Hello my friends!

I know that this type of topic must pop a lot around here, but I search for keywords and didn't find anything that matched what I wanted.

I started learning Japanese with "Japanese for Busy People" last week, and since it's all in Kana, I got also the RTK 1 in order to learn some Kanji and be able to read simple texts in Japanese asap. Lesson 1 went quite easily, and lesson 2 was ok, until I noticed some really strange Kanji. Maybe it's just me, but I think that I don't really need words like "gall bladder", "concave" or "prosperous" in the lesson 2 of a textbook!
Okay, I get that the point is to get one "primitive" Kanji and evolve from there on, but still, I think that for now learning things like that are a big waste of my time and memory.

That being said, my question is: is there anything available, be it a RTK "compilation" or another course, that teaches Kanji in an order more based on "usefulness"? Being able to read simple texts would be great for me =)

Thanks a lot, and sorry if this has already been answered before!

You have other options, such as the Henshall (http://www.amazon.ca/A-Guide-Remembering...d_sim_b_31), which I believe presents them in "school" order, so you get the most important ones first.

There are also one or two shared Anki decks called "RTK lite" or something similar. But RTK's philosophy is "learn everything in an intelligent order". You seem to be looking for "learn the most important stuff first", so I suggest going with something else (such as the Henshall, but there probably are others).

You are not clear what you mean by “useful Kanji”, so to give you an idea what “useful” can mean visit:
http://kanjicards.org/learning-kanji.html

Then, you can pick a list you think is ordered in the most “useful” way.
http://kanjicards.org/kanji-lists.html

Have you ever looked at 'Kanji in Context'? It contains all the Joyo kanji, starting from the most simple to the most advanced, and for each kanji it lists the most commonly used words, and to make it even better, the words you should learn first are in a red font, with more advanced words in black. They recommend mastering the red words first, then going back to learn the more random ones, like 'gallbladder' would be. Seriously, I cannot believe that's in a basic level textbook! I know some people may disagree, but I think it's a really pointless exercise to learn those kind of words at such an early level.

KIC is only for kanji, though, so you'd have to pick up another book for grammar, etc. I used Genki as an all-around textbook and I from what I remember it was all pretty practical stuff, so that might be a good option for you.

I think it's really hard to predict what kanji and what words will be useful. Even of the ones you just mentioned, you never know when they are going to come up. For example, concave is often used in the word 'uneven,' 凹凸（おうとつ). Even if 'uneven' doesn't seem like a particularly common word that you would need to know, it comes up quite a bit (凹凸 is even used to refer to things like 'bumpy roads', or 'uneven progress'). The kanji is also used in a lot of words related to holes, cavities, dents, etc., as well as lenses.

You also come across kanji just randomly. I saw 'gall bladder' a bunch of times recently reading the book Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window (窓ぎわのトットちゃん). In one scene some of the students at the school dress as ghosts to scare the other students, and the students call it a 'test of courage', or 胆試し（きもだめし）. Usually 'test of courage' is written using the kanji for liver, 肝試し, but for whatever reason Kuroyanagi-san used the kanji for gall bladder instead. Which, actually, is also used as a variation for 'liver', and both can metaphorically be used to mean 'courage' or 'guts.'

As for 'prosperous', I see it in names from time to time, but it's a pretty rare kanji in regular words.

Even with vocab, I remember in Genki I learned the word 'to knit', which is 編む. And I thought, "WTF, am I really gonna need to know how to say that?" My friends and I joked about it a bit. But the reality is that I've heard that word a million times. My ex-girlfriend knitted a blanket for her sick grandmother, and another friend of mine knitted as a hobby. Beyond that, knit things are called 編み物, a word that's common not only in conversation but also in shops.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think you misunderstood the point of RTK. Learning kanji in 'useful' order, is just following the regular school order (or the modified order used in Japanese classes in college). The whole point of RTK is that you learn the kanji in the most efficient order, since you'll probably want to learn all the Jouyou kanji eventually.

You could look at a frequency list or make your own from the kind of material you see yourself reading in the future, then you can focus on the kanji that show up the most, since I'm pretty sure that's the best way to quantify 'useful' in this case.
Take the kanji from that list and then look them up in a web dictionary that has stroke order (like jisho.org), come up with a mnemonic (if you want), then throw it in Anki.

"useful" is a relative term, it's meaning depends on the answer to the question "Useful towards what purpose?".

If your goal is to be a fluent reader of Japanese, then all the Kanji are not just useful, but necessary.

fabriciocarraro Wrote:That being said, my question is: is there anything available, be it a RTK "compilation" or another course, that teaches Kanji in an order more based on "usefulness"? Being able to read simple texts would be great for me =)

Is that your ultimate goal? Being able to learn simple texts? Or do you just consider that a good intermediate goal, to help you reach your ultimate goal of fluency?

If it's the latter, I would urge you to reconsider, and either continue without Kanji altogether (and learn spoken Japanese/reading furigana first, worry about Kanji later), or invest the time and do RtK in its entirety right away.

But, if you insist on a compromise between the two, there is an "RtK light" list, which contains about half the Kanji in RtK (the most common half). That would still be a useful way to learn with RtK. But even that is a dubious compromise. Going even further would mean completely mis-utilizing the tool Heisig created. You'd be better off just looking for some other tool. If someone already mentioned the "RtK light" list, sorry for the repetition. I scanned the thread, haven't spotted it.

fabriciocarraro Wrote:Being able to read simple texts would be great for me =)

You don't strictly need to know any kanji to be able to read simple texts (or complex ones, for that matter) with furigana. It just makes things easier in the long run.

Thank you all for the quick responses! You guys are great! =)

So, you all managed to convince me to follow Heisig's method and do all the Kanji. So how do you usually go around it, especially with the more difficult ones? You just try to memorize it with its story and meaning, do you write it down?

Thanks again!

Use Anki There are already RTK decks available!

Either make up your own stories, use those from Heisig or take the ones made up by people here.

Good luck!

comeauch Wrote:Use Anki There are already RTK decks available!

Either make up your own stories, use those from Heisig or take the ones made up by people here.

Good luck!

Along with this, you may want to write out each kanji once or twice when you learn it and then just every once in a while while reviewing (I didn't write them out at all during reviews).
I maintain that RTK's best use for beginners is to get comfortable with the kanji by learning to see them as more than just blocks of lines. You can always go back and practice writing in detail later.