Heya everyone!

I have some things I want to do:

- Wrightak's Japanese RTK (learn Kunyomi by changing the english keywords by japanese ones)

-Kanji Town (Kanji chaining for ONyomi)

-AJATT (-> Sentence mining, anki deck) (Yes I am sure I want to do Kanji Town before AJATT, I want structure in my onyomi-mind.)

I have been living in Japan for 1 year now and I can speak fairly Japanese, I have already started swapping keywords with japanese ones, and it's not that hard I think.
But I was wondering if this was a nice idea?

I learn all my kanji as Kunyomi, and then I make the stories for Kanji Town, but in JAPANESE! With the Japanese Kunyomi-keywords instead of the english ones.

What do you guys think about that? ^^

-Mesqueeb

Memorizing readings independent of words is a waste of time. Just study vocabulary.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Memorizing readings independent of words is a waste of time. Just study vocabulary.

I could not possibly agree more strongly. If anyone thinks that simply memorizing "onyomi" and "kunyomi" readings is going to lead to reading fluency, or even competence, please let me disabuse you of that notion.

You need vocabulary. Once you are familiar with the kanji (RTK1), this becomes a much less onerous chore than it would be otherwise. Study sentences. Observe how the kanji yomikata morph. Resist the urge to study meaningless associations. Study the way Japanese people use this stuff. That is really what you need to know.

There's merit to learning On-yomi systematically via the various methods. My reasoning is that the rarer kanji above the most common 1000 you're not going to see often. You're likely not going to add vocabulary words containing these rarer kanji very often either. So these kanji you will not learn words or onyomi or kunyomi via sentence methods.

However, you will be seeing these kanji pop up as you read a lot. Now, if you already had the Onyomi covered systematically, then these rare words are pretty much handled as you get to them. In fact, this has probably happened when you came across a new word which was made of kanji you knew both the meaning and Onyomi. It probably became a very easy word to learn.

It's a balance then. Definitely learn via sentences. Kunyomi and common Onyomi get covered the best this way. But I don't think it's a waste to learn at least 1 onyomi pronunciation per kanji systematically.

I agree with Jarvik and Wally. In a year and a half, I was able to go from roughly 0 Japanese to passing the JLPT 2 basically from reading and listening alone. I did some textbooky stuff but just enough to get through the exercises and then move on. I never studied about readings other than the fact that they existed. I still can't keep straight which one refers Japanese readings and which one to Chinese. I just know how words are pronounced when I read them. And this is from not fully committing to ajatt or the sentence method. I have about 80 sentences total in anki all of which are about 10 months past due.

I think studying readings alone is not really worth the time. At best, you are attaching a sound to the kanji and the kanji's keyword. But we all know the limitations of keywords. So the best situation really ends up being the creation of a pseudo-language where English words are turned into Japanese sounds matched to a kanji character. It's all out of context and the sounds are in many cases not actual words. So it's putting a step in where one isn't needed. Doing Heisig's method is already putting off context for a really long time, but it's for a good reason. Once you have kanji recognition why put off reading?! And even if done in conjunction with reading, it's putting too much emphasis on memory which is too fallible when you "learn" a reading one day for a kanji that might not appear in your reading until 3 months later. What's the guarantee that the time and effort put into memorizing sounds will pay off? The cost-benefit ratio just doesn't work out in my opinion.

Given, there are some kanji that are rarer than others. Learning through context just means it will take a bit longer to learn those than more common ones. Not too big a deal considering they are rarer and therefore less likely to interrupt your reading. And in many/most cases not knowing the reading will only interrupt reading aloud but not reading for meaning. If you read a lot, and the kanji pop up more, then it means you will learn them faster. So why learn them out of context, just read more and you'll get them.

If you're going to spend extra time ensuring you know readings for all the kanji you can write/recognize, I think it would be better spent seeking out a variety of reading material that will include those rarer kanji in abundance. Reading scholarly and technical literature in areas of personal interest is one way to make this happen quickly. Seeking out authors with a penchant for using rare kanji is another. You might also try to keep track of how many times each rare kanji appears in your SRS deck always aiming to add more.

Reading is the best language teacher.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Memorizing readings independent of words is a waste of time. Just study vocabulary.

This. It might sound odd, but quite honestly, this is how it works in all defective orthographies such as Arabic, English, Swedish... most European languages. Just from seeing "queue" doesn't mean you know how to pronounce it. Just from hearing it doesn't mean you can write it correctly. You have to learn it on a word to word basis.

Not exactly the same thing, but it still means that even in your native tongue you probably had to rely on vocabulary studies to learn how to use words properly.

Something not mentioned by others about studying via vocab is that as you read you are getting so many things done, grammar, structure, culture, rhythm and a feel for the language, whereas studying readings alone may give you the ability to read obscure ass words, but what use are those words when you aren't reading them in a sentence? Who learns the word "imprecation" before knowing what a curse is?
Even still who the hell uses the word "imprecation"? You'll probably only come across that on some academic journal paper. So many words I look up on an e-dict I have to ask my J-friends if that word is 'appropriate', they then say 'never heard of this before, must be a literary one or something, just use blablabla'. ***** shit e-dicts..

