I have come to realize that my kanji and vocab knowledge are strong[er than most learners'] because of RTK and Core, respectively. I've been speaking via Skype tutor and am finding that I often show a kanji to her so she can remind me of the word I'm looking for, and then I go an misuse the word, or just speak a very unnatural sentence.

I think that engaging daily with a wide variety of unique sentences and practicing speaking will help bridge this gap, but I'm also hoping for other insights from people who have experienced this.

This has been repeated many a time on this here forum:
Don't be lazy by using only pre-made decks; make your own sentence decks by mining native sources. I didn't listen to this advice.

I know it has been suggested on _____ and by _____ to do RTK first thing before even learning hiragana when beginning Japanese.
Has anyone done this? Did it feel like you were playing catch-up while you learned the readings, etc.?

I've been exchanging mail with a japanese friend since halfway through RTK, and it made my confidence jump leaps and bounds. Not to mention that I picked up a few colloquialism and phrases that you wouldn't find in Core(x)K. Nothing beats native materials, that's a given.

But sounding "unnatural" is pretty normal in any languages when you start out, no matter where you learned - it's an issue that only time and practice can solve. Pre-made decks have their uses. Sure, if that's your only source then your L(x) might sound a bit stiff, but then again, if you rely only on one source, whatever the source, it will contrive your L(x), at least at first.

Your warning makes sense, but I feel it should be extended to nor overrelying on only one type of source - mix stuff. There is manga japanese, anime japanese, drama japanese, modern literature japanese, classic literature japanese, office japanese, street japanese, convenience store japanese, movie japanese, sushi restaurant japanese, etc. And there are things to take from all of of them.

As for doing RTK before learning kanas, I didn't do that. I learned my kanas before RTK, but I didn't learn any readings while going through RTK. It didn't feel like playing catch-up at all, catching-up to what ? Learning a language is a very personnal process so I didn't feel the need to compare myself to anyone out there - as long as I'm satisfied with my results I'm fine. Learning the readings after RTK, in context, actually feels like playing the language game in easy mode - the readings stick quite naturally and now that the writing has been completely demystified, it just feels like learning any languages I've ever learned, rather than fighting the mythical imposiburuuuuuuu three-headed japanese language scarecrow.

I don't know who's saying that RtK should be done before Kana (is ajatt saying that maybe???). Makes no difference. But, if you do RtK, it is best to do it before learning vocab and grammar. That way you can actually use RtK the whole time you're learning vocab.

Don't get me wrong, you can learn a language without learning to read and write it. But, as an adult, it's generally a good idea to learn to read and write first. For that, in European languages you have to learn the Latin alphabet first, for Russian the Cyrillic, for Japanese the Kanji (by whatever method, not necessarily with RtK).

How would that hurt you? I will give it to you that, in Japanese, because learning the Kanji takes so long, there are benefits and drawbacks to both these methods:

1. learning the Kanji first
2. ignoring Kanji, learning them only after you're advanced (don't know if RtK works at that point, probably best to just go with some other method).

The benefits of the first are that you're learning Japanese efficiently: start with what's needed the most (the characters the language uses), continue with what needs those characters (words, grammar, text).

The benefits of the second are that you're having more fun: you get to a level where you can listen to Japanese and read stuff that has furigana much quicker. And even with books that come with furigana, you can probably find software to add moderately reliable furigana automatically to any text file. For getting around websites, you can just use Rikaisama. Still, there are serious limitations, and it's less efficient, since eventually you have to learn the Kanji anyway. So you're not saving time, you're just making the time you spend more enjoyable.

Doing it in the middle, both Kanji and vocab/grammar together, you're getting the benefits of neither method, and the drawbacks of both (you're still having to do most of the same exact work learning the Kanji before you can enjoy listening to Japanese and reading with furigana, and you're also still getting the frustration of not being able to read anything of substance written with Kanji). Especially if you're doing the Kanji with RtK, which doesn't start with common Kanji first.

Linval Wrote:But sounding "unnatural" is pretty normal in any languages when you start out, no matter where you learned - it's an issue that only time and practice can solve. Pre-made decks have their uses. Sure, if that's your only source then your L(x) might sound a bit stiff, but then again, if you rely only on one source, whatever the source, it will contrive your L(x), at least at first.

Well put. Thanks for reminding me. That's the kind of thing I tell other people and ignore my own advice.

