So, I've just started learning japanese. My primary goal is reading, but I also want to learn how to speak. This is how I'm doing:

1- I learned Hiragana and Katakana.
2- Now I'm learning kanji, using RTK1, Anki and Koohii (20 per day). But I'm also learning grammar alongside through Tae Kim's guide. 

The thing is, I don't know what to do about vocabulary and kanji readings. I thought about using Koohii to learn vocabulary with the kanji I know, but I'm still not sure. Should I start learning vocabulary and reading right now or just when I'm done with RTK1 kanjis? And how should I do it? I also thought about RTK2, but I saw some people saying it's not really good... Is there other book recommended for readings and vocabulary?

You could probably dig around a bit and find the Core2k deck.

You could wait to concentrate on vocabulary until after you've finished RTK1.  I agree that one of the Core decks might help a lot.  I did RTK2 and thought it was okay, but there were fewer alternatives then.  Are you doing any listening practice?

(2015-12-21, 11:17 pm)bertoni Wrote: You could wait to concentrate on vocabulary until after you've finished RTK1.  I agree that one of the Core decks might help a lot.  I did RTK2 and thought it was okay, but there were fewer alternatives then.  Are you doing any listening practice?

No, I'm not. But do you think it's better if I don't learn kanji readings and just learn the pronunciation of vocabularies?

(2015-12-22, 7:51 am)starlessn1ght Wrote:

(2015-12-21, 11:17 pm)bertoni Wrote: You could wait to concentrate on vocabulary until after you've finished RTK1.  I agree that one of the Core decks might help a lot.  I did RTK2 and thought it was okay, but there were fewer alternatives then.  Are you doing any listening practice?

No, I'm not. But do you think it's better if I don't learn kanji readings and just learn the pronunciation of vocabularies?

Absolutely yes! Learning how each vocab item is read is better than trying to memorise all the readings of each kanji (and then still having to learn which of those readings is used in each specific piece of vocab anyway).

(2015-12-22, 7:51 am)starlessn1ght Wrote: No, I'm not. But do you think it's better if I don't learn kanji readings and just learn the pronunciation of vocabularies?

Honestly it's probably better to learn meanings this way too. RTK is good for writing, but it's not necessary for reading. Up to you though, lot's of people do it for reading as well because they find kanji intimidating.

(2015-12-22, 3:57 pm)kameden Wrote:

(2015-12-22, 7:51 am)starlessn1ght Wrote: No, I'm not. But do you think it's better if I don't learn kanji readings and just learn the pronunciation of vocabularies?

Honestly it's probably better to learn meanings this way too. RTK is good for writing, but it's not necessary for reading. Up to you though, lot's of people do it for reading as well because they find kanji intimidating.

I actually think RTK is helping me and will help even more. When I saw kanjis before they all looked like a mess and seemed impossible to read. RTK is making me familiarize myself with the kanjis, using mnemonics and combinations of different radicals. My main purpose now is not to guess meanings of words by the kanjis, but just to recognize the kanjis.

(2015-12-22, 8:41 pm)starlessn1ght Wrote: I actually think RTK is helping me and will help even more. When I saw kanjis before they all looked like a mess and seemed impossible to read. RTK is making me familiarize myself with the kanjis, using mnemonics and combinations of different radicals. My main purpose now is not to guess meanings of words by the kanjis, but just to recognize the kanjis.

That's good then! That's exactly what RTK does - makes kanji into symbols that you can recognize and reproduce using a mnemonic system. If that's what you expect and it's working for you then you'll do just fine.

There are people who expect it to do much more and are surprised they can't just start reading right after RTK, which is not a problem of RTK just of wrong expectations.

And, of course, there are people with really good visual memories who think RTK is a waste of time because they just 'learn the words' by looking at the kanji a couple times.

I'm not one of those people.... I couldn't keep the kanji straight (especially similar characters that differed only by a single element out of several) until I put my other studies aside and did RTK. It worked great for me, my only regret is not keeping up with my reviews later ... I'm mixing up some kanji that I -ought- to know lately, but at least having done RTK I can easily either recall or make up a mnemonic when that happens so it's not a total disaster.

(2015-12-22, 7:51 am)starlessn1ght Wrote:

(2015-12-21, 11:17 pm)bertoni Wrote: You could wait to concentrate on vocabulary until after you've finished RTK1.  I agree that one of the Core decks might help a lot.  I did RTK2 and thought it was okay, but there were fewer alternatives then.  Are you doing any listening practice?

No, I'm not. But do you think it's better if I don't learn kanji readings and just learn the pronunciation of vocabularies?

I'm not sure what you mean. For RTK2, I drilled the pronunciations and the meanings of the vocabulary.  I'm not sure it's the most efficient approach, but it does help.  As for listening practice, I think it'd be great.  JapanesePod101.com has a lot of free material.  I wouldn't emphasize reading the kanji yet, but learning some words won't hurt.  I just think it'd be a bit more efficient if you already knew the characters from RTK1 before trying to learn vocabulary.

My own advice (based on my own experience) is that when starting out with Japanese you should learn as much of the grammar as you can phonetically first.

What I found was that trying to start right in with kanji and kana while trying to grapple with grammar and vocabulary brought everything screeching to a halt because instead of just sitting back and learning the grammar I was always struggling to decipher the kana (this was just kana too).  It was too distracting at the beginning.

So I worked through an introductory book in romaji first then focused on kanji and kana.

And before people yell at me for recommending using romaji, remember that when you type Japanese on your iphone you're using romaji anyway, so.....

I used an iPhone for years and there is a Japanese kana keyboard you can use so you don't have to type Japanese in romaji. You can use the flick method which IMO is better than Romaji Japanese keyboard.

Here is a video of someone teaching viewers about the iPhone Japanese kana layout and the basic flick typing skills.

https://youtu.be/KKHFWjBvIZw

If you have an iPhone, you can practice flick typing with this app Jae jae flick. It teaches you how to "flick". App is in Chinese but its easy enough to navigate. Learned how to flick using this app a few years back.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jaejae-j...74795?mt=8

Or for android, Kami of typing. Doesn't really teach you how to flick type but its more of a game of how fast you can flick words within a time limit.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...typing.com