So I just finished RTK 1 after spending 5 months with it.
I'm pleased I started this journey.

Now however, I am a bit lost.
I don't know what to do next to continue studying and improving.
I want to learn more vocabulary and start reading kanji.
I can speak japanese, simple conversation only though.
I watch Jdrama regularly, I can pick up a few sentences in every episode and many words. I believe my grammar is good as I've taken Japanese classes for 8 months using the books Japanese for busy people 1&2.

Any guidance on how to move on would be appreciated.

arsenalawi Wrote:So I just finished RTK 1 after spending 5 months with it.
I'm pleased I started this journey.

Now however, I am a bit lost.
I don't know what to do next to continue studying and improving.
I want to learn more vocabulary and start reading kanji.
I can speak japanese, simple conversation only though.
I watch Jdrama regularly, I can pick up a few sentences in every episode and many words. I believe my grammar is good as I've taken Japanese classes for 8 months using the books Japanese for busy people 1&2.

Any guidance on how to move on would be appreciated.

Hello, I finished RTK1 back in March.

What I'm focusing on post-RTK1 is working through graded Japanese readers in order to match the kanji I learned in RTK1 with readings and to learn the use of the kanji in compounds.

In other words, as I learn vocabulary through reading, I'm learning the various readings of the different kanji.

As I learn new vocabulary, I think back to what the RTK1 keywords of the kanji were and see if the keywords will help me remember which kanji make up the compound. At the same time, I make note of the on and kun readings.

In order to keep track of what I've learned, I created a Microsoft Access database in which I input all the new vocabulary in each reading lesson. I input the RTK1 keywords, the on and kun readings, the meaning in English, and the romaji transcription. I can run queries on the database to generate lists of all the unique kanji I've studied, and also all the on and kun readings encountered so far for these kanji. This allows me to see at a glance that among the kanji I've studied, kanji X is only ever pronounced "gun" or that kanji Y is pronounced one way when it's the first kanji and another way when it's the second kanji in the compound.

I can do other cool queries too. I can say "give me a list of all the compounds I've studied in which one of the kanji is pronounced "shi" and up pops a list of all the compounds in which one of the kanji (first, second or third) is pronounced "shi".

john555 Wrote:In other words, as I learn vocabulary through reading, I'm learning the various readings of the different kanji.

This is exactly what I'm looking for.

This graded Japanese readers you speak of; is this it? http://japanesegradedreaders.com/

arsenalawi Wrote:

john555 Wrote:In other words, as I learn vocabulary through reading, I'm learning the various readings of the different kanji.

This is exactly what I'm looking for.

This graded Japanese readers you speak of; is this it? http://japanesegradedreaders.com/

Actually I'm currently working through this reader:

http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Reader-Le...ed+lessons

A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons in the Modern Language by Roy Andrew Miller.

It's kind of tough but I like it. My goal is to finish the book in 2015. I'm almost done the "elementary" selections and I've already read one of the "intermediate" selections.

Read the reviews on amazon and see what other people think of this reader.

The elementary selections are based on sentences taken from Essential Japanese by Samuel Martin so you'd need to pick up a copy of that too.

Thanks a lot.

arsenalawi Wrote:

john555 Wrote:In other words, as I learn vocabulary through reading, I'm learning the various readings of the different kanji.

This is exactly what I'm looking for.

This graded Japanese readers you speak of; is this it? http://japanesegradedreaders.com/

According to the White Rabbit website the White Rabbit readers "...employ a limited set of grammar and vocabulary which allows learners to enjoy reading without struggling." The "without struggling" would worry me because I find I don't learn as much under those conditions.

Miller's book, on the other hand, states in the introduction that "an attempt has been made here to limit the reading selections to "real" materials, things that people in modern Japan have really written and would really read, rather than to give space to "easy" artificial texts that might flatter the reader's ego but would actually give him little experience in dealing with current Japanese. The readings have all been selected with the interests of the adult, mature student in mind."

I can tell you, the first "intermediate" passage in Miller's book was a struggle to get through, and took me several hours, but I feel I gained a lot from the experience.

arsenalawi Wrote:I watch Jdrama regularly, I can pick up a few sentences in every episode and many words. I believe my grammar is good as I've taken Japanese classes for 8 months using the books Japanese for busy people 1&2.

Any guidance on how to move on would be appreciated.

One suggestion:
1) Use subs2srs to create a large collection of cards based on the dialogue of many shows you enjoyed.
2) Use MorphMan to analyze those sentences and let you study only the k+1 ones (ie. the sentences that contain only 1 vocab word you don't already know). It can also help you filter sentences that are too long or too short, prioritize vocab that appears often in your collection, and reinforce recently learned vocab (ie. it'll try to find k+1 sentences that also contain words that you've learned but aren't mature yet).

john555 Wrote:I can do other cool queries too.

