I had already bought the older version of the e-book and coscom has confirmed that they are now sending me the new version upgrade. Other coscom voice recordings (such as the those on the katakana disc) are complete 56 kbps mp3 files. Ryuujin, I will post a comment here when I get my free upgrade, sent to me by free airmail!

As far as putting a whole novel into an SRS or only reviewing sentences, I don't think I would enjoy such a study regimen either. I just like to pick out the sentences that interest me or have some kanji I would like to learn. I can only spend about 1 hour a day max on RTK and SRS study. The rest is listening, watching foreign movies, and trying to read (very slowly!) and practicing writing (I enjoy writing the characters and find it almost a meditative experience to practice making them look nice!). Overall, I would say that less than a third of my "study" time is reviewing sentences and RTK, but that's just me. I'm over 50 and I don't have much time or patience for anything that I don't enjoy!

I'm not sure. I remember during shcool break I added 2000 sentences in a matter of a month (intermediate level at this point).
But comparing the end of the month ato the beginning of the month i didn't feel all that empowered or progressed. or maybe it's just gradual that I didn't notice I improved. I read a LOT of Japanese to add 2000 entries, yeah it's entries not sentences. I would say most of them are probably more than 1 sentence going by the japanese definition of a sentence which means a verb.

Thanks for the responses to my queries about the upgrade!

I noticed that it mentions "if you picked up the CD in a bookstore in Japan..."

Any idea when these new versions will be for sale in the bookstore itself? I'd love to just pop on over to Shinjuku and pick it up in the Kinokuniya there.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:I'm not sure. I remember during shcool break I added 2000 sentences in a matter of a month (intermediate level at this point).
But comparing the end of the month ato the beginning of the month i didn't feel all that empowered or progressed. or maybe it's just gradual that I didn't notice I improved. I read a LOT of Japanese to add 2000 entries, yeah it's entries not sentences. I would say most of them are probably more than 1 sentence going by the japanese definition of a sentence which means a verb.

A sentence is the part between two 。 just like in any other language. You're mixing up the fact that just a verb can be a correct Japanese sentence, while it can't in English (except possibly imperatives, but I doubt it counts).

You shouldn't put so big things into an SRS, that might be why you're progressing slowly. Remember the fourth point here: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

Stick to the minimum information principle.

Tobberoth Wrote:A sentence is the part between two 。

Sentences can not end in ？or ！? Are my textbooks wrong?

So the first "sentence" of everything I read is not a real sentence, because there is no 。 before it? What is it called instead? A semi-sentence perhaps?

I never heard anybody say their periods properly, while speaking Japanese. Are sentences a concept of the written language only?

I have also seen slightly older Japanese texts that don't use sentence markers. Are sentences a rather recent innovation in the Japanese language?

Tobberoth Wrote:You're mixing up the fact that just a verb can be a correct Japanese sentence, while it can't in English (except possibly imperatives, but I doubt it counts).

So imperatives are no longer proper English, because including them makes Japanese less different and mysterious? That sounds kinda random, but I will try my best to avoid the now deprecated imperatives.

Sorry for the trolling. Please don't try to answer any questions raised in this post.

Tobberoth Wrote:

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:I'm not sure. I remember during shcool break I added 2000 sentences in a matter of a month (intermediate level at this point).
But comparing the end of the month ato the beginning of the month i didn't feel all that empowered or progressed. or maybe it's just gradual that I didn't notice I improved. I read a LOT of Japanese to add 2000 entries, yeah it's entries not sentences. I would say most of them are probably more than 1 sentence going by the japanese definition of a sentence which means a verb.

A sentence is the part between two 。 just like in any other language. You're mixing up the fact that just a verb can be a correct Japanese sentence, while it can't in English (except possibly imperatives, but I doubt it counts).

You shouldn't put so big things into an SRS, that might be why you're progressing slowly. Remember the fourth point here: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

Stick to the minimum information principle.

slowly? that was juts describing the 1 motnh afte.r right now it's been 4months since after that so...

i may have added a lot bt it wasn't like i added everyting i read, that's why i read a lot so i can find something interesting enough to add.

i don't get your critisicms. what is your great/steady/fast progress that you're critcizing me based without all the info... ?

