Hi~! I'm a new user of the "Remembering the Kanji" book and this website's review method, though I have been studying Japanese for many years. I had fallen out of practicing Japanese for about a year, however, and have just recently started reviewing, and learning some things for the first time! After many previously failed methods, I really want to go about learning Japanese the 'right' way this time. I had already learned the hiragana and katakana, 300+ kanji, lots of vocabulary and sentence patterns and gone through many a lesson in 'Japanese for Everyone', but never got as fluent as I hoped. Since I now have Remembering the Kanji, Genki I, and the Pimsleur: Japanese I, II, and III CD sets (at long last!), I am trying to develop a systematic study plan, so I can learn Japanese in-between the other activities I engage in throughout each day. I've decided that these two things seem to work together pretty well:

- Listen to one 30-min. Pimsleur: Japanese I lesson daily [take the weekends off]
- Do four lessons of "Remembering the Kanji" on the weekend, occasionally review kanji during the week via flashcards (I hand-made flashcards for nearly all of the Joyo kanji from my previous ventures in Japanese, so they are coming in handy again!) and website

Should I wait until after I finish Pimsleur Japanese I (or even II? or III?) to start the Genki textbook? Are there other things I should add or change in my study plan now? Feedback is much appreciated! ^_^ EDIT: I am also using Anki to review words/sentences, which I find helpful

Try to find some native speakers you can talk to if at all possible. If you live near a university, ask the japanese dept if they have any speaking clubs. At my uni there's a twice-weekly get together to speak japanese, with about one native speaker per dozen students. anyone could just walk in, they dont actually check if you're a student (though a lot of the dialogue ends up being about university life since it's such a common ground)

The lesson a day for Pimsleur is good. I mid way into part 2 for my own reasons, but I do like Pimsleur (I just think it could be so much better with written reference material). In addition:

1. Review RTK Every Day using an SRS. By far the most efficient use of your time.
2. Finish RTK before moving onto anything else (well, finish Pimsleur)
3. If you have a grasp of grammar (via Pimsleur), why not try your hand at Kanji.Odyssey.2001 after you finish RTK? This'll get your reading ability up there.

If you must do a grammar book, I'd recommend Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar utilizing an SRS and the sentences from that book. The annoying part is typing in those sentences.

Hey, welcome to the forum!
If I had it to do over, I would put my Heisig kanji as my first priority. If all I had was 30 minutes to study, instead of doing 30 minutes of Pimsleur, I would do Heisig. If you have the time, you could do Pimsleur as well (they work well together), but I would put your priority with Heisig. As quickly as possible get through the book.
After Heisig is completed, the main priority would be doing Pimsleur everyday. Only after Heisig was done, would I add textbooks. And I would look for textbooks that start with kanji from the beginning.
That said, the important thing to do is what works for you.

If you are doing Pimsleur it doesn't really make sense to take a break on the weekend, since it is based on a similar SRS system as this site. Its not exactly hard work (I'm nearly finished III now) and at 30mins a day not a great investment of time. I do it in any otherwise dead time, washing the dishes, doing clothes washing, making my bed etc.

I'd recommend finished Heisig before moving onto any serious textbook study, and in your post you implied you already had a reasonable grasp of basic Japanese, so why are you bothering with Genki, even if you feel like you have forgotten it all, in my experience once you start again it comes flooding back.

Hey- thanks, all of you, for responding! =) The SRS I'm using is Anki, which is a great program; I've put in lots of words and sentences from "Japanese for Everyone" and find that I remember more of them then I thought I would. I'm only using this website and the book for kanji, currently, though I will probably add entries for those later in Anki. I'm only taking a break from Pimsleur on the weekends because I really don't want to get burnt out again (because I did before!), but it's not exactly difficult, so it probably would be good to do it on Sat. and Sun. too. It does sound better to do Genki *after* finishing Pimsleur and RtK1 and not before. I've already got Japanese grammar down pretty good, but Genki seems like it would be decent enough for practice. "Japanese For Everyone" sort of overwhelmed me by the 8th or 9th lesson and I think it would be a lot better in a classroom setting or studying with someone else. I tend to actually learn better with written materials [that's why I want to conquer these kanji!] rather than spoken, which is why it took me awhile to get to Pimsleur because I want to get better at conversation.

