Nukemarine Wrote:You have to change the spreadsheet into a tabbed separated .txt file. Anki can import that.

ah, thanks.
is that only possible in microsoft excel?
because i have open office and i dont see an option to change it.

EDIT- i figured it out, thanks

I've always thought it silly that Anki doesn't support CSV. At least the import option for tokenized files is no longer labeled CSV though.

cm2jr4 Wrote:i tried to put the spread sheets in anki, it doesnt take them.
is there a different program to use them with?

http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FileImport

See the bottom of that page

ghinzdra Wrote:resort to smart core ? will I be the only one to finish the course in spite of all the collective effort ? I guess it has to do with the audio file still it's kind of sad....

Nope i am still going strong with raw KO2001, not even using the spreadsheet you guys kindly made. Putting it all in by hand(doing production and recognition for each sentence too) and I just got to #505 today hehe :p

wrightak Wrote:

cm2jr4 Wrote:i tried to put the spread sheets in anki, it doesnt take them.
is there a different program to use them with?

http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FileImport

See the bottom of that page

thanks

I can understand that learning a language is a personal process, that opinions are subjective and a lot of other advice in answer to this but here it is. The first goal is to learn the Kanji, and there are many ways you can go about that, however, using RevTK "just does it" and that's the only thing I am looking for, so in that regards, RevTK gets the job done.

After the Kanji, the trend seems to be mining sentences. What I am looking for is the same feeling of "I am getting somewhere" that I get with RevTK when doing sentences. So the question could be, is that all? mining sentences and eventually everything just starts to make sense?

jorgebucaran Wrote:After the Kanji, the trend seems to be mining sentences. What I am looking for is the same feeling of "I am getting somewhere" that I get with RevTK when doing sentences. So the question could be, is that all? mining sentences and eventually everything just starts to make sense?

I felt the same way and after about 7 months of sentence mining and 1500+ sentences deep..the answer is a big YES! things do just start to make sense, and you just start using grammatical patterns and vocab words (learned from like 2-3 months ago) out of nowhere. Quite a pleasing feeling i must say. Actually this feeling makes the momentum (at least for me) increase. Since noticing the improvement in my japanese (speaking/reading/writing) it has pushed me to add even more sentences.

Hi!
I have a question - what if I already studied Japanese for around a year before I started with RTK? (I had similar approach on kanji actually, since I always use my fantasy to come up with mnomonic for whatever I'm learning at the moment). I tried mock test JLPT3 and it was somewhat easy (grammar, words), but I still have around only half of the kanji I need (I learned a lot of kanji by the "old" method.) I decided to take at least the JLPT3 in December, because it improves my chances for getting into university - even though, I have similar opinion as Khatz..
I'm pretty confident I can finish RTK (as in "being able to Really Remember them all" ) by the end of July, should I start mining sentences after that? Maybe while concentrating on sentences with JLPT3 kanji in them?

This question was answered many times, with many flame wars. If you make a forum search, you'll find many answers. But let's start flaming again!

I think you should do what you want. If JLPT3 keeps you motivated, ok.
But know that JLPT is really not much.
You should aim at least for JLPT2, but only as a stepping stone to JLPT1.

If you put JLPT2 and JLPT1 in perspective, RTK is a great choice.

Tarah Wrote:Hi!
I have a question - what if I already studied Japanese for around a year before I started with RTK? (I had similar approach on kanji actually, since I always use my fantasy to come up with mnomonic for whatever I'm learning at the moment). I tried mock test JLPT3 and it was somewhat easy (grammar, words), but I still have around only half of the kanji I need (I learned a lot of kanji by the "old" method.) I decided to take at least the JLPT3 in December, because it improves my chances for getting into university - even though, I have similar opinion as Khatz..
I'm pretty confident I can finish RTK (as in "being able to Really Remember them all" ) by the end of July, should I start mining sentences after that? Maybe while concentrating on sentences with JLPT3 kanji in them?