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:I'm not sure. I remember during shcool break I added 2000 sentences in a matter of a month (intermediate level at this point).
But comparing the end of the month ato the beginning of the month i didn't feel all that empowered or progressed. or maybe it's just gradual that I didn't notice I improved. I read a LOT of Japanese to add 2000 entries, yeah it's entries not sentences. I would say most of them are probably more than 1 sentence going by the japanese definition of a sentence which means a verb.

A sentence is the part between two 。 just like in any other language. You're mixing up the fact that just a verb can be a correct Japanese sentence, while it can't in English (except possibly imperatives, but I doubt it counts).

You shouldn't put so big things into an SRS, that might be why you're progressing slowly. Remember the fourth point here: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

Stick to the minimum information principle.

slowly? that was juts describing the 1 motnh afte.r right now it's been 4months since after that so...

i may have added a lot bt it wasn't like i added everyting i read, that's why i read a lot so i can find something interesting enough to add.

i don't get your critisicms. what is your great/steady/fast progress that you're critcizing me based without all the info... ?

You said yourself you didn't feel empowered or any progress, isn't slowly a fitting adverb?

The point isn't how much you add into the SRS from what you read, it's how much you put on each card. You said you added entries instead of sentences so I'm assuming you put several sentences on each card, which breaks the minimum information principle mentioned. I just said that was why you might have felt that less of a progression.

Nothing to get defensive about.

Nukemarine Wrote:For me, I do not mine sentences. I'm too lazy. Every time I tried I end up quitting. For others, it's a pleasure. So I probably could not see myself mining manga, drama scripts or novels despite the benefit I'd get.

However, using pre generated sentences has been beneficial to me, so I'm not hurting too bad.

what you mean too lazy ? even if there are some pre generated sentences out there it doesn't cover enough for your objective right? I mean if you're looking for 3000 kanjis you're compelled to mine ?I'm not even sure Iknow core 6000 covers all the joyos . Or do you mean too lazy to pick random sentences one by one instead of picking in a organized and collected source (KM,unicom,kanji in context 's like ) which frees you from the burden of hunting for them ?

and as for "when to stop" paragraph does it mean that you're an advocater of using SRS at an early stage and giving up as soon as you deem you're able to have a reasonable idea of what's going on & actually enjoy what you're doing in your target language ?
in which case I assume that if you're still using anki you're taking a close look at your card and kanji counter in anki for the time it hits the 3000 kanjis ? and once you reach this number will you just stop adding new material or stop using anki (at least for your japanese deck) altogether?

BTW how many kanjis are you able to read currently ?

I know it may sounds a bit inquisitive but I'm pretty interested in your opinion as it seems to me we must have started around the same time . I guess the turning point is near for some of us (going all the way like khatz or ....taking up chinese like khatz ) and so I'm extremely curious of what other peoples plan to do and their vision our little japanese odissey.

ghinzdra Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:For me, I do not mine sentences. I'm too lazy. Every time I tried I end up quitting. For others, it's a pleasure. So I probably could not see myself mining manga, drama scripts or novels despite the benefit I'd get.

However, using pre generated sentences has been beneficial to me, so I'm not hurting too bad.

what you mean too lazy ? even if there are some pre generated sentences out there it doesn't cover enough for your objective right? I mean if you're looking for 3000 kanjis you're compelled to mine ?I'm not even sure Iknow core 6000 covers all the joyos . Or do you mean too lazy to pick random sentences one by one instead of picking in a organized and collected source (KM,unicom,kanji in context 's like ) which frees you from the burden of hunting for them ?

I'm not lazy actually, but I don't find it enjoyable to type in many sentences from a book into an SRS. It just drained me of enthusiasm.

I'm not one of those types that think I need a word for every kanji out there. I using the kanji to learn vocabulary via sentences to get me to reading Japanese easier. So it's basically the later choice you wrote. For that thinking I don't mind using frequency lists like iKnow uses.

ghinzdra Wrote:and as for "when to stop" paragraph does it mean that you're an advocater of using SRS at an early stage and giving up as soon as you deem you're able to have a reasonable idea of what's going on & actually enjoy what you're doing in your target language ?
in which case I assume that if you're still using anki you're taking a close look at your card and kanji counter in anki for the time it hits the 3000 kanjis ? and once you reach this number will you just stop adding new material or stop using anki (at least for your japanese deck) altogether?

