Hi,

I've decided after much investigation... that the 10,000 sentences method instead of RTK2 might be the best way (for me) to go down. I'm sure others have came to this conclusion too.

I was wondering, what is the best way prepare sentences that encompass all the common readings of all the Joyo Kanji?

I keep hearing something about this "Tanuki Corpus", but I have tried for HOURS to search for this, in sheer frustration and complete failure. Someone was bragging "how easy it was to find".. but didn't seem to provide any help to others who didn't share that success.

I know Kanji Odyssey would be good, but I believe it only goes up to 1110 Kanji, unfortunately.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance

Real Japanese texts written for Japanese natives

I'd give some advice on what you're actually looking for, but I've completely ignored the KO projects and etc so I know naught.

But c'mon... real Japanese texts! They've got all the Kanji readings, promise!

smujohnson Wrote:I keep hearing something about this "Tanuki Corpus", but I have tried for HOURS to search for this, in sheer frustration and complete failure. Someone was bragging "how easy it was to find".. but didn't seem to provide any help to others who didn't share that success.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1532

Searched: "Tanuki Corpus"

Edit: I guess that link doesn't work anymore. I suppose this will work for you:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jmda3ye2nmw

Also, here's the link for tanukicorpusmod (3.67mb), a simplified and Ankified version alongside the original, that someone created and uploaded a while back:

http://sharebee.com/b3a24829

That's really helpful. Thanks nest0r

If anyone has trouble opening the .csv file, send me a PM and I can send you a backwards-compatible (pre-Excel 2007) version.

Also, has anyone been using this in Anki? How do you set up your cards? It appears to have some sort of J-J question and answer format, but I'm not exactly sure how to use it.

Thanks to everyone who replied! At you too, Katsuo, wherever you may be.

Don't forget to thank 'kentank', our mysterious benefactor, hehe.

Has anyone used the Tanuki corpus sentences much?

I've only done a few so far, but compared to other things (KO, KIC, RTM), the Tanuki list seems full of idioms, which makes it very hard, but also seems very useful.

I'm doing JRTK (see Wrightak's website http://wrightak.googlepages.com/afterrtk1) using the Tanuki list instead of Wrightak's sentences. It's harder, because there are often several words I don't know in the sentence instead of just the keyword, but it feels good. I'm up to about 200 after a couple weeks of adding cards - going at a pace of about 20/day. I think I'll start adding other cards to my sentence deck that quiz the unknown vocabulary instead of the keyword as well, but so far I'm focusing on picking one example sentence from Tanuki for each kanji.

After a few iterations, my cards look like:

Front: keyword in kana, sentence in kanji except for the keyword
Back: kanji, keyword in kanji, sentence in kanji with furigana

I'm still playing with it - I might switch to the keyword (if it is a compound) in kanji except for the question kanji, and might add furigana to the question side, but so far I'm not struggling too much with this layout.

I am keeping this deck separate so I can share later. I'm not always using the Tanuki sentence that highlights the kanji - sometimes I go for one that uses Wrightak's Japanese keyword, or one that I feel is more appropriate. Some of the words in the Tanuki list are idiomatic or uncommon, probably because they are trying to demonstrate a large variety of readings for each kanji. Also, for the non-Joyo kanji in the Heisig list, I sometimes have to find sentences elsewhere (like my J-J dictionaries).

I'm going to keep doing this myself because I think I do better if I enter the sentences manually, but if anyone is interested in the deck so far (or would like me to share it on Anki's site) let me know.