I'm beginning an AJATT course of study, and had the following questions about memorizing sentences:

1.) I've already learned a few dozen kanji; is it OK to start working on sentences simultaneously, or should I finish RtK before I even think about learning sentences?

2.) What degree of Japanese -> English translation should I do when memorizing sentences? The site seemed a bit unclear on this; if I was doing it with flashcards, would I have the full Japanese with kanji on one side, and the kana/English reading on the other (at least until I went monolingual)?

If you're using the method or have had success with it in the past, feel free to help. Thanks for your time.

1) No. Finish RTK first. Just do it.

2) You are not trying to 'memorise' sentences... that is not the point. As Khatz says, you want to UNDERSTAND them. People here are setting up their cards in a number of ways, but if you read the site properly he explains pretty clearly how he is doing it.

I've been putting sentences from iKnow into Anki to make cards that have:
Question: Audio
Answer: Kanji and Kana.

Anyway, forget about sentences until you've finished RTK.

Captain_Thunder Wrote:1.) I've already learned a few dozen kanji; is it OK to start working on sentences simultaneously, or should I finish RtK before I even think about learning sentences?

2.) What degree of Japanese -> English translation should I do when memorizing sentences? [...]

1) It's OK if you want to. Whatever keeps you motivated is good. Just add furigana to your sentences.

2) The sentence method isn't about memorizing the sentences, it's about understanding them. Off course, in order to be able to understand you'll need to remember the vocabulary and grammar used in that sentence.

Definetely finish RTK before doing the sentences. It is really painful to do them without RTK. Also RTK can be done quickly if you focus on it.

Maybe you should take the extra time you have left over that you would use to start with sentences and instead spend that time learning more kanji. If you really want to start with sentences you can just start reading Japanese stuff. It's not like it's bad.

The AJATT mindset is to move away from English as soon as possible. But put as much as you need to put on your card to remember it again in case you forget completely.

These are really basic questions. I recommend you read through the entire site a couple times. Use the search features of both sites, also.

Codexus Wrote:2) The sentence method isn't about memorizing the sentences, it's about understanding them. Off course, in order to be able to understand you'll need to remember the vocabulary and grammar used in that sentence.

Thanks, I think this cleared up any confusion I had. I knew that the goal was to understand the sentences rather than memorize them, but I guess I was unsure of how the individual components should be treated.

It seems that the consensus is to completely finish kanji before starting on sentences, so I'll keep up with that. Thanks for the help everyone.

I would disagree about finishing RtK first. I don't know how this would work for anyone else, but I've been keeping my language learning and my kanji completely separate. I learn kanji at certain times, and I work on sentences/vocab at other times. After a while, you start to recognize kanji in sentences from repeated use, so you've memorized those kanji (at least, you can understand them) before you even got to them in RtK. In that way, learning sentences simultaneously can be beneficial.

However, I can understand why people would say to memorize all the kanji first. This just doesn't work for me though - what's the point of memorizing >2000 kanji without trying to learn ANY of the spoken language? I keep reading and understanding separate.

For example, I learned the verb こわれる - to break - some time ago, and was using it in sentences/speaking frequently. Then, the other day, I learn the character 壊 through RtK, which means demolish. Today I was typing an email to my friend, and when I typed こわれる, it came up as "壊れる". I suddenly realized I knew that kanji - and I could match it with the word it belongs to. Now, I completely know that word. This is why I like learning kanji and sentences/vocab simultaneously - it all ties in together.

That's just me though - do whatever works for you.

The point of memorizing the kanji first is that you'll have little trouble with them during the sentences.

How many kanjis you do a day? How many sentences you do a day? In how much time?

I struggled with RTK, but I'm breezing trought the sentences now.

I already know tons of Japanese and still do JUST kanji now. The reason being: The faster you're done with kanji, the better. Learning sentences with kanji you already know from RtK is MUCH more effective than learning sentences and kanji at the same time (you're not learning them as well either).

Knowing kanji before RtK can even be detrimental, trust me on that. The techniques you use for memorization etc are superior in the Heisig method, you don't want the old techniques taking over, they WILL lead to you forgetting how to write the kanji.

You know how Tae Kim and everybody says "learn words not kanji"?

