Hello guys, there's a something that I've been wondering about, that is, which one is harder RTK1 or learning On'yomi and Kun'yomi? And which one takes longer?
Thanks

Learning the readings is definitely more difficult and time-consuming than going through RtK1.

Learning the readings takes much longer than RTK1. Some kanji have 10+ readings.

RTK1 is quite straightforward. On-yomi have a fairly limited number of sounds so they can be learned in groups, and things like signal primitives help to memorize them. Kun-yomi are pretty much random - 覚えるしかない.

Thanks guys, that answers it

Yes readings take longer but don't let that discourage you. You will be able to enjoy the language as you go along.

nac_est Wrote:Yes readings take longer but don't let that discourage you. You will be able to enjoy the language as you go along.

Thanks, that makes more sense, as I got the feeling from what people say that RTK is the first tough step, but as you said, readings takes longer but it's fun from there on.
Thanks.

ooooo

vosmiura Wrote:Learning the readings takes much longer than RTK1. Some kanji have 10+ readings.

RTK1 is quite straightforward. On-yomi have a fairly limited number of sounds so they can be learned in groups, and things like signal primitives help to memorize them. Kun-yomi are pretty much random - 覚えるしかない.

!!! Which evil Kanji has more than 10 (!) readings? So far I only knew about max 5 - 6 readings for some Kanji but more that 10?! *faint
Unless you're talking about ancient/obsolete readings...

Musashi Wrote:!!! Which evil Kanji has more than 10 (!) readings? So far I only knew about max 5 - 6 readings for some Kanji but more that 10?! *faint

Think of how many "readings" the words 'to' and 'in' have and it's not that bad.

Or how about the word 'bow'...?

1. Thing that fires arrows
2. Part of a ship
3. Gesture of respect
4. To submit/yield
5. To bend
6. Gift decoration
7. Thing that plays a stringed instrument

Seven readings!

(I know they're not "readings" per se, but it's the same idea: one thing meaning several things.)

In a Heisig paper I read that 上 has something like 10 that everyone would learn. At least 8 of them common. However it depends on how you count I guess.

I did just RTK without the movie method so I can't comment, but on top of the time to memorize readings you also have to add the time for learning what reading to use when, depending on context and what comes before or after the kanji.

When I say readings take longer, I don't count only the time to learn on-readings, but also the time to learn to read a good number of common words for each kanji. That is when I count the kanji learned as far as reading goes - although there are endless more words to learn after.

kanjiwarrior Wrote:Learning readings doesn't have to take any longer, look at the movie method. It takes the same amount of time as RTK, the same amount of time. It's not more difficult or time consuming, that is simply not true. I'm 2349 frames in and haven't come across a kanji with more than 5 readings (on-yomi only though, you wouldn't use this method to learn kun-yomi, it would be easier to learn those with sentences - in context.) Actually sometimes I only learn 2 readings if it has more than that, because some readings a rare or only show up with one or two words which you can easily learn later.

Best advice don't listen to what everyone tells you, because more often than not they are just repeating what they have heard, not what they know. Try it for yourself you'll see. It doesn't take longer to learn readings. You still have to go through all the kanji though, so it will take you the same amount of time as RTK. Not longer, and I can tell you since I did 460 kanji before I went back and did the movie method that it's not harder, it's the same. The difference is that the story and image you memorize gives you more information.

How can the movie method possibly be used to learn more than one on'yomi? If you put a kanji in two different scenes, you mess up the whole thing.

What happened to the time when one word meant just one thing... was there such a time? hehe

Yea 上 is the 悪魔 masquerading as a 天使! And you think the different readings list would stop. *getting dizzy again, I need to lie down

unchibaikingu

People here seem to be amalgamating learning vocabulary and learning a reading.

"Know" a kanji = recognize it; say it outloud; know compounds containing it

Typical RTKer does: RTK to learn recognition; then sentences to learn pronunciation and vocab.

Typical movie methoder does: Movie Method to learn recognition and pronunciation, sentences to learn vocab.

As Kanji warrior said, it might not take longer than RTK did for one to learn the pronunciation of kanji. However, most RTKers prefer to combine learning the pronunciation with vocabulary; and that's why they all posted "it takes longer".

Personally I like RTK then sentences because I'm having fun while learning pronunciation and meaning rather than using a mnemonic again to memorize the pronunciation. But like Kanjiwarrior said, I haven't done movie method so you don't have to take my word for it.

Precisely. If you're learning readings with the movie method then the time to learn is bunched with the time to do RTK, and if you're learning readings with the sentence method then the time to learn is bunched with the time to learn vocab + grammar.

The time with the sentence method will depend on how much vocab + grammar you want to learn at the same time. For example you could pick 1000 sentences that cover 2000 kanji, or you could pick 1000 sentences that cover 500 kanji but more thoroughly. And, you can also vary the grammar difficulty.

For me, when someone asks which is harder, doing RTK1 or learning on&kun readings, I thought of which is harder? Learning how to write time = 時, or learning that the on/kun readings are "toki" when it's by itself, or "ji" when it's a suffix to a number or various compounds, or "to" when it's used for "clock" compound. If you do the MM at least you'll know that sometimes it is "ji".

That, is learning on & kun for me, and I think it's fair to say the writing part (with RTK1) is easier than the reading part.