Sounds great. Personally I studied Japanese for a year in Japan, passed JLPT2 and got home from Japan... over the coarse of 6 months or so, I noticed how I just started to loose my ability, especially with kanji since I didn't get the exposure anymore. My goal of passing JLPT1 started to slip away... then I found this site and this forum and it was just the solution I needed. Doing RTK puts the kanji like stone in your head. Keep it up and you won't forget them, it will just be a basis to build the rest of your skills on. Since it doesn't teach you readings, there's debate on just how useful RtK is for JLPT tests... but JLPT tests are just a certificate of your ability, it's not your goal. Your goal is to learn Japanese and for that, RTK is awesome.

If I could start RtK after passing JLPT2, there's no doubt you can start it now and get awesome benefits from it.

mentat_kgs Wrote:This question was answered many times, with many flame wars. If you make a forum search, you'll find many answers. But let's start flaming again!

Ok, I just posted it without thinking because I was leaving for school, I should have searched the forum first, sorry, my bad >.<

As for the JLPT1 - yeah, I was thinking that maybe someday I might be able to take it..but it's not my ultimate goal, that's the problem. I know, that if I take JLPT3 my chances with the university are better, but I just can't seem to get motivated enough. I enjoy learning Japanese at my own pace and even though I usually read whatever J I get my hands on, I'm not sure if I can stay motivated with reading repeatedly the same thing over and over (sentence mining).
Plus I'm worried, that even though I understand English pretty well (but I'm not native English speaker) I might not be able to transfer the meaning into my own language - for example while I was telling my friend about some kanji, I find out that rebuke & chastise actually have the same meaning in Czech. I didn't know that before, because I simply wasn't thinking about it and just accepted it as it was, since I can tell the difference in English. However, I find myself not being able to explain it to my not-English-speaking friends, does anyone have the same experience?

edit:typo again..I have a bad day

Yes everybody has.

This feeling that you don't need translation for something is what you want. Translation is something to be avoided, or at least a separate skill. Don't worry about it.

Way to go

Nukemarine Wrote:Here's the plan....

1. KEEP UP YOUR REVIEWS OF RTK!!!!!!
2. Tae Kim Basic Grammar sentences (~180)
3. Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 1 and 2 (400)
4. Tae Kim Essential Grammar (~340)
5. Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 3 through 6 (about 800)
6. Tae Kim Special Expression (~240)
7. Smart.fm Core 2k 7 - 10 (800)

This should be about 300 to 400 hours worth of studying/reviewing.

Thanks for laying out what I need to do. Post-Rtk has become a increasingly important issue that I have been dwelling on.

I am planning on doing Kanji town after RtK is complete (coming up in July), how much time should I budget for it? After Rtk I will be back to multi-tasking my study time among many tasks, so hopefully, I can parallelize some studies (now I have stopped everything to do RtK).

I read down the forums some peeps talking about doing Kanji Oddyssey after Rtk1. Here it is: http://www.coscom.co.jp/kanji/index.html

Why is anyone using this software? Are you just getting sentences from it or what?

jorgebucaran Wrote:I read down the forums some peeps talking about doing Kanji Oddyssey after Rtk1. Here it is: http://www.coscom.co.jp/kanji/index.html

Why is anyone using this software? Are you just getting sentences from it or what?

What software are you talking about?

Many people is talking about going with Kanji Odyssey after RevTK and I am afraid I don't even know what Kanji Odyssey is. Software? Method? Book? Pill?

And I searched Kanji Odyssey and that website came up first in the results.

KO2001 is a set of books and an eBook (it's all explained on that site) that cover sentences for 2001 kanji. I have both the books (there is also a spreadsheet floating around with all the data already entered, allthough you should buy the books and support that compny if you are going use their material) and plan to use them at some point once I finish Rtk.

kanjiwarrior Wrote:KO2001 is a set of books and an eBook (it's all explained on that site) that cover sentences for 2001 kanji. I have both the books (there is also a spreadsheet floating around with all the data already entered, allthough you should buy the books and support that compny if you are going use their material) and plan to use them at some point once I finish Rtk.

Thanks!

Nukemarine Wrote:Here's the plan I laid for my ex-wife and daughter:

1. KEEP UP YOUR REVIEWS OF RTK!!!!!!
2. Tae Kim Basic Grammar sentences (~180)
3. Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 1 and 2 (400)
4. Tae Kim Essential Grammar (~340)
5. Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 3 through 6 (about 800)
6. Tae Kim Special Expression (~240)
7. Smart.fm Core 2k 7 - 10 (800)

This should be about 300 to 400 hours worth of studying/reviewing. If you want more details on how I recommend to do each step, please ask. I recommend the above as it's minimal fuss, as mining sentences take effort and early on you worry about what's good..