I used to think that was stupid. Now I don't think that anymore. When I was first starting out I thought "How in the world are we going to get past the kanji then, huh!?" now that I'm actually reading Japanese, I can see how that works. It's because Heisig is only a method to learn how to write the kanji. Nothing more. Being able to write the kanji from memory isn't going to make it easier to remember the readings or learn words. A person who's finished Heisig is going to be at the same spot as a person who hasn't done it.

(I know I'm glossing over learning the English meanings, but that doesn't make what I said any less true.)

alyks Wrote:You know how Tae Kim and everybody says "learn words not kanji"?

I used to think that was stupid. Now I don't think that anymore. When I was first starting out I thought "How in the world are we going to get past the kanji then, huh!?" now that I'm actually reading Japanese, I can see how that works. It's because Heisig is only a method to learn how to write the kanji. Nothing more. Being able to write the kanji from memory isn't going to make it easier to remember the readings or learn words. A person who's finished Heisig is going to be at the same spot as a person who hasn't done it.

(I know I'm glossing over learning the English meanings, but that doesn't make what I said any less true.)

I disagree with you here. I (like many others) tried the traditional way of remembering Kanji and vocab (basically Kanji compounds). It was slow and painful. Very slow and very painful. Now that I have RtK under my belt, memorizing vocab is a breeze. Not only that, but words definitely stick better.

True, memorizing readings is just as slow as ever. But without RtK, when you come across a new word you have to memorize so many new things at once. Of course it can be done and millions of people have done it. But it seems so archaic when so many tools are available to speed up the process. I always viewed RtK as an investment in time. What's the point of spending 3-6 months memorizing arguably pointless English keywords anyways? When I saw how much easier it was to learn real vocab with RtK as a foundation, I knew it was well worth it. I'm sure others have seen the same benefits.

I'm saying that a person who is doing Heisig and reading/learning Japanese at the same time isn't going to have this problem. What traditional way are we talking about? Writing them out over and over? Forget that.
But learning to write kanji is not a prerequisite for learning a Japanese word or associating a reading with a kanji. A person who's doing RTK at the same time should have the skills to tell the difference between kanji and radicals.

I'm simply arguing the case that a person can go through RTK and learn Japanese at the same time without a whole lot of trouble. I still think a person should give RTK all of their energy first, though.

The biggest advantage of doing RtK is that it gives you the mental tools to dissect a kanji. Now I can learn a new kanji after a few seconds of analyzing its components, at which point its easy to make up a story. I tried for years before RtK to learn kanji in the context of words and passages, and it became too easy to forget them later on or get them confused with a similar looking kanji.

It reminds me of the middle school children to to whom I teach English. They learn words by recognizing their shape, so they're constantly getting words like "went" and "want" mixed up. If they had studied phonics from the begining that wouldn't happen.

True that. I feel like all of RTK just ended up being one big practice exercise in how to dissect kanji. Because while those tools have ended up being immensely useful, the actual kanji I 'acquired' going through it don't seem to have any kind of relevance to what I'm doing now. I'm essentially picking them up all over again, writing, meaning, and all. Not that it matters, since, as esgrove observes, it only takes a few seconds to learn even a kanji you've genuinely never seen before, at this point.

tokyostyle Wrote:

alyks Wrote:You know how Tae Kim and everybody says "learn words not kanji"?

I used to think that was stupid. Now I don't think that anymore.

You are kidding right? Can you blast through a normal Japanese shosetsu at a decent reading speed? (Do you honestly have the experience to be giving such advice? Tae Kim doesn't!)

100% of the non-native speakers that I know who are fluent in Japanese told me over and over to "just learn the Kanji first". These weren't people who were recommending Heisig, though a few of them mentioned it, they were actually suggesting a familiarity with all 2,000+ jyoyou kanji precisely so that you don't get confused with all of the similar looking kanji. (未末 for example!)

Do you have the experience to be telling me I'm wrong here? By your standards, doubtful.

If a guy was doing RTK full speed and wanted to read on the side, I don't see why he wouldn't be able to. I still don't agree with the "Learn words not kanji" mindset, but I do understand where they're coming from. If a person did want to learn Japanese before having completed RTK, they only way they would be able to would be normal AJATT sentences. Put in sentences and associate readings and meanings to them. I also think that a person who's doing RTK should have the eye to spot the differences between kanji, even if they're not familiar with them. That's it.

And for the record, I am reading books at a moderately decent speed.