I don't know. I'm not overly concerned with the kanji counter. It's a nicety, but it doesn't tell you much useful information. What I'm doing is going for all 6000 entries in iKnow and the 850 sentences from Tae Kim and the 3000 kanji from RTK1 and 3. After that I don't know. That's still 600 study hours away which can be upto a year. During that time I'll still be reading and watching stuff in Japanese (maybe working with Japanese depending on what happens on base with the Japanese soldiers here) so I'm thinking it'll all round itself out.

ghinzdra Wrote:BTW how many kanjis are you able to read currently ?

I know it may sounds a bit inquisitive but I'm pretty interested in your opinion as it seems to me we must have started around the same time . I guess the turning point is near for some of us (going all the way like khatz or ....taking up chinese like khatz ) and so I'm extremely curious of what other peoples plan to do and their vision our little japanese odissey.

Can't really say. I've got 80% of iKnow Core 2k in the mature pile and 90% of Tae Kim. That's helped my literacy a lot compared to September. I'm not sure how many Onyomi are covered based on that. After my little side-jaunt into the Movie Method, it should be 2000 kanji onyomi covered.

To be honest, if we started at the same time, you're probably ahead of me. I've only got 650 effective study hours under my belt (250 hrs RTK, 200 hrs Grammar Sentences, 200 hrs Vocabulary Sentences). That's coupled with maybe 3000 audio hours (maybe more, not sure) and 500 to 1000 video hours (probably low balling here too) and about 1000 pages of Japanese text that's not from studying. For starting RevTK in June of 2007, that's not much progress.

Alyks in his rant blog hit in on the head that guys like me waste a lot of time thinking about it and getting resources than actually doing Japanese. However, since last September I think I've been hitting this very, very seriously thanks to iKnow and the changes to Anki (allowing efficient use of iKnow ^_^). Part of that is due to seeing how far Alyks says he's come. So if you're reading this Alyks', thanks for the inspiration.

fluxcapacitor Wrote:There's a link in the top left yellow box on Coscom's homepage that goes here:
http://www.coscom.co.jp/japanesekanji/ka...index.html
On that page it says all the example sentences are voice-recorded.

Is it easy to "copy'n'paste" both the sound files and example sentences from the coscom CD into Anki? If yes, I think it's an amazing resource. 3000 voice recorded sentences, wow...

actually i ve begun in november 2007 so we re only apart from a couple of months.
as for the Iknow core 6000 I've imported the whole thing to check how many kanjis are included : there are exactly 1648 kanjis and among them 1523 are joyos. So as I sensed it doesn't even cover the joyos . Which means you already know more kanji readings than what's included in core 6000? what's the point of using this material then ? or are you learning reading on their own without any vocabulary ?

Why am I so obsessed about counting ? what is really amazing for me is how people claim so many kanji reading in so little time . I'm an efficiency obsessed guy .

You know it's like that guy , tim ferris , who claims that he as learned japanese in 6 months and chinese in 3 . I can accept this claim easily as I totally agree with what he's advocating for : effectiveness (priority of goals) , adherence (studying what you like) ,efficiency (frenquency list ) . Actually what he's saying matches partly with khatz (study what you like) and partly with my own opinion (you should always go for what's efficient hence KO2001 . And never forget your goal - in my case JPLT - hence km 2kyuu and 1kyuu) .And i'm very much aware that I lost a lot of time in the langage school . But what's really bothering me is that he sayed he based his work on the 1945 joyos...
as he never talked about heisig and didn't have a srs not to mention frequency list like KO I have really a hard time to believe he was able to learn 1945 kanjis reading , on and kun yomi , meaning and writing in 6 months...and in the same time eager to know how he pulled out such a feat .
but let's put ferris aside and take a regular fellow of our community . I stumbled on a page of a guy with 3000 cards anki deck .....which counted for 2200 kanjis or so !

even if I have been lazy now lazy now and then , in general I have been pretty intense , I have 5220 facts in my deck and I have only 1759 different kanjis (including 1525 joyos ) ....
For sure I can find some explanation about what's lowering my ratio kanji/fact : I included deathnote cards mainly for dialogue mimicking , KM 2kyuu for grammar , KM1kyuu for grammar
still I have the feeling it doesn't account for everything .I'm pretty sure I'm not as effective as I should be .
especielly since you say you don't spend more than 2hours a day on your deck while it must be what I spend in sheer reviewing . And to add some new material I'm in for 2 more hours .

my point is
I don't get how peoples get so many kanjis (the guy before with his 2200 your 2000 and khatz and his 4400 . Well for khatz I kind of understand as on the contrary to efficiency guy he's the most extensive guy ever with AJATT and has a lot exposure )
I don't get how you can spend less than 3 hours on Anki every day .

stoked Wrote:Is it easy to "copy'n'paste" both the sound files and example sentences from the coscom CD into Anki? If yes, I think it's an amazing resource. 3000 voice recorded sentences, wow...

