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So I just finished RTK1.
I have a bit of grammar and vocab under my belt right now, but I'd like to see if anyone has any advice for the next step.
I have KO2001, tae kim, and iknow all in mind. What I'd like to do is dedicate most of time to one I think, and be adding to Anki along side. Personally, I've been thinking I should do Tae Kim's all the way through entering what I want from it into Anki as I go. Then KO2001 after. And maybe iknow along side both.
What do you think? Maybe someone could suggest a different route or additional resources I should use alongside, instead of, or first, if you have a better idea. Thanks!
Edited: 2009-02-26, 4:14 pm
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It's impossible to actually plan it out since you don't actually know what any of it will be like yet. Just dip into it all, see what works, and then get into your own rhythm based on your experiences.
Whatever you do, don't JUST go through all these courses and whatever. Get lots of authentic input too.
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Personally, I would skip going through 3007. The kanji in there are very uncommon (I finished RtK1 several weeks ago and I've only added 10 or so kanji from RtK3 from exposure into Anki... and I'm at JLPT2 level so it's not like I'm reading easy stuff). You can learn them through context as you go, you don't need to focus time on them specifically.
As for what to do now, your plan sounds good. Start with Tae Kim. You don't need to finish it before you focus on the rest, some of the advanced topics are rarely used, but get the basic and itermediate stuff down before you start going full out in KO. As for iKnow, give it a try. Personally I didn't like it much, I prefer Anki.
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This is what I do.
1) Pick a piece of text.
2) Underline the new words.
3) Find a sentence for everyone of these words and put them in anki. For this, use whatever resource you find nice.
4) Read the text.
Always) Listen to natural speed audio.
BTW, check the audiobooks from the resources section of the forum and see if there's one you like.
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Grammar is all there is. Colourless green dreams sleep furiously; buckets watch blue.
~J
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I'm gonna go with the theory that using grammar is like using RTK, a means to an end. No, kanji is not a bunch of Heisig primitives. No, kanji individually don't really mean what the keyword says it is. However, with it as a shortcut, you reach a place where you can properly use kanji quicker.
Same with grammar. Yeah, grammar doesn't really exist. It's just someone noticing patterns in a language (like people noticed patterns within the kanji), and began organizing it into useful material. With it in your head, you can reach a place where you understand the sentences you're reading or listening to.
Grammar, like kanji, has diminishing returns the further you go along. The kanji from RTK lite get used all the time. The later 1000 get used less so. The next 1000 even less (although there are some common ones in there). Likewise, simple grammar rules will be used often so you'll see it often. The ones in Essential also so. The later "rules" you'll rarely see pop up.
So yeah, I'm treating Kanji, Grammar and Vocabulary as useful means to ends. Here are the steps I'm having my ex-wife and later my daughter do for learning Japanese.
Step 1 - I learn Kanji via Heisig in groups of 1000. I then learn basic grammar via 180 sentences from Tae Kim (or UBJG, or Genki, or others).
Step 2 - I then learn 400 basic vocabulary via iKnow (or KO2001). Then it's 500 kanji from RTK, 320 essential grammar sentences from Tae Kim and 800 intermediate vocabulary from iKnow.
Step 3 - Lastly it's 500 kanji from RTK, 230 special grammar sentences from Tae Kim and the last 800 intermediate from iKnow common core.
What I'm not doing (and I don't recommend doing), is learning the grammar "rules" then going and trying to make sentences from them. I'm using the "rules" to figure out when I'm reading manga or watching shows.
PS: I'm writing out the kanji with RTK reviews, the vocabulary word only with Vocabulary reviews, and the grammar portion of the sentence (the bolded portion on Tae Kim's sentences) with Grammar reviews. I do reverse cards on vocabulary (reading it out) and grammar (very, very controlled English + Grammar rule to Japanese spoken).
Edited: 2009-02-26, 10:39 pm
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I was joking in my last post, but I think the fact that a completely meaningless, nonsensical sentence can be constructed in a way that is unambiguously correct in some structural fashion is a strong counterargument to any serious assertion that grammar does not exist.
(Note that this is independent of the question of how much explicit study of grammar is useful.)
~J
Edited: 2009-02-26, 11:34 pm
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Nukemarine,
How do you suggest using the iKnow system, for both sentences and vocabulary?
