For those that have done RTK2 and 3:

After completing RTK1, is it possible/advisable to forget about RTK 2 entirely and go straight onto RTK3? And so, get all 3007 Kanji under your belt before moving onto how to read them.

All advice greatly appreciated!

I posted about this in another thread entitled "To RTK 2 or not to RTK2?" but the thread derailed and it went largely unnoticed. The short answer to your question is "yes," and here I'll reproduce my post from the other thread explaining why studying Kanji readings is inadvisable.

Quote:

Zarxrax Wrote:I've looked over RTK2 but haven't put any serious effort into it. I think learning in context through sentences is a better way to go. RTK2 basically gives you the readings to the kanji and you have to memorize them. It doesn't give you any mnemonics tricks like the stories of RTK1. It organizes them in a manner that makes it a little more efficient, and I think it gives you a few vocabulary words for each one (I cant remember for sure though), but in the end you are basically just memorizing readings for kanji and some words out of context.
I personally think that is *incredibly boring*. I kept on plodding through RTK1 because the stories at least make it sort of fun and enjoyable. You don't get that aspect with RTK2. So as I see it, learning kanji through sentences is a much more enjoyable way to go, and you learn grammar and useful phrases at the same time!

Saved me some typing. The heart and soul of RTK1 is the technique of imaginative memory; this is completely lacking in RTK2, as is the more modern understanding of how memory works: RTK2 entails brutal, inefficient rote memorization.

I don't think many people would independently come up with this idea that "I need to memorize kanji readings" if they weren't inculcated in that way of thinking by Japanese teachers. There isn't really much sense in doing this, because vocabulary is what you actually want to know, and vocabulary is best learned in context (full sentences or at least phrases, as in AJATT and Antimoon).

I also think that mnemonic techniques can be applied to the problem of fixing pronunciations in memory. (Barry Farber talks about it in his book, although he just got it from Harry Lorayne, and most of his other advice is obsolete in one sense or another, e.g. using flash cards instead of an SRS.) Some people have apparently applied this to the problem of readings by augmenting their RTK1 stories, which is at least more entertaining.

As for signal primitives, their main use is for native speakers and others who have a comprehensive knowledge of the spoken language. They can essentially sound the word out approximately and then say, "Hey! I know that word," just the way English-speaking kids learning how to read and write do. Explicitly memorizing Kanji readings as a foreigner is like someone who speaks minimal English learning in excruciating copious detail the pronunciation rules of English orthography (which as anyone will tell you is packed with exceptions, irregularities, and ambiguities), because even a comprehensive knowledge of individual Kanji readings only affords a foreign learner of Japanese an improved ability to guess at the pronunciation of Kanji compounds, similar to how an RTK1 graduate can guess at what that compound means.

The best way to learn Kanji readings is indirectly, similarly to how English speakers can sound out unfamiliar words (or nonsense words, or onomatopoeic words, or "pseudo-English" pronunciations of foreign words and names) by (unconscious) analogy to other words they already know, without having to consciously resort to some tremendous list of unreliable rules. (Obviously young children do learn some basic rules like this when learning to read, but not nearly enough to be able to correctly pronounce all words without a comprehensive knowledge of the spoken language.)

In short, RTK2 is aiming at the wrong target. Heisig先生 revolutionized how people learn Kanji, but apparently stuck to old assumptions about how people should learn the Japanese language.

Well, RTK1 contains the entire Jōyō set (minus one obscure kanji which you probably don't need) and almost 100 supplemental kanji. From there, which kanji people are interested in will probably diverge based on their field of interest and whatnot. So whether or not the kanji in RTK3 are going to be particularly useful for you is not that clear.

- Kef

[Katsuo]

I wouldn't advise going through RTK3 systematically until your overall ability in Japanese has reached at least level 2 of the JLPT.

Someone at a low level who studies RTK3 will not come across the majority of those kanji in the wild for years, and is likely to forget many of them in the meantime.

In case anyone would like to pick and choose from RTK3, I posted a list of ninety or so of the more useful characters in this thread.

I finished RTK1 a few months ago and then right after I started memorizing the RTK3 Kanjis. I would say that my Japanese level was about JLPT 3 when I started the RTK3 book. I finished memorizing the writing part of RTK3 a week and a half ago and now I'm working on the RTK2 book. No problems yet. Memorized up to 1000 On-yomis so far. It took about 7 days and I'm planning on finishing the book in the order Heisig recommended. I estimate another 12 days and I should be finished the On-yomi section. I'm studying about 8hours plus straight full time per day though. Brute force works but using the Heisig books really help make it easier in my opinion. Anyways, just letting you know that you can do RTK1+3 before doing 2...because I did it *note: I use Anki and I review 1000 plus cards per day. Takes about 3-4 hours. Then I spend another 5 hours adding more cards.

RTK2 is way too boring for anyone to go through quickly. I got burnt out really quickly. You have to use essentially brute memorization for all of if and about 500 frames through, I thought, "In a real situation where I have to read aloud from a Japanese kanji, there is no way in hell I be able to recall one thing out of thousands from just brute memorization."

I think sentences are a bit more effective, fun, and you learn other points of Japanese through doing them.

I haven't yet finished RtK1, but from my limited experience typing japanese on the PC, the language bar assumes which kanji you want in place of the hiragana you typed.. Seeing the kanji in place of the words you composed is very memorable, for me anyway.