I think there is a spreadsheet of all the sentences somewhere. I don't know about the audio. I have the book version rather than the CD version, so for me to get the audio I'd have to buy the CD version at full price, which I don't really want to do.

ghinzdra,

Why is kanji count so important? In fact, why does it matter at all?

-in a very specific way because of JPLT .... and I need JPLT 1 for my work.
-in a more general manner because I like to have milestones . And knowing all the joyos is definetely a milestone . The road doesn't stop but you KNOW you've reached a new step .
It's not even about japanese , it's about achievement , personal development , mental strenght/learning to learn .
Sure you can get the joyos the hard way (that is to say the japanese way : hit and miss for 8 years ....and if you're not gifted you won't even be able to write all of them )...... But you can also strive for efficiency . In which case you'll constantly try to improve your way of learning , making any futur challenge easier. I have learned a lot of things in those 18 months which will be valuable to any futur challenge I want to take up .

I wouldn't put too much faith in the jouyou list, it is being replaced later this year. Some kanji will be removed (not enough) and many more will be added.

For the JLPT, I understand and respect that. That is a legitimate concern (within the bounds of what is tested on the JLPT).

But for the rest I strongly disagree. There are probably about 500 or so kanji beyond RtK which are immediately useful (and should have been included in the Jōyō list). But beyond that you're wasting your time. So you want to have milestones and measurable progress, fine. But at least choose a metric that has relevance to you Japanese ability. Set a goal of reading a book or novel beyond your current ability. Start watching a daily or weekly TV show and aim to reduce the number of things you don't understand each time.

The number of kanji/readings you know is a terrible metric to go by. Instead of collecting kanji you've "mastered", instead collect movies, songs, books, manga, anime that you can now watch/read and understand everything from start to finish (because you looked up and put in SRS the things you didn't understand). That's a much better metric.

PS: Khatz's 4400 comes from his use of zhongwen.com instead of RtK (ZhonWen lists 4400 Chinese characters). I don't think readings are included in that statistic.

I disagree mafried, I like ghinzdra's thought process of following the numbers. It's systematic that way. Going through RTK the first time, you know that you are ????/2042. It gives you a goal. Going through KO2001, you know that you have a certain number out of a certain number done (I don't know these numbers).

But if you just have "I have these 20 books here..." Then that's good, but the milestones aren't the same. If you learn the readings (through, say, KO2001), then you can pick up any book you want and be able to "read" them. Sure, you're comprehension might not be 100%, but that's because of vocabulary, not because you can't read the kanji. Then you can say "I have infinite books that I can read."

You may say that you're current goal is to get through a book and fully understand it. If that's how you roll, go for it. I, and I believe ghinzdra, like to see the numbers. Not just completed, but how much is left. The feeling of reaching a major milestone, the feeling that progress is being made.

ghinzdra Wrote:actually i ve begun in november 2007 so we re only apart from a couple of months.
as for the Iknow core 6000 I've imported the whole thing to check how many kanjis are included : there are exactly 1648 kanjis and among them 1523 are joyos. So as I sensed it doesn't even cover the joyos . Which means you already know more kanji readings than what's included in core 6000? what's the point of using this material then ? or are you learning reading on their own without any vocabulary ?

Why am I so obsessed about counting ? what is really amazing for me is how people claim so many kanji reading in so little time . I'm an efficiency obsessed guy .

***Trim***

my point is
I don't get how peoples get so many kanjis (the guy before with his 2200 your 2000 and khatz and his 4400 . Well for khatz I kind of understand as on the contrary to efficiency guy he's the most extensive guy ever with AJATT and has a lot exposure )
I don't get how you can spend less than 3 hours on Anki every day .

For iKnow, I've been going through and converting kana words here and there, so my kanji count will be slightly higher. In addition, Anki counts kanji in sentences (more passive reviewing for me) and the vocabulary words (the active reviewing part for me.) Then on top of that, you don't know if it's covering On or Kunyomi. In my mind, it just doesn't tell you enough to be of real use outside of a nicety (cool, I've covered 50% of the Jouyou kanji, 80% of it Grade 6 and below).