Either use ANKI or this site for kanji. Do not use both, it is a waste of time.

My advice is to try to make Heisig and RevTK a daily habit. It won't be that beneficial if you keep it to weekends only. ~20 a day seems to be a good pace for a lot of people, but doing just 10 new kanji a day will allow you to finish in 7 months.

zdude255 Wrote:My advice is to try to make Heisig and RevTK a daily habit. It won't be that beneficial if you keep it to weekends only. ~20 a day seems to be a good pace for a lot of people, but doing just 10 new kanji a day will allow you to finish in 7 months.

I have to second the advice of zdude255 and all others who have commented on doing Heisig and/or Pimsleur on a daily basis.

As mentioned, these are based on an SRS principle so you get the most value out of doing an amount you can handle on a daily basis rather than larger chunks on the weekend, etc. (Pimsleur has decided the amount for you with one lesson per day, but with Heisig it is up to you to decide how many kanji you do per day. And even one kanji per day is better than none.)

If you feel like you are getting burned out...
1) Drop Pimsluer (for one day ... or until you finish RTK)
2) Review RTK stacks that are due but don't add any new kanji for the day
3) Do something fun with your Japanese ability (watch a Japanese drama sans subtitles, listen to a Japanese song, flip through a manga or Mangajin, etc...whatever interests you)
4) Try learning just one new kanji. Sometimes this is all just a mental block and once you sit down and begin you find you want to continue. (I believe it was Fabrice who recommended this to me once. And more often than not, it worked!)

Once you no longer feel burned out, begin to learn a few new RTK kanji. Try just 5 or 10 a day until you build back up to a pace that feels comfortable to you.

If you have to take a break from RTK, just give yourself one or two days off from adding new kanji (but continue to review kanji that are due) so that it really is a short break rather than a long one that you have to start all over from. (Been there, done that.)

The part about continuing to review the kanji that are due (even when taking a break from adding new kanji) cannot be emphasized too strongly. Reviews have a tendency to snowball into huge demoralizing loads if you don't stay on top of them. And the best way to have small daily review load is to add new kanji regularly (daily) in small amounts. If you have a burst and go for 50 or even 100 a day it can feel great but the reviews will come back in greater loads as well. So slow and steady will get you through.

And really, adding just 10-20 kanji per day is a relatively easy way to get through the RTK in 3.5-7 months. No need to go faster than this unless you are enjoying the process and want to do more each day.

MoogleFan Wrote:Hi~! I'm a new user of the "Remembering the Kanji" book and this website's review method, though I have been studying Japanese for many years. I had fallen out of practicing Japanese for about a year, however, and have just recently started reviewing, and learning some things for the first time! After many previously failed methods, I really want to go about learning Japanese the 'right' way this time. I had already learned the hiragana and katakana, 300+ kanji, lots of vocabulary and sentence patterns and gone through many a lesson in 'Japanese for Everyone', but never got as fluent as I hoped. Since I now have Remembering the Kanji, Genki I, and the Pimsleur: Japanese I, II, and III CD sets (at long last!), I am trying to develop a systematic study plan, so I can learn Japanese in-between the other activities I engage in throughout each day. I've decided that these two things seem to work together pretty well:

- Listen to one 30-min. Pimsleur: Japanese I lesson daily [take the weekends off]
- Do four lessons of "Remembering the Kanji" on the weekend, occasionally review kanji during the week via flashcards (I hand-made flashcards for nearly all of the Joyo kanji from my previous ventures in Japanese, so they are coming in handy again!) and website

Should I wait until after I finish Pimsleur Japanese I (or even II? or III?) to start the Genki textbook? Are there other things I should add or change in my study plan now? Feedback is much appreciated! ^_^ EDIT: I am also using Anki to review words/sentences, which I find helpful

the best method is the following method: study, review, and (most importantly) push yourself.