Move your way up along a ladder just like how you do it with any language, ya start off with beginner shit and work your way onto the classics of huxley, tolstoy, dickens. So yes as mattyjaddy says reading is the best language teacher.

But it's just that I want to be able to see words that I have not seen before but can still pronounce.
It's like this word: ちょうさ - 調査, I can remember it through Anki Sentences (which I have been doing) but for example I always forget in what order the kanji are. And thus when seeing the same kanji in other words I would not know if the reading is ちょう or さ... So my point is that I am linking the kanji still only with the keywords, and think: ちょうさ that was "investigation" and "tune" right? But I never have a clue in what order.
So that's why I wanted to do a structured on-yomi study. I want to be able to link the kanji not to the keywords but rather to sounds. which seems much more helpfull with words I don't know...

-Mesqueeb

Mesqueeb Wrote:But it's just that I want to be able to see words that I have not seen before but can still pronounce.
It's like this word: ちょうさ - 調査, I can remember it through Anki Sentences (which I have been doing) but for example I always forget in what order the kanji are. And thus when seeing the same kanji in other words I would not know if the reading is ちょう or さ... So my point is that I am linking the kanji still only with the keywords, and think: ちょうさ that was "investigation" and "tune" right? But I never have a clue in what order.
So that's why I wanted to do a structured on-yomi study. I want to be able to link the kanji not to the keywords but rather to sounds. which seems much more helpfull with words I don't know...

-Mesqueeb

I have this same problem, and thought of doing the same thing he wants to do as the solution. Can anybody else comment specifically on how their reading method contributed to this? Is it just sheer drowning exposure that makes them clear in your mind?

Also, supposing I already know the kunyomi word for a ton of these kanji. Is there any harm in swapping it out for the English word right now? I mean I've been using a lot of them for a while so I don't think I'll confuse Heisig's meaning.

As we speak I am swapping keywords with kunyomi.
See this awesome site:
http://wrightak.googlepages.com/afterrtk1

Anyway I also wanted to say that I am restricted to reading manga! Since it has furigana... I can't pick up a novel and read it, and that is something I want to do... Alex from the movie method had 1 ONreading per kanji and could start reading novels. So my question of 2 posts above here still lasts, plus one reason why I want to do it here: Reading novels.

Now please help me see why just doing anki-sentences and reading manga is better, because I am not seeing it. If it takes me 1 month for all kanji 1 onyomi, and then start reading manga and novels would that be so bad?

-Mesqueeb

As always, you should do what works for you and what you believe will work for you. If you work hard enough and have a reasonably workable plan, then you will likely have success. People are just giving you info on what worked for them.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, as I really don't know the difference between kun and on readings. But as I'm reading (whatever it may be, children's books, academic articles, blogs, signs, etc.) I often come across words I don't know. In the beginning, I had to look everything up. My denshi jisho writing pad got a big workout. Now, I rely less on it as I've grown used to kanji. I can intuit the reading and just type it in--a big time saver. I'm not always right, but it feels nice when I am. And sometimes I'm just typing it in to check, as the meaning is mostly apparent from the context and keywords for the kanji. Even for kanji that I haven't seen in reading before, I can sometimes guess the reading since they share a primitive with another kanji that I see often. Those are especially fun to get right.

It takes time though. Probably less if one actually does SRSing with sentences properly, something I never got into. I prefer reading new stuff, even though I know that re-reading things is very useful for language acquisition.

But anyway, yes, just about anytime I pick up an academic reading or look through a blog I see words I've never seen before but that I can still read. Sometimes I can understand them too. Not always, but knowing the reading helps me look up the meaning more quickly.

I think you have to ask yourself what's important to you. Is reading something aloud fluently of high importance? Then perhaps getting the readings nailed down up front is a good idea. If you want to be able to read and understand AS you're reading (not necessarily aloud), then I'd say you should stick with reading.

Well, this is what you said in the first post:

"What do you guys think about that? ^^"

And most expressed their idea that, if pressed for time, it would be best to ditch simple readings of onyomi and kunyomi and focus on vocabulary. I am also of that opinion.

But, if you say that it only takes a month to learn all the readings, and time does not seem to be a factor in your life, then by all means go ahead. There isn't really no wrong way to learn japanese, as long as you're doing SOMETHING.

Our opinions are based on the notion that time is precious and it might be necessary for us to achieve a certain level of Japanese before a certain date (because of a language exam, for example). In that context, learning exclusively onyomi and kunyomi is indeed a waste of time, and something that a person could easily postpone for further study, after having consolidated their Japanese skills already.

