Greetings RevTKers! Long time lurker looking for some help.

First off a little bit of background: I started RTK1 earlier this year and managed to finish around March, then I went for Core6k (using nukemarine's optimized order) and got to around 1200 cards before I had to slow down due to some really important exams. I intended to keep my reviews up during that time but the workload got too heavy, I know I shouldn't have stopped but I couldn't afford to fail those tests so here I am sitting at around 500 RTK reviews (which frankly isn't that scary) and a whooping 1000 core cards waiting for me.

Now, the problem is that none of these core cards actually matured enough and I honestly feel as If I haven't learned them the right way. Back then I was doing Vocab to Kanji since that was the default order, and around the 900 mark decided to switch to Kanji->Vocab after reading some threads on these forums recommending it. To my surprise it didn't go very well and I ended up failing a lot of my cards which only made my workload higher.
I realize now that I probably should have spaced my reviews out even if that meant not clearing all of them daily, but what's done is done and here I am, asking for help remedying the situation.

Like the title says, I'm going to Japan in about 4 months (will be staying for 2 months) and I want to make the most out of my studying before then. Right now I feel as if my weakest point is grammar, I'm currently going through JtMW but I still feel like I don't truly grasp some concepts, I wonder if this is just a matter of reading exposure or if I should give some other text book a shot (Genki or Tae Kim's, I suppose). I'm also at a loss on what to do next, I don't think going through all of my half-learned core6k reviews is an option. I'm considering restarting core from scratch but I only really have about 2 hours a day for Japanese, sometimes even less, and I'm afraid that pace might be too slow to actually benefit from it in as little as 4 months. Am I on the right track? Or is core actually my best option right now? If I don't do core I suppose I'll have to make my own cards, but that might end up being even more time consuming.

On the RTK front I could probably do those 500 reviews if I wanted to, but I feel I understand kanji well enough even if I don't remember all the exact keywords and I'm afraid going back to reviewing RTK might cut down on my already limited Japanese study time.

Any thoughts or input would be highly appreciated.

[Zgarbas]

First of all, see if you can make some extra time. Podcasts during commuting/going to school/doing menial tasks around the house/whatnot, reviews when using the bathroom... you'd be amazed at how much can stack up.

Try to make an Excel sheet and organize your study time. From the sound of it, organization is your main concern. A timetable helps with that.

Making your own cards is time-consuming, and since time is an issue then just start doing core from scratch. If you can afford iKnow, I'd recommend it for core6k. Keep in mind that the core vocabulary overlaps with most beginner textbooks vocabulary, so they'll help each other out (since core handles the vocab you can focus on usage and grammar when doing a textbook). It doesn't matter which textbook you choose since most N5-N4 textbooks are about the same. Try using the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar as a supplement. You can also try writing practice sentences for each point, or using a databese like renshuu to keep track.

2 hours per day for 4 months is actually a pretty good pace. Your aim at the moment is to get to a basic enough level to benefit from your time in Japan, right? (Or is it to make the most of 4 months of study so as to enjoy your trip?)

Yatagarasu Wrote:I'm currently going through JtMW but I still feel like I don't truly grasp some concepts, I wonder if this is just a matter of reading exposure or if I should give some other text book a shot (Genki or Tae Kim's, I suppose).
Any thoughts or input would be highly appreciated.

JtMW is a good textbook as many people have stated BUT I didn't use it as a beginner textbook. I feel it is better to use for review later in grammar study. I used Genki 1, Genki 2, Tobira, then Kanzen Master 2kyu and 1kyu in that order first. I then went through JtMW as a review tool and for more info on casual speech and writing. Genki I and II have more detail and are much easier to understand for a beginner in my opinion. If I were you I would study Genki 1 and 2 and then go through JtMW at your leisure. I didn't like Tae Kim's Guide so I used Genki 1 and 2 instead. I think they're the best.

The link posted by kodorakun has some helpful advice
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=11084

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[Zgarbas]

Yeah, I kept reviewing with Anki after finishing core6k in iKnow. Anki is much better for long-term reviews than iKnow, but iKnow is best for learning, imho. It really drills words in, the interface helps your concentration, and the listening/recognizing/production combo is very efficient.