@Nukemarine: I believe I read somewhere else around the forums that you have preference over pre-made material. The examples you are listing here appear to sustain this affirmation.

1. Have you tried these steps yourself like you are suggesting? and what were your results?
2. What about mining sentences and using Anki to review them?
3. What was your level of Japanese comprehension after finishing your own series of recommendations?
4. What went next? (What are you doing now regarding Japanese learning?)

jorgebucaran Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:Here's the plan I laid for my ex-wife and daughter:

1. KEEP UP YOUR REVIEWS OF RTK!!!!!!
2. Tae Kim Basic Grammar sentences (~180)
3. Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 1 and 2 (400)
4. Tae Kim Essential Grammar (~340)
5. Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 3 through 6 (about 800)
6. Tae Kim Special Expression (~240)
7. Smart.fm Core 2k 7 - 10 (800)

This should be about 300 to 400 hours worth of studying/reviewing. If you want more details on how I recommend to do each step, please ask. I recommend the above as it's minimal fuss, as mining sentences take effort and early on you worry about what's good..

@Nukemarine: I believe I read somewhere else around the forums that you have preference over pre-made material. The examples you are listing here appear to sustain this affirmation.

1. Have you tried these steps yourself like you are suggesting? and what were your results?
2. What about mining sentences and using Anki to review them?
3. What was your level of Japanese comprehension after finishing your own series of recommendations?
4. What went next? (What are you doing now regarding Japanese learning?)

Wall of Text to follow.

1a. I did all of RTK first, however I have heard positive results from people going RTK Lite route first. I recommend that above doing all of RTK on the outset.
1b. I started trying Rosetta Stone, Japanese for Busy People, Genki, and even Pimsleur. I spent a good amount of time on Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar (which I would recommend) and KO2k1 (also recommended) , until moving onto Tae Kim's stuff and iKnow for personal preferences.
1c. I'm almost done with the above steps (RTK done, Tae Kim done, iKnow 2k 1 month from completion). By done I mean 90% of cards are "mature".
1d. Results are pretty decent reading ability, I think. I can hold a lousy conversation in Japanese. I can follow along a TV show with j-subs pretty well, and so so without. Site reading Karaoke songs is not much of a problem, even got a 98% for "ashita hareru kana" which was the top score at the pub.

2a. What I began to realize about mining sentences for myself is it's too much work. I like to go the easier route. I did help with the group efforts to mine KO2001 and UBJG on the idea these materials provide a base of Japanese understanding (vocabulary and grammar). Plus, the time spent of 2000 sentences doing the non-learning grunt work (typing up, proof-reading, inputting) can be hundreds of hours. So yeah, I don't personally recommend mining new material early on. Use effort that's already been done and add to that with learning it.
2b. My thoughts on what the need to mine sentences accomplishes has become refined. In my mind, it's about getting knowledge of a word in your head so you know what it is when you see it in the wild. Similar things go with kanji and grammar concepts. It's this reason I don't mind using pre-generated material that covers most common items. So long as it's progressive and natural, it should be ok.

3. See 1d.

4a. As I'm entering the last 35 words of Core 2k today, I'm purposely going to do Alyks' movie method for the next 20 or so days. I found this helps when I'm reading Japanese when words pop up I know by context but cannot pronounce. Another reason is that I personally don't like reading manga with furigana for some reason. It distracts me, as I go from enjoying mode (flowing through the story) to learning mode (looking over each word).
4b. Next 2000 words from Smart.fm Core 6k. Hopefully by the time I start that, someone will be able to sort the vocab list into an order similar to KO2001 (Pubbie made a sorting program, and katsuo provided the KO2k1 kanji sorting, I have the vocabulary list on google docs). It's not completely necessary and I'll still start even if it's not done yet.
4c. Finish up the remaining 500 kanji from RTK3.
4d. Keep reading TV scripts. Those things are addictive.
4e. See if I can become a liaison to the Japanese detachment on base (probably won't happen).