it sounds like you haven't been pushing yourself. if you know 300 kanji, why are you bothering with Genki I? it's a basic grammar book. perhaps you should try something more advanced?

the same goes with pimsleur. pimsleur 1-3 covers most of what's in genki I (as far as i can remember). why don't you try some of the advanced courses over at japanese pod, or maybe rent a few movies with subtitles (in english, or in japanese... the latter being the most productive).

stop thinking about the method and start studying =P

there is no "easy way." there is no "best way." there is no path to success.

but as far as suggestions go, i suggest that you stop using an SRS. it's boring. and it won't help with your "cultural fluency." instead, start reading short stories and children's stories. when you read them, read them outloud. and when you're done, try to sum them up in japanese. describe them in japanese. a few weeks later, read the story again and try to add to your description.

this does two things: (1) it gets you to start using japanese; (2) it gives you something to talk about. it doesn't matter how many cards you have in your SRS if you don't have things to talk about (which i learned the hard way).

good luck!

TGWeaver Wrote:the best method is the following method: study, review, and (most importantly) push yourself.

it sounds like you haven't been pushing yourself. if you know 300 kanji, why are you bothering with Genki I? it's a basic grammar book. perhaps you should try something more advanced?

the same goes with pimsleur. pimsleur 1-3 covers most of what's in genki I (as far as i can remember). why don't you try some of the advanced courses over at japanese pod, or maybe rent a few movies with subtitles (in english, or in japanese... the latter being the most productive).

stop thinking about the method and start studying =P

there is no "easy way." there is no "best way." there is no path to success.

but as far as suggestions go, i suggest that you stop using an SRS. it's boring. and it won't help with your "cultural fluency." instead, start reading short stories and children's stories. when you read them, read them outloud. and when you're done, try to sum them up in japanese. describe them in japanese. a few weeks later, read the story again and try to add to your description.

this does two things: (1) it gets you to start using japanese; (2) it gives you something to talk about. it doesn't matter how many cards you have in your SRS if you don't have things to talk about (which i learned the hard way).

good luck!

I disagree with dropping SRS entirely. It keeps words, kanji, and grammar concepts from dropping out of your memory. However I think that sentence mining & putting them into an SRS (which is the basis of AJATT) is not a great idea and is kind of a fallback to the traditional learning methods of learning phrases and sentence patterns. You should use sentences when you initially learn the word or grammar, but more importantly, make your own sentences. The SRS is just there to keep you from forgetting. Even daily conversation (I talk Japanese pretty much all day every day) doesn't stop uncommon words or expressions from dropping out of your lexicon. If your SRS cards are short and sweet you can review them in no time. Sentence mining & inputting also eats up a lot of time that would be better spent actually studying or using Japanese.

But remember, do not make your own sentences without someone there to correct them (a native speaker)!

Seriously, this is dangerous and will instill bad habits into your Japanese, which you definitely do not want.

And furthermore, unless you are have a low level of fluency, making your own sentences isn't going to help you at all, anyway.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:But remember, do not make your own sentences without someone there to correct them (a native speaker)!

Seriously, this is dangerous and will instill bad habits into your Japanese, which you definitely do not want.

And furthermore, unless you are have a low level of fluency, making your own sentences isn't going to help you at all, anyway.

Of course having your sentences validated is a good thing. However making your own sentences is not just for beginners. It's the most natural thing to do with grammar that you learn - use it. Using it helps you remember it and more importantly, helps you incorporate it into your active lexicon. Even if you make some mistakes it's good practice. Hell, it's BETTER practice if you make mistakes and get them corrected, preferably in an embarrassing manner. Note I do not mean to make up your own sentences and then proceed to memorize them in an SRS. Just make up a bunch of sentences and write them down when you learn a grammar point. Get them checked by someone then just throw them out.

Back when I was still taking Japanese classes I would overuse whatever grammar points we were learning when talking with my girlfriend, and she would overuse them back to me. It really helped make that grammar active knowledge instead of just passive - which is all a bunch of reading would give you.