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[Zgarbas]

Somewhere around core4k-ish I just added the core6k* deck into anki and did everything again (as review, really; I modified the intervals so that if I clicked "very easy" from the get-go it would go straight to mature) whilst continuing with the core deck normally in iKnow. Once I finished iKnow I had a core6k deck ready to SRS as normal.

For the record, almost all the terms in core6k were left in the mature zone and moved up to a year+ interval, as opposed to the words I learned with Anki later on which would have a pretty low retention rate by comparison (also, I advanced much slower).

*I think I jumped straight to the CorePLUS deck since it would go through core6k and have extra vocabulary after that. However, I don't like the coreplus deck that much since the post-core6k order makes no sense. Any core6k deck would do, I guess? I had Kanji->reading&meaning, with the sentence audio playing by default.

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I did this a couple years ago. I made a topic like 150 days until japan or something i dont remember. I was planning to finish core and RTK etc. etc. I ended up not finishing Core at the time because that would of been ridiculous with school but i didn't realize at the time. RTK helps I think though. If this is your first time going to Japan with RTK behind you you now will see the Kanji surrounding you and your mind goes into this weird absorption phase where you feel hyper stimulated all the time by looking at kanji and keywords/stories pop in your head. Its tiring but i thoroughly enjoyed that adjusting period. After a while I think my brain just turned it off because it was too much unnecessary noise and started to only notice the Kanji when i tried to read something which is more preferred.

I'd study some grammar from whatever method you prefer and work slowly through core if you feel like it. The grammar is going to help you speak with whatever words you do know so you can actually talk with people if you are brave enough or charming enough to do so. My conversations at first were always random but i still had fun practicing with some native speakers. Looking back some of them probably had no real interest in talking with me in crappy japanese but keep at it because it gets better. I had conversations about Kanji that they feigned interest in but were a little impressed i can write and understand kanji without being able to read it and I'm not fluent in chinese or anything.


TL;DR IMO Stick to the path of RTK/CORE because you are trying for long term success. Focusing more on RTK. But also I would add some more sentences from grammar lessons so you can have better conversations.


Try speaking to yourself in japanese. I've been doing this lately and when I can't figure out how to say something I write it down in a small pocket notebook or on my phone and look for grammar/vocab for it.

Thanks everyone for such in-depth replies. I just woke up so please excuse my poor English for this post.

Zgarbas Wrote:First of all, see if you can make some extra time. Podcasts during commuting/going to school/doing menial tasks around the house/whatnot, reviews when using the bathroom... you'd be amazed at how much can stack up.

You make a decent point. To be fair, I'm sure I could get an extra hour or two daily for Japanese if I really wanted to, but since I spend most of my day either studying or attending class by the time I get home I'm already pretty exhausted and would rather relax for a bit.

About iknow, I already knew about it but was under the impression it was pretty much the same as a core6k anki deck, guess I was wrong! I'll check it out.

Zgarbas Wrote:2 hours per day for 4 months is actually a pretty good pace. Your aim at the moment is to get to a basic enough level to benefit from your time in Japan, right? (Or is it to make the most of 4 months of study so as to enjoy your trip?)

Both, really. I know I'm gonna enjoy my trip anyway but I really like the language and I'm in it for the long-term. Since I get the chance to go to Japan why not try and make the most out of it?

PotbellyPig Wrote:JtMW is a good textbook as many people have stated BUT I didn't use it as a beginner textbook. I feel it is better to use for review later in grammar study. I used Genki 1, Genki 2, Tobira, then Kanzen Master 2kyu and 1kyu in that order first. I then went through JtMW as a review tool and for more info on casual speech and writing. Genki I and II have more detail and are much easier to understand for a beginner in my opinion. If I were you I would study Genki 1 and 2 and then go through JtMW at your leisure. I didn't like Tae Kim's Guide so I used Genki 1 and 2 instead. I think they're the best.

Yeah, I was thinking of giving Genki a try too. It's not that JtMW isn't clear, but I just can't seem to internalize the contents. I actually tried Tae Kim a while ago and didn't like it much either so Genki was my first choice if I were to switch text books.

Aspiring Wrote:The link posted by kodorakun has some helpful advice
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=11084

Thanks for this, it was an interesting watch. While going through it I realized this is pretty much how I learned English, I just didn't give it much thought at the time since I was so young. I don't feel I can do the same with Japanese just yet though, I tried to start reading some stuff a while ago but the amount of unknown vocab and especially grammar points was way under my comfortable threshold. I'm pretty much sure this is the approach I'll take after I get the basics down though.