However, my thinking is if some kanji are not popping up in example sentences or in stuff I'm reading, then they're really not that important. If you notice, I let the material I'm reading and learning make that decision and I didn't make it ahead of time (unlike on TJP with their "Oh you don't need to know that obscure kanji" replies). Anyway, if it's not coming up in learning, it's likely not going to be on the JLPT. If it is, that's one thing you don't know (too well) out of hundreds you know well.

I'll still be able to recognize (via RTK) and hopefully pronounce them (vie Movie Method). So yes, I'll use movie method to learn pronunciation separate from vocabulary in order to help my daily reading. It's something I should have done early last year, but better late than never.

I get where you're coming from. I'm an efficiency obsessed guy myself at times. However, I had to stop sweating how others are doing. I'll use it as inspiration, but I can't play catch-up. We're all doing our own things based on our own goals and limitations.

I think that the kanji counter feature is little more than "a nicety"
first :for the calligraphy ; if like me you think that heisig system should be discarded as a now useless crutch as soon as you know how to walk then it's good to check that what used to be reviewed through heisig is now reviewed through sentences .
secundly: because if you went through KO2001 all the way you already studied kanji readings in a very systematic way .... so you know that you have already both on and kun yomi for the first 1110 .
From that point it's up to you to have as much discipline as KO when you collect new kanjis . As for me I type in the kanji in JWPce (as discussed in an earlier topic I put all the missing kanji in a spreadsheet) , check the readings , look for vocabulary words that matches , pick up sentences in ALC dictionary that include those keywords , paste in the spreadsheet and when I have 30 of them I import into anki. So there are no loopholes whatsoever.

I agree with the fact that some kanjis aren't really useful. That's why I'm a strong advocater of KO2001. But when it comes to JPLT1 you can't leave things to chance as they intend to check if you have a mastery on ALL the joyos.In the same way you have to know very little used grammar that even the japenese themselves barely know. That's one of the reason you hear about guys that have JPLT1 and aren't fluent and reversely and that's why khatz is chastising the exam. But as long as I don't lose sight of my REAL goal it's fine by me : I don't confuse fluency and JPLT . I'll have a different training for extreme japanese fluency.

catch up other guys ? sure there are some risks (for instance if you lose your REAL goal which is improving yourself ) but competition is one of the greatest way to surpass yourself. It's a shonen basic .For instance if you know hikaru no go the way hikaru chases akira , who in his turn is boosted by this sudden rivalry and do his best not be catched up , is awe inspiring in my opinion . In my case I definetely know that khatz is better than me and that ferris is very likely better than me .... but it doesn't mean I like it and I'll let things the way they are . So I pick up some of their ideas but I also try to find quicker and better way to learn .

Asriel,

I'm not against numbers, hard statistics, and measurable progress. Quite the opposite, in fact. There's an old adage in Engineering that "what is measured, improves." I think everyone should use some metric to gauge their progress. Having measurable results allows us to learn more efficiently and to compare progress with each other, among other things. But what I'm against is using a metric that says very little about your ability to speak, read, write, and understand real, everyday Japanese. In this way "kanji counting" is entirely useless. it is not weighted by frequency of use, and it is solely concerned with one very small aspect of the Japanese language (reading aloud kanji compounds) which is separate from grammar, vocabulary, and the skills of listening to and composing spoken Japanese. I'm not against kanji counting because it's a metric, I'm against it because it is a bad metric.

That said, you have a valid point that my own offering of a metric is not as quantitative. It is however the best I've been able to come up with so far, and certainly a better gauge of my ability to use Japanese than kanji counting. Perhaps though someone who is more creative than me can suggest a more quantitative metric that we can adopt.

mafried,

Alright, now that I understand what you were saying -- I agree with you. Yeah, clearly just being able to "read" a certain number of kanji doesn't do you any good. I've learned firsthand (as many people can attest to) that just because you're a "3rd year student" or a "4th year student" or even completed your major in Japanese, that doesn't mean you're any good at the language.

Despite only studying the language for 19 months now (that long?), I am one of the "3rd year students," and I consider myself to be fairly "fluent" in Japanese (ペラペラ vs. 上手) as in I can speak and listen fairly well, all though my vocabulary leaves something to be desired. Also, my kanji is terrible. Because of that, the numbers do mean something to me -- at least while going through RTK and KO2001.

