I've decided that I really, really need to get kanji down before I move onto other things in the language (at least, move on a lot.) but I've come across a problem: How do I retain the information I already know? It's not much, but it's not information I want to lose.

I know kana easily by now and I'm over half way through genki.

I want to get RTK done and move onto sentences (like many others). I occasionally sentence mine anyway, but I haven't ran through the cards yet. (I had started doing this before RTK and that's what made me realise I needed to do it first)

Things I've been doing: Watching Pokemon in Japanese (no subs) (it's simple, reinforces a few basic things, etc etc), listening to radio stations, watching jdorama, playing games, etc etc.

Edit: Also, what would be a good number of kanji minimum that I could start doing sentences with, would you say?

I'd say the best way to get through RTK is to do it as quickly as possible. Rather than do sentence reviews, I'd use extra time to get ahead in RTK-- study new keywords, visualize new stories for kanji. I found that reviewing sentences would distract me from working on RTK, and would just keep me from getting it done, so I put it on the shelf until I finished.

I don't think there's a minimum number of kanji you need to know to do sentences. Instead, just stick with the +1 rule- try to add only one (two at the most) new thing you don't know in each sentence. One new vocab word, one new grammar concept, etc. That will make things rather fast, easy, and manageable. Even if you run across an unknown kanji, if it's the only new thing in the sentence, it shouldn't be a problem at all. You'll only start running into problems when you start adding 5 new vocab words per sentence.

If you don't want to mine Genki (I found it wasn't a particularly good book for mining, but that's my opinion), I recommend Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar by ALC. It's cheap, full of very easy sentences, and very easy vocab. It's repetitive, but it does a solid job of covering the basics. UBJG is very easy to mine, and provides lots of examples.

Also, if you're going to start mining books, I highly recommend some sort of scanner/OCR combination. It saves a lot of time typing.

My overall advice would be to try to spend as much time as possible on RTK first, but if you have to do something else to stay motivated, then do it. Just keep in mind it'll make RTK take longer to finish.

I also found RTK when I was studying Minna no Nihongo I and II, and I don't want to devote 100% of my study time to RTK , because I would begin to forget the Japanese that I already know. I am also in a position where I know vocabulary enough to start reviewing sentences. As you may know, RTK can be divided in 2 parts (1000 kanjis each), being the first part RTK LITE (this first part include the 1000 more frequent kanjis and its primitives). Knowing these kanjis I can start reviewing sentences like they are in KO. So, the plan is:
1) continue my Japanese studies, and study RTK LITE
2) continue my Japanese studies, start reviewing KO sentences, and begin to add the remaining 1000 kanjis to this site.

If you don't want to forget things, that's why God invented SRS systems...

rich_f Wrote:I'd say the best way to get through RTK is to do it as quickly as possible. Rather than do sentence reviews, I'd use extra time to get ahead in RTK-- study new keywords, visualize new stories for kanji. I found that reviewing sentences would distract me from working on RTK, and would just keep me from getting it done, so I put it on the shelf until I finished.

That was my plan-- but I have no idea how long this is going to take me.

rich_f Wrote:I don't think there's a minimum number of kanji you need to know to do sentences. Instead, just stick with the +1 rule- try to add only one (two at the most) new thing you don't know in each sentence. One new vocab word, one new grammar concept, etc. That will make things rather fast, easy, and manageable. Even if you run across an unknown kanji, if it's the only new thing in the sentence, it shouldn't be a problem at all. You'll only start running into problems when you start adding 5 new vocab words per sentence.

Good idea. I think this was my main problem when I started doing sentences at first, is that I tried to overload myself with too much information. I need to make sure I do it "right" next time.

rich_f Wrote:If you don't want to mine Genki (I found it wasn't a particularly good book for mining, but that's my opinion), I recommend Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar by ALC. It's cheap, full of very easy sentences, and very easy vocab. It's repetitive, but it does a solid job of covering the basics. UBJG is very easy to mine, and provides lots of examples.

Thanks for the recommendation. I was just planning on mining the grammar parts of Genki. I also have a book called "Japanese Grammar" by Barron's.

rich_f Wrote:Also, if you're going to start mining books, I highly recommend some sort of scanner/OCR combination. It saves a lot of time typing.

My overall advice would be to try to spend as much time as possible on RTK first, but if you have to do something else to stay motivated, then do it. Just keep in mind it'll make RTK take longer to finish.

Your advice is very much appreciated. I'd sort out the scanner thing, but unfortunately, my scanner doesn't work with linux and I can't afford a new one.

usis35 Wrote:I also found RTK when I was studying Minna no Nihongo I and II, and I don't want to devote 100% of my study time to RTK , because I would begin to forget the Japanese that I already know. I am also in a position where I know vocabulary enough to start reviewing sentences. As you may know, RTK can be divided in 2 parts (1000 kanjis each), being the first part RTK LITE (this first part include the 1000 more frequent kanjis and its primitives). Knowing these kanjis I can start reviewing sentences like they are in KO. So, the plan is:
1) continue my Japanese studies, and study RTK LITE
2) continue my Japanese studies, start reviewing KO sentences, and begin to add the remaining 1000 kanjis to this site.

Interesting... 1000 sounds like a good number and I'm sure it won't take me too long to obtain it. Good luck with your studies!

AdamLeliel Wrote:I also have a book called "Japanese Grammar" by Barron's.

The tiny red book? I have that. I like it, I've had it since probably circa 2003, but I haven't actually used it much yet because I didn't study Japanese much back then and I gave it up until 2007... and then after floundering around a bit I decided to do RTK first, so I didn't actually study much grammar. I think I learned a lot by flipping through the book, though.

It's too bad (especially for us RTKers) that the book doesn't provide the example sentences in kanji. I guess in that case it'd be a bigger book, though, and they were obviously aiming for something you can keep in your pocket.

- Kef

Yeah, that's the one! I tend to read over the grammar points in the textbook and then look it up in this just to enforce it a bit more. I wish it wasn't in romaji though.

I started sentence mining long before I got RTK at all. It's not impossible, just harder. The biggest problem is you're learning kanji by "shape" only, so similar kanji and even similarly-shaped compounds are hard to distinguish. For the longest time, I was mixing up 結婚, 格好, and 結構 just because their overall shapes are similar. 経済 and 経験 also gave me trouble. And forget about trying to puzzle your way through any real life Japanese text that uses anything outside your limited vocabulary.

You dont have to do only RTK!
Make sure RTK takes only ~1 hour of your day. During the rest of the time, study as you wold without RTK.