it's a stupid sounding question, but what i mean is, I'm doing RtK1 before formally starting Japanese studies (i.e. getting into grammar etc.). I'm wondering if I'll be able to do RtK2 and 3 like this as well, before "starting" Japanese properly, because I think that to have a really solid foundation in all these kanji, as well as having all this vocab up my sleeve, would be really handy when I do sit down to actually study the grammar and langauge. so, is it possible, or is it just crazy?

It's possible, however whether or not you can complete RTK1, 2 and 3 without getting impatient and starting to look at grammer...

Also most people don't do RTK2 and 3, most pick readings and the extra kanji using sentences.

You can try it if you like, it would be interesting to see your progress.

RTK1 is enough kanji for someone who isn't even a beginner yet... When you're more advanced, you still probably won't need RTK3. You can just learn non-RTK1 kanji as you come across them. RTK2 is optional...if you have trouble remembering on-yomi when you're learning kanji words, think about using it then.

I am doing exactly what you are doing. I'm on rtk2 now and still don't know any Japanese, and I am not discouraged nor do I think this is a bad idea.

bombpersons Wrote:It's possible, however whether or not you can complete RTK1, 2 and 3 without getting impatient and starting to look at grammer...

This. Ideally we'd all like to be able to recognise & write 3000 kanji before we began to study Japanese. If you can handle spending another two or three months not learning Japanese, then go for it. Personally I don't have the patience to go through RTK3, but I wish I did.

Just like there are lists of basic Kanji, 2042 and so on, is there a list of basic compounds? Maybe a list of words one's expected to have mastered by high school or before. I'd imagine they'd be in the tens of thousands. The Kodasha KLD is labelled for beginners and intermediate and has 41,000 senses and 31,300 words from 2,230 entry characters. How basic are they?

J

My personal opinion is that going through RtK3 is a huge waste of time UNLESS you think it's exceptionally fun. I mean, if you enjoy learning more kanji and like to spend time on it, there's nothing to stop you from continuing, but the practical value is weak. I'm above JLPT2 level myself and I still very rarely run into RtK3 kanji. When I do, I simply learn them (I have a deck in anki with all 3000+ kanji, I just unsuspend kanji as I run into them). Safe to say, progress in that deck is VERY slow. Even in news and wikipedia articles, RtK3 kanji comes up quite rarely.

Jeromin Wrote:Just like there are lists of basic Kanji, 2042 and so on, is there a list of basic compounds? Maybe a list of words one's expected to have mastered by high school or before. I'd imagine they'd be in the tens of thousands. The Kodasha KLD is labelled for beginners and intermediate and has 41,000 senses and 31,300 words from 2,230 entry characters. How basic are they?

J

KO (Kanji Odessey) includes most really common compounds. No such list will be exclusive though, or even close to it. And it won't be useful either. What will be common and frequent for you depends on what you read. If you read tons of manga, you'll have a completely different vocabulary compared to someone who reads news articles.

Learn the important basics from textbooks or stuff like that (iKnow etc) then learn the rest as you go. Your vocabulary will be improved in a fitting way simply from what sources you decide to mine from.

I do find learning kanji tough though, but despite the big number to learn, I feel proud that I'm now up to number 100, and plan to tackle it in small steps taking my time. and I really want to learn lots of kanji - I think it's really sad that gairaigo is becoming so common these days, and almost replacing kanji. that's why i want to learn kanji - so I can use them and not use so much gairaigo (i.e. english). plus, I just think kanji are beautiful and are worth the effort to learn, be it 2 to 3 years or whatever it takes to do all three RtK books it's just someone told me that RtK 2 is hard unless you formally begin to learn Japanese, that's why I was a bit worried. I guess I'll work through RtK 1, and then make the decision when I come to it.

vinniram Wrote:I think it's really sad that gairaigo is becoming so common these days, and almost replacing kanji.

Slight exaggeration.

but is it really? the amount of gairaigo these days... it's mind-boggling.

vinniram Wrote:but is it really? the amount of gairaigo these days... it's mind-boggling.

I'm personally surprised that it's used so little. I always thought that in certain areas of Japanese, there would be NOTHING but gairaigo but even something as "foreign" as a user guide to programming is filled with kanji and only uses gairaigo seldomly.

The only place where you'll find too much gairaigo is JPop songs and such...