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:TL;DR IMO Stick to the path of RTK/CORE because you are trying for long term success. Focusing more on RTK. But also I would add some more sentences from grammar lessons so you can have better conversations.
Try speaking to yourself in japanese. I've been doing this lately and when I can't figure out how to say something I write it down in a small pocket notebook or on my phone and look for grammar/vocab for it.

Not quoting your whole post but I did read it all! I'm also not expecting to finish core by the time I get to Japan, that would mean more than 50 words a day and I know I'd just burn out way before then. Do you recommend I go back to reviewing RTK then? I may not remember all the stories/keywords but I feel comfortable around kanji after having finished it, I can even recognize most of the radicals with a few exceptions.
And I'll try to speak to as many Japanese people as I can, for as long as they can stand me. I kinda feel sorry for them really!
I also speak to myself in my limited Japanese all the time, not consciously but I did the same in English (I still do, actually) and even French when I was learning it (but my French didn't get anywhere since I was only learning it for school and didn't have much interest to begin with).

[Zgarbas]

daevil Wrote:You don't happens to remember the numbers you used to modify the intervals? Your settings seemed to be working.

IIRC, I had set it to be
Fail-> Treat as normal new cards
Good-> 1 day interval
Easy->3-5 day interval
Very easy->30-40 day interval

I liked having a few days interval for each one so as to not pile up the reviews too much (since I was adding 100 a day for the first part of core, and 50 a day for the latter part; as they were all reviews and many of them were sent to the "very easy" pile from the get-go it didn't take long).
If I wouldn't understand the sentence via audio, though I knew the word, I'd only mark it as good/easy.

I wouldn't start the core deck from scratch. Anki is designed to handle information you've forgotten, so by doing that you're essentially throwing away material that you did retain.

[RawToast]

daevil Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:Anki is much better for long-term reviews than iKnow, but iKnow is best for learning, imho.

Okay but did you add the courses to Anki after you had all 6000 core cards mastered or in like 100/1000 piles?

I am using iKnow but I don't know which Anki deck resembles the decks that iKnow offers. Would be really cool if you could tell me, would really help.

I also found iknow better for learning than Anki.

I just used the standard core decks (the ones from Nukemarine's guide). When I completed a step on iknow I ran through the items in the step and suspended them. It only took 5 minutes each time.

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I don't see any harm at all in trying to use my site as well during this four month period. In addition to the advice that has been given, I would also note that exposure is crucial to making this time worthwhile. With that said, if you want to work more on your grammar, resources like mine with lots of information about it will become your best assets.

What everyone else said.

Also, I would consider thinking about what you plan on doing while you are in Japan and study specifically for that. For instance, learn the kanji for the neighborhood that you are staying in, the different kinds of trains (快速...), learn to recognize the name of your hotel if it is kanji. Learn how to ask for things that you may need, foods that you might order at the restaurant... In short prepare to do as much in Japanese as possible(or what would you need to know if you couldn't use anything but Japanese in Japan.

Enjoy!

[Zgarbas]

daevil Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:Yeah, I kept reviewing with Anki after finishing core6k in iKnow. Anki is much better for long-term reviews than iKnow, but iKnow is best for learning, imho. It really drills words in, the interface helps your concentration, and the listening/recognizing/production combo is very efficient.

But is Anki really that much better for long term reviewing?

Is it the intervals or the amount of reviews per card (or maybe combo) that makes iKnow worse?

Iknow is AWFUL at reviews (re: the review function after you the steps). Not only are they limited to core6k where many words have the same definition, so you fail many words by default since responding with the wrong word will be marked as an incorrect answer even though you are technically right. This means that half your reviews will be the plethora of terms with the same definition. Also, it has no long-term plan as after core6k there is no reason to keep paying for iknow. The intervals are awful and don't seem that SRSed. Also, the review function is definition-to-word only IIRC, so absolutely no chance of personalization. Also, and this is only a minor quirk, since it is online there are always wasted seconds between each word while the new word loads; this is not so problematic in the core steps as there is a limited amount of vocabulary in each one, but when the hundreds of reviews show up you'll notice that they take way longer than reviewing with anki.

Nothing bashes the words in your head like learning them with iKnow, but their review system is just one major fail.