I feel as though it'd be more practical to learn pronunciation of the kanji while continuing grammar studies or interacting with Japanese people than it would be to attempt it as it's own challenge.

But again, I'm only 1/4 way through RtK1, so my opinion may not count for much.

I don't know about you guys, but I think learning kanji is fun, so I'm probably not really going to stop adding kanji. (of course it helps that I'll be learning the onyomi with them =])

Speaking Japanese is more fun.

I also advise getting to a decent level of Japanese before using RTK3(if you must use it at all). After finishing RTK1, you should be able to handle any new kanji you come across easily. But until you're Japanese is at a higher level, you won't be needing such advanced kanji. It's strange, when I see a new word while reading and learn it, I suddenly start seeing it everywhere, even though I never saw it prior...the words are useful, but until you can handle real Japanese(not limiting yourself to easy texts or textbooks), you probably won't see them.

GoodSirJava Wrote:

Zarxrax Wrote:In short, RTK2 is aiming at the wrong target. Heisig先生 revolutionized how people learn Kanji, but apparently stuck to old assumptions about how people should learn the Japanese language.

For a group of people who thrives on taking things out of context in order to learn them (RtK), I'm really surprised at this particular attitude.

Yes, you can go straight to reading after RtK1 and skip RtK2. Just like you can skip RtK1 and go straight to learning kanji as they appear in your readings. When one really gets down to it, any way you decide to do it is arbitrary. The problem with skipping RtK2 is that there isn't really any reason for it beyond this idea that RtK2 doesn't have a compelling premise.

"Oh, it's boring learning compounds in isolation. I'm going to go read canned sentences in KO2001. Or, oh, it's boring doing X-- I'm going to go do Y in the target language and learn so much more."

It's not like that. Sure you can go pick up a book as soon as you finish RtK1, but without the readings, anything without furigana is going to trip you up exponentially. You'll know the kanji, but not the reading and at the end of the day, you'll still be spending 5 minutes looking up each new word and another 5 minutes putting it in your SRS.

RtK2 solves this problem somewhat by grouping 音読み into easily-digestible groups with as many fast rules as one can muster, given the complexity of the problem. The Pure and Semi-pure groups cover 934 compounds. Even if you only do those two chapters and ignore the rest of the book, that's still a sizable amount of vocabulary and readings that you've added to your lexicon. If you SRS those, you might not even have to look them up the next time you see one in context. A lot of people call those "free" or nearly free readings. I tend to agree.

Finally, RtK2 is meant for people with some experience in Japanese. Learning the 音読み isn't FOR people who can barely get their kana down. But if you're 5 months away from being able to read a newspaper, and/or have at least 2 years of Japanese in the bag, then I think RtK2 is going to do a lot for you. There are a lot of common compounds you probably already know, so the argument about native speakers being able to sound out words, but non-native speakers not being able to is bollocks, as far as I can tell. Just the other day I had a conversation and was asked to translate 寄ってくる to someone. I had no idea. But when I saw the kanji, I instantly understood what it meant. It works the same way in reverse, too. You probably already know the word 医者, but you might not know how to read those two characters. That's exactly the sort of epiphany RtK2 might provoke.

I think the point is that if you do something like KO, you can learn the onyomi as well as a heap of vocabulary, at the same time. Personally, at the end of book 1, I feel I can see some of the pure and semi pure groups just by deduction. It's pretty obvious with enough exposure.

phauna Wrote:I think the point is that if you do something like KO, you can learn the onyomi as well as a heap of vocabulary, at the same time. Personally, at the end of book 1, I feel I can see some of the pure and semi pure groups just by deduction. It's pretty obvious with enough exposure.

The only signal primitives that are useful are ones that are obvious and you can learn from KO anyway. In all honesty, they're not as big as they're cracked up to be. They do help a little with quicker recognition, but that's all (for example, if I see a new kanji, I often won't know it's new because I'll recognize the signal primitive and think I know it).

I don't know how KO is ordered, but if you could go through the sentences by kanji in order of onyomi, then you could pick up the onyomi without even trying. (I memorized the kanji grouped by onyomi, and I have a very good recognition of them without even knowing it until after).

I wouldn't do so.
Like GoodSirJava said. Its much easier learning readings from sentences than from memorisation. Much more fun too.
Skip it.

brendanmacdonald Wrote:For those that have done RTK2 and 3:

After completing RTK1, is it possible/advisable to forget about RTK 2 entirely and go straight onto RTK3? And so, get all 3007 Kanji under your belt before moving onto how to read them.

All advice greatly appreciated!

Depends on how much Japanese you already know. If you're a beginner, I'd advise getting the readings for RTK1 under your belt before moving onto more mass RTK study.

Chances are that it will take a long time to even close to fully learn to read the kanji in RTK1. If you do come across new kanji though, you can apply the RTK techniques to those kanji as you meet them.

FutureBlues: RTK2 continues the ideas in RTK1, but it doesn't take long to see even in RTK2 that there's no one fast & easy rule for learning the readings like there is in learning the writings in RTK1.

RTK2 is a guide to ideas that can be leveraged to help learn readings, but its not a course like RTK1 to follow to learn all the readings.

Just because we like the techniques taught in RTK1 doesn't mean we have to like RTK2 in the same way.