It's not the number of kanji you know, it's about how well you can use them. I'm at a level where I would know how to use them, if I just knew what they were.

edit: weird sounding sentences.

mafried Wrote:Asriel,

I'm not against numbers, hard statistics, and measurable progress. Quite the opposite, in fact. There's an old adage in Engineering that "what is measured, improves." I think everyone should use some metric to gauge their progress. Having measurable results allows us to learn more efficiently and to compare progress with each other, among other things. But what I'm against is using a metric that says very little about your ability to speak, read, write, and understand real, everyday Japanese. In this way "kanji counting" is entirely useless. it is not weighted by frequency of use, and it is solely concerned with one very small aspect of the Japanese language (reading aloud kanji compounds) which is separate from grammar, vocabulary, and the skills of listening to and composing spoken Japanese. I'm not against kanji counting because it's a metric, I'm against it because it is a bad metric.

That said, you have a valid point that my own offering of a metric is not as quantitative. It is however the best I've been able to come up with so far, and certainly a better gauge of my ability to use Japanese than kanji counting. Perhaps though someone who is more creative than me can suggest a more quantitative metric that we can adopt.

- I am one of the strongest advocater of KO2001 hence the fact I was the first to go through both books : so I'm obsessed with efficiency . I don't learn kanjis for kanjis.
- I have already included numerous mangas and anime in my deck : Berserk , 20th century boys, ... all of them being seinen you can figure out how much useful kanji are employed and how much I agree with you about frequency of use....

BUT as I said before this is about JPLT . They are very likely to use ON PURPOSE very rare kanji (from a frequency point of view I mean ) especially since they like to use scientific or sociologic texts. And as I have a very limited time (that is to say 65 days) I really have to be systematic . But you already know this and we both agree on this.

So let's clear out the misunderstanding on the value of learning all the joyos ,once the JPLT is put aside : it's all about achievement . You know that basically you have learned as much as what the standard japanese is supposed to know . We both know that there are far more useful kanjis than some of the joyos and that the average japanese is more likely to know about 3000 kanjis rather than the mere 2000 indicated by the government but we're not talking about reality . We're talking about building confidence . It doesn't have to be rationnal to have a powerful effect on the mind ,on the contrary . The japanese secretary for education has issued a list that all japanese has to know and THAT S IT . Emotionaly speaking it's precisely because it's a very limited statement that it's unquestionnable for the mind. On the other side ok you have completed a book , let's even say a dozen .... it definetaly has a great value BUT you can't translate it in simple term for the mind . Does all the japenese have read all suzumiya haruhi light novel ? or a japanese programmation book ? or a martial art manual ? if a sequel or an udpate comes about how can you translate it ?

as I said before as long as you don't confuse this kind of objective with fluency I think it's perfectly fine. And metric is perfecly adequate for this kind of objective while it's kind of twisted when it comes to fluency which is a near impossible to define and measure state .

Efficiency: The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system.

What is your output? I'm assuming it's the ability to read, write, speak, and understand Japanese. Improving your kanji count only helps one of these, giving a peak efficiency of max 25% if you're generous. That ain't very high.

Again, my criticism isn't of the use of numbers and measurement. It's bad numbers from irrelevant measurements that should be avoided.

EDIT spelling

You say max efficiency is 25%, but at the current point his current output is mainly reading and writing. He's studying for the JLPT, which is primarily a written test. So in 65 days he has to learn as much of these kanji as he can.
For his current goal, I think his numbers and measurements are valid.

I thought the JLPT was multiple choice? The only writing you do is ticking boxes... please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for this thread, I think it's important to separate your studies into building blocks & actual learning. RTK is a building block; learning readings separately is a building block; Tae Kim is a building block; learning rarely used Kanji is a building block. None of these steps are necessary, but each one makes your foundation more solid and shortens the road to native-level fluency (imagine how easy it'd be to mine sentences if you knew 200 grammar rules and how to write & read 5000 Kanji). The important thing is to find a balance that suits you.

Personally, I plan to skip individual readings and dive straight into sentences. This isn't because I think it's better or more efficient, it's because I know I won't have the patience to learn readings on their own. Some people do, so they'll have a better foundation from which to learn. But that doesn't bother me, because I know it's not something that would ever work for me. To the people who intend to learn thousands of Kanji in advance: good luck, I wish I could do the same!