I would assume that the pronunciations take longer however I am not sure. I am only going in to day 3 of RTK1 at 20 kanji per day. If I was to start learning pronunciations after RTK1 would I be doing less, the same or more kanji per day?

Just to be clear, learning the various readings (ie pronounciations) each kanji has in isolation is not recommended (except for the pure and maybe semi-pure groups described in RTK 2).

As for learning new words, which will have both a new meaning and a new pronounciation, I guess it will depend on how much time you will spend on them a day compared to how much time you spent on RTK. An average on this forum is 40-50 new words a day.

EratiK Wrote:Just to be clear, learning the various readings (ie pronounciations) each kanji has in isolation is not recommended (except for the pure and maybe semi-pure groups described in RTK 2).

As for learning new words, which will have both a new meaning and a new pronounciation, I guess it will depend on how much time you will spend on them a day compared to how much time you spent on RTK. An average on this forum is 40-50 new words a day.

So I should be going on to the Core 2000 Anki deck and learning through compounds in sentences?

When I say "not recommended", I don't mean that in a rigid way, rather that we all learn differently and you have to find out what works out best for you. But yes, on average, learning pronounciations with compounds is more practical. Also remember in Core the sentences are only here for context, your focus should primarily be on the compounds, so it's okay if you don't understand the sentences fully.

EratiK Wrote:When I say "not recommended", I don't mean that in a rigid way, rather that we all learn differently and you have to find out what works out best for you. But yes, on average, learning with compounds is more practical. Also remember in Core the sentences are only here for context, your focus should primarily be on the compounds, so it's okay if you don't understand the sentences fully.

Is it advisable to use the Core decks simultaneously to RTK1 or would that be useless?

jourukun Wrote:Is it advisable to use the Core decks simultaneously to RTK1 or would that be useless?

Maybe not useless but possibly overwhelming. I started Core after I finished RTK so I don't know, but I imagine somebody starting Core when he's half way through RTK shouldn't have too much problem. Maybe wait for someone with experience to confirm that.

jourukun Wrote:

EratiK Wrote:When I say "not recommended", I don't mean that in a rigid way, rather that we all learn differently and you have to find out what works out best for you. But yes, on average, learning with compounds is more practical. Also remember in Core the sentences are only here for context, your focus should primarily be on the compounds, so it's okay if you don't understand the sentences fully.

Is it advisable to use the Core decks simultaneously to RTK1 or would that be useless?

I've read how some people use it simultaneously, but from my personal experience with reviewing, unless you have a lot of time and patience, it might be best to form a building block foundation of sorts. Do one thing at a time, or prioritize the learning experience by having one main focus, and a side focus. Like learning RTK as your main focus, and learning some Core 2k as a smaller secondary focus... maybe even pair the two in some way.

Kana, RTK, and the Core vocab series seems to be the primary progression I see on this forum, but isn't by any means the only way. Some people do RTK and then pick up the onyomi readings for each of the RTK kanji, and then learn kunyomi through vocabulary. There was one person who went that method, who, after two months, was reading Japanese novels with the aid of a dictionary. But each person's experience varies.

I've researched a few methods and personally found the kana, RTK, Core vocab to be a decent way to go, although I'm still at the beginning stage so I can't really say what would be best for someone else. All I know is that dedicated reviews can sometimes be difficult, particularly if your reviews pile up and you have reviews running for both RTK and Core 2k.

EratiK Wrote:As for learning new words, which will have both a new meaning and a new pronounciation, I guess it will depend on how much time you will spend on them a day compared to how much time you spent on RTK. An average on this forum is 40-50 new words a day.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing that many words a day. The reviews will pile up. After a time I settled on 33 new words a day which amounts to around ~350 reviews daily for me. I don't think I can stand more than that since I have other decks to go through.

I'm at frame 830+ in RTK and I've started doing Core2k some time ago.
I should add that I'm now in the second year of a japanese course, so I already know a lot of the words I find in Core2k, which makes easier going throught it.

My experience until now is that knowing one third of RTK1 kanji is enough to have fun noticing them in most vocabulary, and can help you with the meaning of the kanji if English is not your mother tongue and some of the keywords don't make sense to you.

I don't do each day the same amount of new cards. If I have time to stay look at the book and invent stories I go for RTK, otherwise I just see how many words stick to me doing Core. Keeping a tight schedule with both of them would be very time consuming.

It might be seductive to learn lots of things simultaneously, but even if things don't get in the way of each other, you waste opportunities by doing so.
Let's say you do RTK and Core simultaneously, you will encounter many Kanji in core you didn't learn yet in RTK. If you did RTK first and got your recognition to a solid level by letting the reviews cool down for a week or two, Core, and with it a lot of readings, would go much faster.
If you're already 1000 words in, you won't see many cards in Core anymore, as many would already be mature.

The characters, the pronunciation and the Kana are the base of the studies, so doing these things first will make it much easier. If you want to do something in Japanese already and don't want to wait, I'd do some audio course, such as Michel Thomas or JapanesePOD101, where you train listening comprehension, pronunciation and get some grammar and vocab while not interfering with your base.

After RTK is done and when you then turn to a good grammar course and Core, you can already write the Kanji and Kana, you can make sense of the example sentences in Core and the input will be very efficient.

I didn't know this when I started, but Michel Thomas came really early in my studies, and so did Japanesepod101, so I was "accidentally lucky".