I suppose it depends on what your priorities are though - reading/listening (passive) vs writing/speaking (active). I was (and still am) focused on active knowledge. Focusing on passive knowledge is what Japanese education in the west seems to be focused on. I meet many people who are beyond my reading ability with 小説 and such, but are totally unable to carry on a conversation or express themselves.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:But remember, do not make your own sentences without someone there to correct them (a native speaker)!

Seriously, this is dangerous and will instill bad habits into your Japanese, which you definitely do not want.

And furthermore, unless you are have a low level of fluency, making your own sentences isn't going to help you at all, anyway.

in my opinion, a person can and probably should start making his or her own sentences almost from the very beginning. As soon as you are comfortable with the basic Japanese syntax as presented in pimsleur or a good textbook, it should be fine to experiment as long as you don't deviate very much from the forms you have been accustomed to using. For example, one of the first things pimsleur teaches is how to ask where a given place is. Essentially, you can make new sentences of the same form just by dropping in new words for different places with almost no chance of error. This might sound pointless, but it gets you to start actively parsing the language rather than simply parroting it out loud.

The only real danger is if you experiment too far beyond your current level or if you stop being self-critical and assume that everything you are doing is 100 percent correct with no desire to improve upon any mistakes you realize later on.

I wouldn't say that making your own sentences is only helpful to somebody with only a low level of understanding. In my opinion its one of the best and most often overlooked of all activities for a learner of any level.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Of course having your sentences validated is a good thing. However making your own sentences is not just for beginners. It's the most natural thing to do with grammar that you learn - use it. Using it helps you remember it and more importantly, helps you incorporate it into your active lexicon. Even if you make some mistakes it's good practice. Hell, it's BETTER practice if you make mistakes and get them corrected, preferably in an embarrassing manner. Note I do not mean to make up your own sentences and then proceed to memorize them in an SRS. Just make up a bunch of sentences and write them down when you learn a grammar point. Get them checked by someone then just throw them out.

I think the point is that for things you enter in an SRS it's best to play it safe. If an SRS is your only means of study (I don't recommend this either), then you will probably only want to mine actual sentences. For lower level grammar, I'm personally sceptical that you can learn it without producing output as well. However, putting an authentic example in your SRS can have the benefit that you get an idiomatic usage for free with vocabulary you want to learn. I do think AJATT may take sentence mining too far, but as a way to quickly memorize things you encounter in your studying, I think an SRS is quite helpful. Also, once you've learned the basic grammar, all the subsequent grammar fits into one of the categories you've already learned, and so one sentence in an SRS can be sufficient to allow you to use it actively. At this point, IMHO it is actually a waste to try to generate your own sentences before you actually need to use new grammar; essentially, grammar and vocabulary cease to be separate entities, and it becomes inefficient to try to devote a significant amount of time to practising each grammar item (unless of course you do hit something you really have trouble understanding).

mystes Wrote:I think the point is that for things you enter in an SRS it's best to play it safe. If an SRS is your only means of study (I don't recommend this either), then you will probably only want to mine actual sentences. For lower level grammar, I'm personally sceptical that you can learn it without producing output as well. However, putting an authentic example in your SRS can have the benefit that you get an idiomatic usage for free with vocabulary you want to learn. I do think AJATT may take sentence mining too far, but as a way to quickly memorize things you encounter in your studying, I think an SRS is quite helpful. Also, once you've learned the basic grammar, all the subsequent grammar fits into one of the categories you've already learned, and so one sentence in an SRS can be sufficient to allow you to use it actively. At this point, IMHO it is actually a waste to try to generate your own sentences before you actually need to use new grammar; essentially, grammar and vocabulary cease to be separate entities, and it becomes inefficient to try to devote a significant amount of time to practising each grammar item (unless of course you do hit something you really have trouble understanding).

You seem to be telling me the point that I myself just made in my previous post and the one before that

However, making sentences when you learn a piece of grammar (or even vocabulary) doesn't take time. Maybe 2 minutes each on the long end of things if you make a whole bunch. One of my problems with putting sentences into SRS (at least as question cards) is that when you see the card you think "oh I remember what this sentence means" (all the while getting cheats/clues from context) and not "oh I remember how to productively use this grammar".