I have an iKnow audio -> kanji/kana sentence anki deck I'm thinking of starting. Just wanting to hear another opinion.
Thanks!
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pm has the idea. If there were to be no grammar, that would leave semantics as the only actual attribute of a sentence (modulo a few other things that don't, I believe, change this argument). However, both "Colourless green dreams sleep furiously" and its twin ("furiously ideas green colourless sleep") are semantically completely empty. The idea of sleeping furiously is nonsensical; so is the idea of dreams sleeping, or of dreams having colour (or its lack), or of something being both colourless and green.
So we have two sentences devoid of semantic content. If grammar does not exist, they should be on equal footing. However, one of them is clearly more "correct" than the other; among other things, one of them I was able to analyze and produce portions of that were, in particular, meaningless. That analysis is not possible with the reversed version.
So clearly some structural attribute of the sentence exists independent of semantic content. "Grammar" is the term we use to describe structural attributes of sentences.
On these grounds, I claim that one cannot say "grammar does not exist" in any manner more meaningful than one can say "vocabulary does not exist", or even "language does not exist". The assertion "the parts of a verb are only parts of the same verb because we say they are" is, while potentially true, standing on the same logical foundation as "green is only green because we say it is".
~J
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I love learning grammar as well. It's an extremely fast and effective way to get a very high level of understanding and production ability. Like Nukemarine said, it's an ends to a mean. Grammar doesn't make you awesome at a language, it just makes it easier to become awesome.
It's a shortcut, nothing else.
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The grammar doesn't exist thing is more of a joke. For all of you that didn't read the posts that I linked to, they basically state:
That grammar does exist, as an abstract concept, because we say it does
That you don't need to spend a ton of time learning it
With adequate exposure, you'll pick it up naturally anyway and end up sounding like a native (as opposed to sound like grammar-bot 5000)
This works in almost any language. A good friend of mine, a Japanese native, was born in Tokyo. He lived in Pennsylvania for a few years during elementary school, moved back to Tokyo, and has lived/worked there ever since. His English is ****** fantastic*. At elementary school levels, you aren't doing grammar. When he got back to Japan, he spoke better English than his "English teachers" in school, and didn't bother with any other formal training. All his exposure since then is purely through media. He reads a lot, watches American TV and movies, and picks up stuff via the web.
I'm not saying studying grammar is a waste of time, I just think it's not as important as people make it out to be. I mean, really... how much do you study grammar in your native language? Did you speak well, grammatically speaking, before getting into REAL grammar study in roughly middle school? Massive exposure will have you speaking like Japanese people speak, which is kind of the point, right?
The most important part is to do whatever works for you, have fun, and stay motivated. If you like grammar, go nuts, study it like crazy. It still counts as exposure. ^____^
Edited: 2009-02-27, 3:36 pm
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I read it, but again, the arguments under which it is correct also apply to vocabulary. "Abstract" as a word exists only because we say it does. It's not a useful observation.
~J
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Concentrate on remembering your learned kanjis. This is as important as learning them in first place.
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Grammar exists because we say it exists. It's a name we once gave to describe patterns in a language, and thereafter we started learning the language with the use of the knowledge of these patterns. We also sometimes slightly adjusted grammer (rules) for various reasons, like the evolution of languages, or to make things easier to learn. But grammar still is just that: re-occurring patterns (is that double?). Not everything fits inside these patterns, which is why there are exceptions. If every bit of grammer was designed as a rule, we wouldn't have those exceptions. (I have no source it's just what I think)
So that's how I view grammer: as patterns. That's why I like books as UBJG.
I am in the same situation, just finished RTK1, with some grammer and vocab already mastered. I am reading through the UBJG book, learning the things I don't understand well yet. I don't plan to let that take up for more than a month, the info doesn't have to be engraved in my memory yet. After that I will purely focus on vocab for a while, which will enable me to understand many things that i WANT to read for FUN. From there on it's reading (and listening/talking) fun stuff and let my knowledge expand by itself, like it happened with my English. Only this time I will have support from Anki, and I will keep learning grammar on the side.
That is what I recommend.
I get exposed to way more of the language when I do learn the rules. I have a fun grammar book and combine that with fun exposure and it works really nicely. 