Here is the first paragraph from three separate random Wikipedia articles:

1.
ハギ属(Lespedeza)は、一年草から多年草、低木を含む。葉は羽状複葉ながら側小葉一対で三出複葉的。托葉は一対で針状。花は総状花序、または房状に葉腋に着く。萼は上面側で裂ける。果実は節で種子ごとに分かれる節果だが、種子は一個しか含まず、偏平な楕円形等、鉤毛が生えることはない。また果実は熟しても裂開しない。

2.
広島県出身。広島女学院大学を卒業後、2002年入社（同期は武藤祐子）。地上デジタル放送推進大使を務めたこともある。

3.
萩あれこれ(はぎあれこれ)は、萩ケーブルネットワークの萩市民チャンネル(8ch)で放送される旧萩地区の情報を伝える番組。ちなみに旧萩地域の情報を伝える番組としてほかにエフエム・ナナコの情報ウェーブ萩がある。ただし、現在、8chは地域情報チャンネルとなり「iiネット」も入ったため、30分に放送枠が短縮されて、一部のコーナーは「ハピピ情報局」に引き継がれた。

Kanji still seem to be going strong.

hmm I guess it's just that lot of modern-day terms aren't translated into japanese, but left as gairaigo (i.e. computer, tv, remote control, air conditioning, processor, mouse etc.), and also, things like the fact that wikipedia's main page is called "メインページ"... I mean come on surely they have a Japanese way to say main page other than "メインページ"?

but I guess kanji aren't being 'replaced' per se, and i suppose wikipedia has a tendency to have more gairaigo than other Japanese publications. I'm guessing novels have little to no gairaigo, anyways.

I don't know about real novels, but light novels have an amount of garaigo that makes me irritated.

ugh I know exactly where you're coming from - gairaigo in general irritates me, however irrational that may be

Man katakana-English bashing seems to be the favorite pastime of students of Japanese from English. If just seeing gairaigo used evokes an emotional response of irritation maybe you should try Chinese instead. The Japanese have always been importing things, and words, into their culture and language, and all signs point to them continuing to do so and lovin' it all the while. Just saying it might save you a headache down the road if you learn to deal with it or quit now.

vinniram Wrote:[...]I think it's really sad that gairaigo is becoming so common these days, and almost replacing kanji. [...]

How do you think they got kanji in the first place? Also, like Harhol pointed out, definitely NOT something you need to worry about. Japanese LOVE kanji to death, and are just as or more enthralled with it (as?/than?) you are.

hahaha I find that people on forums often become angry if one even dares to question gairaigo's unlimited importance to the Japanese language. so I've pretty much observed the exact opposite phenomenon to what you've observed - paradoxical, ay?

& you think I haven't thoroughly thought about whether I want to learn Japanese or not? I originally thought all the gairaigo would irritate me too much, and I was going to stop learning the language, but you know what? I couldn't! I considered Chinese, but for some reason I just keep coming back to Japanese. I love the language, I can't explain how or why, and I love it even though gairaigo overuse irritates me; and that's my personal feeling, so yeah.

The keep on and don't worry about the gairaigo. Japanese people don't overuse it. They use it exactly as much as it's used. The only people who over use it are people in business presentations who want to sound smart.

I think you also may be overestimating the amount it's gets used, which may mean your source on this information is wrong. Here's a quick and dirty sampling. I'll flip open to a random page of the novel I'm reading, which happens to be Isaac Asimov's foundation, definitely the kind of sci fi book I'd expect to have a lot of katakana. I counted 5 unique katakana words in those two pages, and all of them were names. So no loanwords there.

Random test number 2, the first 17 pages of a random manga, "Fairy Tail" (which is, incidentally, written in Kanji in the manga). Only 2 loan words, (masta- i.e. master and girudo i.e. guild).

It's a super-awesome language and if you learn it you'll have access to a whole island of people who love kanji.

vinniram Wrote:hahaha I find that people on forums often become angry if one even dares to question gairaigo's unlimited importance to the Japanese language.
[...]

On that topic I'd say they managed to have an industrial revolution in less than 20 years while translating every single western scientific concept into kanji so it's definitely not a necessary part of the language(yet). Just convenient. For them and luckily for us.

Funny thing, most katakana words I've seen lately are not English words, but kanji-less Japanese words. That's even trickier. Spent a few seconds trying to figure out トカゲ this morning. Turned out to be 蜥蜴.

In my opinion, when you learn a language, you learn it the way it is actually spoken (or written, as the case may be). Kind of like the descriptive vs. prescriptive ideas of grammar. Can you imagine a Frenchman learning English? English is a Germanic language, but due to French/Norman and then during the Enlightenment, Latin and Greek, was where we got most of our vocabulary. Actually, it was added, so they were mostly taken in as synonyms. So most of the words in English are some version of a French word. The English words in Japanese are also not really the same as in English anyway. eakon (actually, エアコン） isn't really air conditioner after all. From what I've heard (I'm no expert) overuse of kanji compounds instead of native Japanese words start to make you sound like a tool. Kind of like if you use too many latinate words in English. I'm sure it's similar with using foreign words in Japanese. There is a right word for each context. If you refuse to use foreign words (refusing to say オレンジ色) when you are not supposed to you sound unnatural and MORE like a foreigner than vice versa.