I like SRS (like Anki) for quick review on a semi-daily basis, but they aren't everything. Listening to/speaking conversational Japanese and reading/writing sentences in context of a book/article/etc. are essential practice. I guess it's not a good idea to start Genki even if I finish Pimsleur and do RtK1? Maybe going back to Japanese for Everyone would be a better idea since it gets intermediate quicker than Genki...it seems like there ought to be a textbook in there *somewhere*, right? =P. I'm doing Pimsleur and new kanji daily now, so I'll be moving along more swiftly. I know how to construct a lot of basic Japanese sentence patterns, it's just the variety of vocabulary that needs expanding (hence Anki).

MoogleFan Wrote:I like SRS (like Anki) for quick review on a semi-daily basis, but they aren't everything. Listening to/speaking conversational Japanese and reading/writing sentences in context of a book/article/etc. are essential practice. I guess it's not a good idea to start Genki even if I finish Pimsleur and do RtK1? Maybe going back to Japanese for Everyone would be a better idea since it gets intermediate quicker than Genki...it seems like there ought to be a textbook in there *somewhere*, right? =P. I'm doing Pimsleur and new kanji daily now, so I'll be moving along more swiftly. I know how to construct a lot of basic Japanese sentence patterns, it's just the variety of vocabulary that needs expanding (hence Anki).

If I were you I would do nothing but RTK1 and possibly 1 lesson of pimsleur a day. As far as I am concerned, this should be your core foundation. To do anything more, even if its just vocab goes against the whole notion of "divide and conquer" that heisig was going after. Even though you have past experience with Japanese, you should be learning the vocab only after you have mastered the Kanji that they are made of. After you have completed RTK 1 and pimsleur, you can work through Japanese For Everyone, listen to 1 lesson of japanesepod101 every day, practice drilling sentences with Anki, and composing a few of your own basic sentences each day. But until then, I think the more narrow your focus, the better. I know it can be frustrating to intentionally limit yourself, but you will thank yourself later on when everything starts coming together neatly and naturally.

I have been slowly working through Pimsleur and RTK / RevTK as basically my first introduction to Japanese (I knew a few phrases and <10 kanji before beginning, but that's it).

I've been pretty satisfied - I'm at about 1500 kanji, and halfway through Pimsleur II. I'm going very slowly - only in spare time, usually about 30 minutes every other day or so for about 18 months now.

One of my best internet finds was a spreadsheet with all the Pimsleur I sentences written out in kanji, kana, and English. You can drop it right in a SRS and review that way. After learning 1500 kanji, I'm very anxious to start reading / testing sentences, and am only just beginning using the sentences in an SRS, but want to do more. Tough to find time for both RevTK and sentences, though. Email me if you want a copy of the spreadsheet. I would credit where I got it, but can't remember.

A while back, I was also working with some folks on this site on the idea of "high speed RTK" - the idea being that you you could begin with learning the most common 1200 or so kanji using the Heisig method, and this would get you a high level of coverage in elementary texts, putting off the other Heisig kanji till later. I have another spreadsheet that lists these top kanji. Again, email if you're interested.

Also: I'm not sure why people keep saying things like there is no "best" way or no "path to success". If you define "best way" as the way that generally works best for the vast majority of people, then I think there is almost definitely a best way to learn Japanese. We might not know what it is yet exactly, but I think a lot of people have come close to finding it. True, everybody has their own individual learning quirks, but we tend to have a lot more in common than the other way around. Perhaps if someone is a linguistic genius or dyslexic, he might have his own personal best way which is radically different. But for most of average joes, a general series of tactics seem to work best including rtk1 to learn kanji and an srs that features spaced interval testing. I have yet to meet a typical human who does not seem to retain better from spaced intervals. Its tried and tested and based on science.

Jarvik7 Wrote:You seem to be telling me the point that I myself just made in my previous post and the one before that

Argh, yes it does seem that way. I guess I got sidetracked. I originally was curious about how you said:

Jarvik7 Wrote:However I think that sentence mining & putting them into an SRS (which is the basis of AJATT) is not a great idea and is kind of a fallback to the traditional learning methods of learning phrases and sentence patterns.