But no harm will come if you do onyomi and kunyomi first. In my humble opinion, I just wouldn't consider it as a priority, that's all.

Mesqueeb Wrote:Anyway I also wanted to say that I am restricted to reading manga! Since it has furigana... I can't pick up a novel and read it, and that is something I want to do... Alex from the movie method had 1 ONreading per kanji and could start reading novels. So my question of 2 posts above here still lasts, plus one reason why I want to do it here: Reading novels.

Don't let this hold you back. You don't have to voice the words of a text to understand what it means. Also, be aware knowing only one ON reading per kanji (or even all the ON and KUN readings for all the kanji, actually) is nowhere near enough to read a novel aloud, unless you're willing to make lots of mistakes.

Maybe learning the readings in isolation is a good idea, if you think about it as yet another step stone before learning "real Japanese", much like RTK is, and if you're able to do it quickly. Otherwise, just learn the words. It's not that hard, and it has immediate application.

I agree that you should generally just learn vocab which is nestled in sexy sentences.

In the case of 調査 you may struggle with the order at first, but as you learn many more words with these kanji you won't. eg 調節　調整　調子　and 検査. I don't think it is worth your time trying to study the readings seperately since there is not benefit to doing it this way. It isn't like you will know them better by doing this rather than studying actual words in sentences. In fact I think the oppoiste is true.

When we speak we usually just regurgitate what we have read and heard. Reading and studying kanji as part of words that are in sentences will raise your ability to do this. However, just studying the readings won't. It is too abstract when studied seperately from the raw language itself.

If you want to be good at this, study from the reading to the kanji or ideally both ways.

I do it both ways and find that I can often hear a new word, figure out the kanji and thus the meaning in about 3 or so seconds now from the context.

Mesqueeb Wrote:As we speak I am swapping keywords with kunyomi.
See this awesome site:
http://wrightak.googlepages.com/afterrtk1

Anyway I also wanted to say that I am restricted to reading manga! Since it has furigana... I can't pick up a novel and read it, and that is something I want to do... Alex from the movie method had 1 ONreading per kanji and could start reading novels. So my question of 2 posts above here still lasts, plus one reason why I want to do it here: Reading novels.

Now please help me see why just doing anki-sentences and reading manga is better, because I am not seeing it. If it takes me 1 month for all kanji 1 onyomi, and then start reading manga and novels would that be so bad?

-Mesqueeb

I haven't studied readings in separate since I got back from Japan and I read novels just fine. As long as you know the words, you can say them just fine. If you don't know a word, how much does it really help you that you can pronounce it? You still don't know it and will have to learn it.

As you learn more words, you will learn the readings automatically.

thermal Wrote:In the case of 調査 you may struggle with the order at first, but as you learn many more words with these kanji you won't. eg 調節　調整　調子　and 検査.

I agree with this, same thing I was going to say. As you learn more words with the kanji the readings for each one come much easier. Also as for reading novels, you can always look the kanji up using the keyword.

I think learning the readings is helpful. There are tons of words I know the pronunciation of but not the kanji, so if I was able to read the kanji when I saw it somewhere, I would immediately know what the word was.

I'm planning on learning kun and on reading as well, so I don't think it's a bad idea.

julz6453 Wrote:I think learning the readings is helpful. There are tons of words I know the pronunciation of but not the kanji, so if I was able to read the kanji when I saw it somewhere, I would immediately know what the word was.

I'm planning on learning kun and on reading as well, so I don't think it's a bad idea.

That happens regardless... there's really no aspect of learning readings in isolation that makes it better than learning the readings as parts of words. I heard "kimatsu" used on TV and immediately knew it was 期末 even though I had never seen that word before. All because I knew 時期 and 週末.

I guess you guys are right. ^^ I came to new insights because of everyone here.

I'll just read manga and add sentences into Anki.

Thanks guys!!

-Mesqueeb

After so long searching, this thread has answered pretty much all of my questions regarding RTK2: don't do it. Pursue vocab. Thank you, this is exactly what I needed and has simplified everything for me.

Tobberoth Wrote:

julz6453 Wrote:I think learning the readings is helpful. There are tons of words I know the pronunciation of but not the kanji, so if I was able to read the kanji when I saw it somewhere, I would immediately know what the word was.

I'm planning on learning kun and on reading as well, so I don't think it's a bad idea.

That happens regardless... there's really no aspect of learning readings in isolation that makes it better than learning the readings as parts of words. I heard "kimatsu" used on TV and immediately knew it was 期末 even though I had never seen that word before. All because I knew 時期 and 週末.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree. Why is there "no real aspect of learning readings in isolation that makes it better than learning them as vocabulary?" I'm doing a healthy combination of both right now and the way they supplement each other (and give a break to the tedium of just doing one method) is really great for longevity and not losing my motivation.

Learning readings is definitely helpful, although RTK2 might not be the best way to do it, it's demonized a lot more on this site than it deserves, I think.