's usage as well. For other devices you would have to use a different dictionary for looking up kanjis. There was a thread about it somewhere.

It is possible to create hyperlinks in your Anki deck, which take you to the dictionary with just one click.

I still don't know whether or not I should learn the on yomi, with the kun yomi for some of the words, for example with JLPT N5.

Three years ago I tried learning kanjis, but I failed for many reasons.

One of them was trying to memorize blindly both kun yomi/ on yomi reading, but I would just forget those quickly. So, I don't recommend learning reading alone. There are a lot of Kanjis that have multiple reading and I wouldn't know which reading to use anyway.

For example kanjis like: 西、東、南、北、右、左 are most of the time used as a word with kun yomi reading. So trying to memorize their on yomi reading is a waste of time.

For example kanjis like: 英、　語、週　間　appear most of the time in compounds with their on yomi reading. 英 has like 10 kun-yomi readings in the dictionary, but I have never seen any of them.

I remember during my first year of studying Japanese, where the teacher would give us pages with new kanjis every week that contained both on-yomi/kun-yomi reading and I would be as confused as you are. I didn't know back then which reading were important and which aren't.

Right now, I don't memorize reading anymore. Instead I try to memorize words to know the reading of a kanji.

For example: 先生 (teacher) = 先(sen) + 生(sei)
I memorized that single word (先生）, and whenever I see a new word that contain 先 or 生 I recall the word 先生 and I know how each of them is read.
So if I see something like:
生徒会(student council) I would know with almost 95-100% probability that this word starts with せん(sen). Even If I didn't know the remaining Kanjis, which I do but that is beyond the point.

I would recommend learning one word that you understand well for each kanji, rather than a on/kun reading. It is by far easier to memorize the kanji that way. Just take one word with kun-yomi or on-yomi that you think that is easier to learn for you or used more often. I only memorize words that I've seen being used in a sentence to make then even easier to remember, even if I don't remember the sentence.

Another example of how I memorize words would be:
徒(follower) -> that I know that appears in the word 生徒会(seitokai - student council)
新(new) -> 新聞(shinbun - news paper)
etc.

In general if a word contains 2 kanjis and no hiragana then it's a on-yomi reading..
If it has 1 kanji + hiragana then it's kun-yomi reading.
It is really hard to confuse on-yomi with kun-yomi reading for most of the words, so don't worry about it.



I finished RtK1 just a week ago. It took me 34 days to finish, but I've been learning Japanese for several years. So I'm in a kind of different situation than you are.

Heisig recommends doing RtK1 even before you learning how to read Kanjis, grammar, etc. It may be a good idea, but I haven't done it that way. I guess it is the most efficient way, but it is hard to motivate yourself learning all kanjis, before you can read anything.

pmnox Wrote:Three years ago I tried learning kanjis, but I failed for many reasons.

One of them was trying to memorize blindly both kun yomi/ on yomi reading, but I would just forget those quickly. So, I don't recommend learning reading alone. There are a lot of Kanjis that have multiple reading and I wouldn't know which reading to use anyway.

For example kanjis like: 西、東、南、北、右、左 are most of the time used as a word with kun yomi reading. So trying to memorize their on yomi reading is a waste of time.

For example kanjis like: 英、　語、週　間　appear most of the time in compounds with their on yomi reading. 英 has like 10 kun-yomi readings in the dictionary, but I have never seen any of them.

I remember during my first year of studying Japanese, where the teacher would give us pages with new kanjis every week that contained both on-yomi/kun-yomi reading and I would be as confused as you are. I didn't know back then which reading were important and which aren't.

Right now, I don't memorize reading anymore. Instead I try to memorize words to know the reading of a kanji.

For example: 先生 (teacher) = 先(sen) + 生(sei)
I memorized that single word (先生）, and whenever I see a new word that contain 先 or 生 I recall the word 先生 and I know how each of them is read.
So if I see something like:
生徒会(student council) I would know with almost 95-100% probability that this word starts with せん(sen). Even If I didn't know the remaining Kanjis, which I do but that is beyond the point.

I would recommend learning one word that you understand well for each kanji, rather than a on/kun reading. It is by far easier to memorize the kanji that way. Just take one word with kun-yomi or on-yomi that you think that is easier to learn for you or used more often. I only memorize words that I've seen being used in a sentence to make then even easier to remember, even if I don't remember the sentence.

Another example of how I memorize words would be:
徒(follower) -> that I know that appears in the word 生徒会(seitokai - student council)
新(new) -> 新聞(shinbun - news paper)
etc.

In general if a word contains 2 kanjis and no hiragana then it's a on-yomi reading..
If it has 1 kanji + hiragana then it's kun-yomi reading.
It is really hard to confuse on-yomi with kun-yomi reading for most of the words, so don't worry about it.



I finished RtK1 just a week ago. It took me 34 days to finish, but I've been learning Japanese for several years. So I'm in a kind of different situation than you are.

Heisig recommends doing RtK1 even before you learning how to read Kanjis, grammar, etc. It may be a good idea, but I haven't done it that way. I guess it is the most efficient way, but it is hard to motivate yourself learning all kanjis, before you can read anything.

Thanks for the reply, your method sounds alright, I'll try it myself. It will look like as if I'll remember the Kanji's meaning this way.

I recommend using Anki for learning new works. It is probably the best to create your own deck with cards so you wouldn't forget words that you have learned. Anki is available for nearly all devices so it's quite useful. If you don't know what Anki is, then there are plenty of threads about it. I can post you more information about it if you are interested.

I wish I used that method from the beginning it would same me a lot of time in the long run. As I often kept forgetting new words that I learned and I had to relearn that many times.