I'm not sure I completely understand how AJATT suggests conducting sentence mining, but is your only objection that you think it is necessary to practice before entering them into an SRS? It seems like sentence mining would encourage learning of phrases and sentence patterns.

Dragg Wrote:Also: I'm not sure why people keep saying things like there is no "best" way or no "path to success". If you define "best way" as the way that generally works best for the vast majority of people, then I think there is almost definitely a best way to learn Japanese. We might not know what it is yet exactly, but I think a lot of people have come close to finding it. True, everybody has their own individual learning quirks, but we tend to have a lot more in common than the other way around. Perhaps if someone is a linguistic genius or dyslexic, he might have his own personal best way which is radically different. But for most of average joes, a general series of tactics seem to work best including rtk1 to learn kanji and an srs that features spaced interval testing. I have yet to meet a typical human who does not seem to retain better from spaced intervals. Its tried and tested and based on science.

It's funny that you mentioned this Dragg . I typed out almost the same message and then decided that it wouldn't add too much to the thread so I deleted it. But I very, very much agree with you, all of this talking about "there is no "easy way." there is no "best way." there is no path to success." seems to be some kind of standard phrase people like to throw into a conversation every other thread, whilst it is untrue :/. My opinion: there is no 'easy way' , however, there is an 'easiest' way and there certainly is a 'best' way for everyone, you just have to experiment to find it. Finding it will then bring you on the 'path to success' .

I'm going to disagree here. There is an easiest way for each person, but it doesn't matter if you're not one of the "vast majority of people" or not. The only thing that matters is that you find what works for you. That may, or may not, be "the" way that works for that "vast majority of people". It may be the best way for many people, but if it doesn't work for you, then it's not the best way *for you*. Then you should pick some other way.

That's what I had in mind, you just have to experiment to find the best way for yourself... There is a 'best way', but that 'best way' varies from person to person. Ofcourse there is no such thing as a 'best way' which works perfectly for every single person on earth, that's only logical and I would laugh at the person who would claim there was. However, if a way is best for a majority of people I'd still like to call it a 'best way' in general . The aforementioned phrase about there being no 'best way' and no 'path to success' is just a tad annoying though.

In language-learning, it is often difficult to discern what is actually "working" because there are so many factors at stake; retention and contextual recognition being among the more subtle. For example, all my life I have been very good at rote memorization (im even good at jeopardy). When I initially attempted to learn kanji a few years ago, I bought a book which recommended this practice. I spent the better part of a year "learning" close to 1000 kanji in this manner with the book's guidance. It seemed to be working well; I knew the meanings of most of those kanji as well as the onyomi and kunyomi. The problem is I rarely seemed to be able to recognize or reproduce these characters outside of the book. It took me a long time to realize that I was unconsciously memorizing the page positioning along with the kanji, and that had been cluing me in probably more than anything else. Sure, I had learned a little but it was mostly a waste of time. I could have spared myself of that mess if I would have done research on what had worked best for most people instead of relying on the individual opinion of a (possibly cluele$$) author. He didn't even say to use flashcards. He suggested cutting holes in a note card and sliding it down his specially formatted pages. Heisig is 100 percent correct when he advocates breaking each kanji down into memorable pieces before memorizing the sum of its parts. I learned the hard way, as I'm sure many have, that it is very difficult to remember what is essentially unknown. I had the illusion that I was succeeding, and that is why I will always be skeptical of what one individual says works without some kind of science, reasoning, or testimonials backing him up.

Hey guys- thanks for all the posts. Pimsleur is a piece of cake, so I'm definitely not having trouble doing just one measly lesson a day! ^_~ I'm at 299 kanji now, which isn't bad, as it was only recently that I started studying them the Heisig way (I have about 85%-90% recall, currently). I've come across the All Japanese All the Time blog, which I had seen recommended repeatedly through this site: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about
This has loads of useful tips; I'm also seriously considering doing the 10,000 sentences-thing with Anki after I finish the kanji and have more immersion in listening to spoken Japanese.