Hi all,

As the title says, I'm six days into RTK1, up to frame 150, going at a rate of 25/day. I'd like to do a greater number per day, but I'm also enrolled in university, so free time is limited. I think it's going pretty well so far, and I like the basic approach of the Heisig method, but I have a few questions. I'm sure some of them have been addressed elsewhere on this site, and if so, just feel free to yell at me and tell me to Google harder.

- As I mentioned, I'm in university, and also enrolled in Japanese there as the language required to get my degree. Heisig mentions something in his introduction about RTK being a detriment when used in conjunction with a formal class. I think I get what he means, in that the keywords shouldn't be confused with "readings," and that there's very little relationship between memorizing kanji through mnemonics and most of the work done in a first semester JP class (kana, useful vocab, "useful phrases," maybe the 1st grade joyo kanji). I'm curious though -- is there some other aspect to the RTK that makes it a bad idea to study alongside my regular university classes (which obviously go at a much slower pace)? Am I hobbling myself somehow without realizing it?

- Once the 2042 kanji are memorized, what's the best course of action to start advancing towards real literacy? I know you ideally want to start learning actual vocab and grammar rules at that point, but is there a preferred methodology? RTK2? I've heard good things about these "Core2k, 6k, 10k" Anki decks, but I'm not sure what those actually are. Could someone explain?

Thanks for your time, and for providing this great resource for people like me.

I recommend sticking with a comfortable amount while in school (20-25/day) and then go ham during break (50+/day; stopping new cards to bring down reviews every so often).

You'd realize it if you were hobbling yourself, so take what Heisig said with a grain of salt until you notice you aren't doing well in class.

I haven't completed rtk yet, but when I test recognition through highlighting texts or this great app: http://fasiha.github.io/kanjiwild/ I tend to retain words that come together in combination. If I look them up then the pronunciation and meaning is stuck whether I like it or not (I like it). An example was 警察 ("admonish" "guess"). It means police and from doing so much rapid fire mneumonics, my brain instantly made one for this and I can't forget it.

I will say however, that my vocabulary is larger than expected of an RTKer because I've been studying a long time and putting this off. That may help, and is also a reason I haven't done the core series: because I know the majority of them. So, I just learn through books, manga, what-have-you. I hope this rant helps.

edit: included correct link

jeffberhow Wrote:I haven't completed rtk yet, but when I test recognition through highlighting texts or this great app: http://www.aldebrn.me/kanjiwild/

Thanks for your kind words regarding my little Kanjiwild app the "live" version of this tool is at http://fasiha.github.io/kanjiwild/ (the aldebrn.me server is running an older version and will soon forward to Github.io). I just overhauled the underlying implementation and it might be a bit more useful to you now. Any feature requests and bug reports are most welcome.

I agree with keeping the workload down. Burning yourself out is a significant risk.

RTK2 seems to be less popular than other approaches, but it'll work. You could check out some of the curriculum threads here when you're close to finishing RTK1.

kfharlock Wrote:I've heard good things about these "Core2k, 6k, 10k" Anki decks, but I'm not sure what those actually are. Could someone explain?

The core decks are popular because you get vocabulary and sentences with native audio and english translations. This makes it easy to remix them to have whatever you want on the front or the back. To make it even better, someone "optimized" the decks so that sentences build on vocabulary introduced in previous sentences so there is usually only one unknown word per sentence if you study them in "optimized order". 2k, 6k, 10k etc.. just mean how many cards are in the deck with 2,000 in core2k and 6,000 in core6k. Note that the decks overlap, so core2k is included in core6k, and 6k is included in 10k. In other words, core 10k has everything.

Thanks for the explanations and opinions, folks. I wasn't able to check this thread for a while because I got really busy with school. I even ended up slacking a few days here and there and skipping any new kanji, but I just hit 550 today, after 22 days of working on RTK1, so I'm back on track.

How are you finding doing RTK alongside your university course? I'd like a detailed answer if you have the time, because I would like to know if I should recommend it to university students, and what are the pros and cons from someone doing it now when it's fresh in their mind.

Thanks ^_^