With a definite plan and materials already in place, it's just easier to jump into the learning. That's my thinking at least. Others would argue mining sentences is beneficial as you get something when you enter them, and in that they're right. Just realize it's just another option among many.

I've been keeping an eye on this topic and Nukemarine's posts as the completion of RtK starts to approach on the horizon. I should be finished RtK by Saturday (unless studying for a University Japanese test gets in the way ) and I've been planning on following Nukemarine's suggestions with a few changes:

1. Review RtK
2. Tae Kim + All About Particles + A Quick and Dirty Guide To Japanese Grammar
3. Core 2k steps 1 and 2
4. Tae Kim Essential Grammar
5. KO2001 lists on smart.fm
6. From this point I feel I should be able to branch out and start finding things that interest me and read/mine them.

I have a few questions though:

1) Will the KO2001 lists on smart.fm be less effective for me if I don't have the book/cd?
2) Since I've got All About Particles + A quick and dirty guide and have heard good things about them I want to incorporate them into my learning. But I'm not sure about where they should fit in. Should I be going through these at the same time as Tae Kim Basic Grammar, afterwards or somewhere in between? Anyone have any suggestions?

音*****読み
Then　訓*****読み

Blackmacros, I think it's best to stick with one source so you don't get a lot of repetitive sentences.

So like for kanji, you wouldn't do Rtk, movie method and De Roo. You'd pick one and kind of stick it out.

Same with grammar, pick Genki, or JFE, or Tae Kim or UBJG or AAP and stick with that for the basics. I tried mixing it up early on (AAP and Genki) and just created more work with little extra pay-off.

Same with vocabulary. KO2k1 and Core 2k are going to have lots of the same vocabulary. KO2k1 will not have advanced kanji or katakana words in it's list. Core 2k has an less friendly sorting of vocabulary, though you'll get words that use rarer kanji. Please note I'm referring only to the vocabulary list. The words in the sentences will cover much more material and grammar. In fact, words coming up at the end of Core 2k are almost all known just because they came up in earlier sentences.

The way I look at it, these are basics that get you into reading and listening to real stuff. Going with multiple sources runs the higher risks of redundancy. With vocabulary lists, this is not too difficult to avoid as you can use Anki to tag duplicates of the vocabulary field and you can go through and delete redundant entries ie words from Steps 1 and 2 can be removed from KO2k1 lists.

Nukemarine Wrote:Blackmacros, I think it's best to stick with one source so you don't get a lot of repetitive sentences.

So like for kanji, you wouldn't do Rtk, movie method and De Roo. You'd pick one and kind of stick it out.

Same with grammar, pick Genki, or JFE, or Tae Kim or UBJG or AAP and stick with that for the basics. I tried mixing it up early on (AAP and Genki) and just created more work with little extra pay-off.

Same with vocabulary. KO2k1 and Core 2k are going to have lots of the same vocabulary. KO2k1 will not have advanced kanji or katakana words in it's list. Core 2k has an less friendly sorting of vocabulary, though you'll get words that use rarer kanji. Please note I'm referring only to the vocabulary list. The words in the sentences will cover much more material and grammar. In fact, words coming up at the end of Core 2k are almost all known just because they came up in earlier sentences.

The way I look at it, these are basics that get you into reading and listening to real stuff. Going with multiple sources runs the higher risks of redundancy. With vocabulary lists, this is not too difficult to avoid as you can use Anki to tag duplicates of the vocabulary field and you can go through and delete redundant entries ie words from Steps 1 and 2 can be removed from KO2k1 lists.

That makes a lot of sentence, about sticking to one source to avoid repetition.

If so, which would you recommend of Tae Kim, AAP and the Dirty Guide? I'm leaning towards Tae Kim because it's copy/pasteable although AAP looks quite good too. I hven't really looked at the Dirty Guide too much.

In regards to the Core2k vs KO2001 lists I've read that the word ordering in KO is far superior, so I thought I would be better off doing that. Would you agree or do you still recommend Core2k?

Thanks for the help :-)

You're forgetting the concept of mining if you're afraid of repetition. You shouldn't input every single sentence you find, no matter what source. You should only mine new things. If you do genki and AAP and you already know a sentence in AAP from Genki, simply don't input it.