You realise that with your MA you are reinventing the wheel, don't you? Anki search capabilities have been allowing for quering decks in various ways for ages. Examples follow.

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the first character:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:一_
Eg.: 一隅

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the second character:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:_一
Eg.: 逐一

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the first character and it's read as "いっ":
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:一_ Reading:いっ*
Eg.: 一瞬, いっしゅん

Query: What are the words that include "表" and "ひょう" is part of their reading:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:*表* Reading:*ひょう*
Eg.: 代表的, だいひょうてき

Query: What are the words that include "表" and "ひょう" is not part of their reading:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:*表* -Reading:*ひょう*
Eg.: 発表, はっぴょう

Inny Jan Wrote:

john555 Wrote:I can do other cool queries too.

You realise that with your MA you are reinventing the wheel, don't you? Anki search capabilities have been allowing for quering decks in various ways for ages. Examples follow.

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the first character:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:一_
Eg.: 一隅

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the second character:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:_一
Eg.: 逐一

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the first character and it's read as "いっ":
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:一_ Reading:いっ*
Eg.: 一瞬, いっしゅん

Query: What are the words that include "表" and "ひょう" is part of their reading:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:*表* Reading:*ひょう*
Eg.: 代表的, だいひょうてき

Query: What are the words that include "表" and "ひょう" is not part of their reading:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:*表* -Reading:*ひょう*
Eg.: 発表, はっぴょう

Thanks for this. I knew Anki had these operands but the manual is not that great at telling you exactly what they are (or I just missed it).

Inny Jan Wrote:

john555 Wrote:I can do other cool queries too.

You realise that with your MA you are reinventing the wheel, don't you? Anki search capabilities have been allowing for quering decks in various ways for ages. Examples follow.

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the first character:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:一_
Eg.: 一隅

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the second character:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:_一
Eg.: 逐一

Query: What are the words that have "一" as the first character and it's read as "いっ":
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:一_ Reading:いっ*
Eg.: 一瞬, いっしゅん

Query: What are the words that include "表" and "ひょう" is part of their reading:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:*表* Reading:*ひょう*
Eg.: 代表的, だいひょうてき

Query: What are the words that include "表" and "ひょう" is not part of their reading:
Search: deck:Vocabulary Expression:*表* -Reading:*ひょう*
Eg.: 発表, はっぴょう

Thanks for pointing this out, but I prefer my own database for among other reasons, these:

1) The lists I generate are only for the kanji I want, i.e., they are only on the particular kanji that I have encountered in my reading material at the point where I run the query (because the Access database obviously only includes the kanji that I have input. I wouldn't want to run queries on the whole of the jouyou kanji, at least not yet).

2) My database is custom made. I have a field in which I can input the reading lesson number. So I can run queries just on a particular reading lesson.

3) The phonetic transcriptions are in romaji, which I prefer at this stage.

4) Most importantly, my database is in ACCESS, not anki, so I can take file with me and work on it on other computers where I can't/don't want to install anki like at work or at the public library.

john555 Wrote:Most importantly, my database is in ACCESS, not anki, so I can take file with me and work on it on other computers where I can't/don't want to install anki like at work or at the public library.

Not that I in any way want to discourage people from making more, interesting tools, but FWIW, Anki collections are just a sqlite database.

overture2112 Wrote:

john555 Wrote:Most importantly, my database is in ACCESS, not anki, so I can take file with me and work on it on other computers where I can't/don't want to install anki like at work or at the public library.

Not that I in any way want to discourage people from making more, interesting tools, but FWIW, Anki collections are just a sqlite database.

It's not "just a sqlite database". The notes itself are a JSON field in the sqlite, and I don't think his public library computer has the right tools to manipulate it. But he can do in almost any phone or tablet. On android you have ankidroid for example, though the deck browser isn't as good as the destkop one.

john555 Wrote:Thanks for pointing this out, but I prefer my own database for among other reasons, these: [...]

Points 1 through 3 can be done in Anki too. Just create a deck with the fields you want and add the vocabulary you want to remember there. On top of all you can do in access, you can use anki to review them in an efficient way not to forget it.

I would recommend you to stay away from romaji as quickly as possible. And there are tools to automatically add readings to kanjis for anki.

ReneSac Wrote:It's not "just a sqlite database". The notes itself are a JSON field in the sqlite...

If you mean the data for the fields, it's actually just a big string with a delimiter splitting them, the order of which is determined by note type. That said, your overall point is correct that it might be a bit obnoxious to utilize it with just a generic database querying tool.