I'd recommend all people who DID start with kanji/Heisig to not be too confident with your experiences. Trust us who started with traditional and did so for a long time, we know how much more energy it takes to learn, read and use kanji if you simply learn them from context, reading and compounds. Those who started with Heisig has the tools and see kanji in a very different way when they stumble upon new kanji while reading a book, you guys actually cut them down into smaller primitives. In traditional learning, you do not. You can see that "oh, this one has that one thing on the side, same as that kanji in that word I learned before" but it really isn't any deeper than that. It's just a new shape which happens to be similar to another shape you know. Eventually, there will be mixups. You probably won't be able to write it.

I agree that one can learn Japanese on the same time as Heisig, hell I learned Japanese for a year before and I even passed JLPT2 without ever opening it, so of course it's possible. I just wouldn't recommend it, recognizing the kanji gives too much of an advantage. For those who really can't wait to learn Japanese before finishing RtK, I recommend doing simple grammar exercises etc, stuff that doesn't need kanji.

Captain_Thunder, my advice to you is, either way may be okay - but PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR MOTIVATION.

But be aware: doing just RtK alone first does appear to be more efficient, overall. However, you must pay attention to your motivation as you plod through. If you want to finish in under 3-4 months, you have to spend a lot of intensive studying daily, perhaps giving up a lot of other responsibilities. If you do not finish a reasonable part of RtK (I would say at least 75% or so) because you become discouraged, you probably would have done better by doing other studies and not stopping instead.

Doing your RtK concurrently with Japanese studies may be "easier" to sustain (it really depends on your study habits and personality - some people do better focusing on just one type of studying at a time - others do better cross-training), but you will not get the full benefit of recognizing Kanji as you study. After all, there are many people who have learned Japanese by understanding sentences WITHOUT RtK. But I surmise that it would be faster if you knew the Kanji beforehand.

So my recommendation is, if you can handle it, do RtK and finish it off, and then move to other studies. But if while doing it, you find that you are not adding new words every day, then do other Japanese things to keep your motivation up.

Whatever you do, study with awareness and don't lose your momentum.

I do think that getting all the RTK kanji down early is a great benefit, and since I did it in the spring my Japanese has advanced very quickly. However, depending on a person's speed, I don't think ignoring all other Japanese studies is beneficial. For example, for someone who may take six months to a year to get through RTK, why should they wait to learn basic sentence structures and expressions? It makes no sense to me. The kana, yes for sure. Stay away from romaji as much as possible. And if you have a whole month to do nothing but study kanji (ie, no job, no school, no children, etc.) then go bananas and nail down RTK. But most people are not in that situation. The structure of Japanese is so different from English that it takes a while for the concepts to sink into your head - why not get a start on that process as well? Make RTK an essential part of your early studies, but keep it balanced and learn some other aspects of the language as well.

(Sorry about the thread necro-mancing but I have a few questions about the AJATT method.)

So the JLPT is finally over -- back to "studying". Starting in January I would like to start using sentences in Japanese. It's my goal to learn the language monolingualy -- no English. While I have used anki before I'm not sure how to start sentences so please, any advice is welcome. (I'm going to review those kanji again during Christmas break because I have forgot a few hundred. :S)

1) So I understand you put sentences into anki (or Memosyne etc) and then review them but he never mentioned "failing" cards as far as I read. If I can't read, write and understand the sentence then do I click "no"? Also how does writing come into play? If I SEE the sentence I can just copy the kanji no problem. :\ Huh...

2) I need a good online monolingual dictionary, which one is your favorite? I currently use Jisho which is an 英和／和英, and I like it because it's simple. It's a dictionary not a smartphone.

3) Other than ファミ通, I can't find any good blogs/websites about games in general. I figured that it's one thing I tend to waste time doing in English so I might as well get some sentences out of it.

4) Have you done audio, video or images in your decks in anki (in general)? I would like to take a look at them and perhaps make deck of my own.

That's it! Thank you for your answers!
御願いします。

Funny how people quarrel about insignificant trifles!

Language is a system of four subsystems: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and discourse (here: how to make texts). You have to lovingly develop/acquire four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) to manipulate the four subsystems.
At the beginning, listening comprehension and pronunciation are the most important, and, more often than not, completely ignored. 日本　and 二本 (にほん)　are pronounced differently, for instance, you cannot learn that just by learning kanji components and stroke order (that is what Mr Heisig does).
Kanji are just a small element in the whole picture called 日本語。
Words - how they sound and how they are written - are much more valuable, they carry meaning and emotions.
I somehow don't want to see 古里 (ふるさと）　as a tombstone and a computer (according to Mr Heisig), I'd rather see my hometown, and smell it, and hear all the voices of my childhood and of my ancestors.
We are governed by our emotions - love and soul shattering awe are among them.
When I read this
色is a pictograph of a man inserting his phallus into a woman from behind → sex; lover; mistress → looks; appearance (← motive factors stimulating the sex drive) → color (← complexion ← appearance).
I remembered the kanji instantly.