I'm doing Stanfield's #2 and feel compelled to point out that you also learn a lot of kanji along the way - you don't learn to write them, or necessarily the details of their makeup, or an English 'meaning' to go with them - but you still recognise them when you see them and learn how they're read in different words and such. It's not a complete kanji-free-zone. I imagine there will be advantages over RTK when it comes to learning to write them too, such as being able to mix learning writing them with learning/reviewing vocabulary rather than learning them in isolation - significantly more efficient, I feel, than putting in 3-6 months upfront of effort in learning nothing but kanji.

My impression of Core is increasingly that the deeper you get into it the more it's about business words and such that most people learning Japanese don't care even a little bit about. Is this a mistaken impression? If not, I think most(?) people with their ambitions to read novels, play video games, watch animu, etc. shouldn't be relying on it at all...

Aikynaro Wrote:My impression of Core is increasingly that the deeper you get into it the more it's about business words and such that most people learning Japanese don't care even a little bit about. Is this a mistaken impression? If not, I think most(?) people with their ambitions to read novels, play video games, watch animu, etc. shouldn't be relying on it at all...

The way I remember it, the frequency list used for the Core decks was compiled from news sources, so business words would be a lot more common than they would otherwise.
However, I did find it very useful, especially since I'm very lazy when it comes to making cards (the best I've done is make cards with the word on the front and the reading and translation on the back (sometimes I used the Japanese definition if it was more readily available and was simple enough). I added a sentence field, but I haven't used it yet). Even though many words in the Core decks are business oriented, anyone that doesn't want to learn them can just suspend them; there are plenty of more generic words that they'll need to learn anyway.

I at least recommend Core 2k to people. If they can effectively study from native materials by looking up every unknown and making a card for it, then power to them; most people just don't have the patience required to effectively study without some sort of vocabulary primer.

I recently decided to lazily go through Core 10k (I've already done up to 6k) while also adding the occasional word to my own deck, simply because I'm usually too lazy to add things myself. I figure even vocab study from a premade deck is better than no vocab study at all.

Aikynaro Wrote:My impression of Core is increasingly that the deeper you get into it the more it's about business words and such that most people learning Japanese don't care even a little bit about. Is this a mistaken impression? If not, I think most(?) people with their ambitions to read novels, play video games, watch animu, etc. shouldn't be relying on it at all...

Just because a word is "business" doesn't mean it won't appear in novels, anime, etc. Most of the words are really common even if it's supposedly more used in business and I wouldn't want to skip them. It's not business jargon after all but just potentially words that you may not use everyday. Keep in mind that novels and anime regularly use non-everyday vocabulary because a lot of the things that happen in them are precisely not daily life! (and because they are formally polished work written by people obviously very good at Japanese)

As someone who just got done doing Core to see what kind of material was in it after already completing KiC, JLPT1, KanKen 2級, and material for a business test - all the material in Core is extremely extremely common.

Sometimes the way the phrases are structured is more polite or business-like, however the vocabulary is pretty much all must-have. Also, even if you never have occasion to use polite phrasings yourself, they most certainly will be directed at you if you do any interacting with any Japanese people at all. So it would probably be good to study them, and as other posters have already pointed out, they will definitely appear in Japanese media.

While I understand tashippy's warning about not being too reliant on a single source for your studying, it's in no way an indictment of RTK or Core or any other study method.

Speaking is hard. It's a completely separate skill from the other ones that are involved in language acquisition. And again, as others have pointed out, sounding unnatural is unavoidable when you're first starting out. Unfortunately the only way to get better at speaking is to practice that skill specifically. I promise you will get better at recalling words you know or use often.

However, it will always be a struggle to move vocabulary from the part of your brain that understands it to the part of your brain that can make active use of it. The skill you'll end up developing most acutely is talking around the words you can't think of at the moment.

It sounds to me like tashippy, you just got a bit shocked after starting to really practice speaking, but that's completely normal. There's no real way to study to prepare yourself for speaking that's as good as just practicing speaking. No matter what combination of sources you use, starting to speak can be difficult and shocking at first. It gets better. Do keep practicing.

I think the thing most learners should take away from this thread is to not delude yourself into thinking you've prepared yourself for speaking through any amount of self-study. I passed JLPT2 without really being able to speak at all. My speaking only got better when I started practicing it.

Good luck, tashippy!

This is why I recommend home-made sentence decks, or at least a home-made vocab deck. I stopped core at 2k.

I perceive learning Japanese and the writing systems to be two different things up to a point where you can use the script to effectively expand your knowledge of a language.

I actually learned Japanese to fluency by ear and am now doing RTK to make the Kanji my ally for further and more in-depth vocab studies by just reading and picking up words while primarily having fun with the contents of the books.

There's nothing wrong with following paths that others have walked. It takes you somewhere. However, keeping your eyes open and noticing when to stray off for your own good is also important.