Quote:
I recommend to “grab” real Japanese as soon as possible, no matter how hard it is at the beginning.

This is the most valuable piece of advice I have ever come across.

或日の暮方の事である。 ある ひ の くれがた の こと で ある。 by 芥川龍之介 (1892-1927) was the first sentence I heard in Japanese.

As to kanji and components. Heisig is only one of the possible methods.
I just learned all the classical radicals 部首 （ぶしゅ） and their Japanese names.
When I see 詩 I know it is 言 + 寺. When I see 誰 I know it is 言 + 隹　ふるとり）. Mr Heisig calls it 'turkey', I'd rather call it the Japanese way. When in Rome (i.e. Japan), do as the Romans do! 郷に入っては郷に従え。　ごう に いって は ごう に したがえ。
I'd much rather spend my time actually learning Japanese than invent some weird stories just to remember the components.
It is a matter of preference in a sense.

Sorry for my survival English.
Peace to you all, Japanese lovers.

Everyone tries a bunch of different things around here, then reports them, then everyone else winds up arguing about them. You can find that sort of stuff scattered around here. Just the nature of the beast.

@gyuu: The simplest way to do it is to just copy short sentences from an online dictionary. Front of the card is the sentence, back of the card has any key words explained in Japanese, with readings.

Use Anki if you can. There are a ton of premade decks for that you can tap into. You don't have to use the whole deck, you can just grab stuff you want, and use it a bit at a time.

Failing cards is an essential part of learning. If you don't know something, fail it. Anki is not just a memory system, I look at it as a testing system. You're constantly testing how well you remember stuff, and how well you know Japanese.

Sentences are useful for one specific skill: reading Japanese and recognizing Japanese words. You'll need to add other kinds of cards to bolster other kinds of skills.

I found that for me, one card with one new vocab word on it is not enough for me to adequately learn the vocab word. I need at least 3 cards with the target vocab word in it somewhere. YMMV.

Dictionary-wise, I like the yahoo.co.jp dictionary. It has a 国語 dictionary, and two 和英 dictionaries, which you can mine for sentences. I would mine the 和英 dictionaries for sentences (because they're short and easy), then go to the 国語 for definitions. ALC also has a useful site, but it's 和英... but it's the place to go to get sentences for weird stuff, because its stuff has been edited... sort of. I'd steer clear of EDICT-based sources like Jisho, because the sentences they use usually come from the very dubious Tanaka corpus.

The stuff at yahoo comes from real dictionary companies, who edit their stuff. I want to say it's sanseido, but I'm too lazy to double-check, and I need to head out of DC now.

Thank you for your advice. I understand that both Heisig's and AJATT are a bit controversial to many people. But I got what I needed.
Thanks again

tokyostyle Wrote:

alyks Wrote:You know how Tae Kim and everybody says "learn words not kanji"?

I used to think that was stupid. Now I don't think that anymore.

You are kidding right? Can you blast through a normal Japanese shosetsu at a decent reading speed? (Do you honestly have the experience to be giving such advice? Tae Kim doesn't!)

I personally suck at 小説. Check my latest blog post. It took me around 1 hour to do page 1. That's terrible. Anyway, I understood 6 of the 18 sentences on the first page of this novel (basically all the shorter ones). After looking up vocab words, I at least sort of understand 17 of the sentences on the page.

gyuujuice Wrote:4) Have you done audio, video or images in your decks in anki (in general)? I would like to take a look at them and perhaps make deck of my own.

I've tried but it's just too confusing, especially since I split my studying across 3 computers (Work computer, home desktop, Laptop) and syncing media is difficult.

When I finally get a nice spacious desk, I can actually use the home desktop to study from instead of just using it to input cards, and maybe then I'll take a look at including media.

I never messed with audio, video, or images, because it bogs me down time-wise.

It's just faster to dump in sentences, and overcome any subtle losses from "optimization" with just overwhelming numbers. It's not as engaging an experience, but I've managed to live so far.