I did the first 900 heisig kanji in order, but I got anxious to be able to actually read stuff, so now I'm doing something similar to rtk lite (http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=993)

I'm at 1121 kanji with about 180 of them being out of order. I was curious about what my kanji coverage percent was (eg. the most common 170 or so kanji cover about 50% of the kanji you read), so I whipped up an app to figure it out.

Turns out the 1121 kanji I know give me 69.9% coverage, and if I had been strictly doing heisig order and not rtk lite, 1121 kanji would give 63.3% coverage.

Here is my app if anyone wants to figure out their kanji coverage percent:
http://answercowapp.appspot.com/app/kanjicoverage/index

To figure out yours, just open your exported flashcards file (http://kanji.koohii.com/manage/exportflashcards) in notepad, and copy paste everything into the box on my site.

Or if you are going in order, you can just enter the heisig number you are on.

Enjoy

A very interesting application! I have a spreadsheet with the coverage of the books (currently 90.89% for RTK1 ) but this application gives very useful information.

Yeah, neat indeed. 2 Suggestions.

1) It would be nice to have some sorta option where you could input a number for where you are in the Heisig book and additionally include kanji that you also have learned from elsewhere.

2) Display the input box again on the results page with your prior input, so you can make easy changes without hitting back in your browser.

Either way, Good stuff, Cheers.

If you did RTK Lite (JLPT 2 variant) you have 87% coverage

If you did RTK Lite (2001KO variant) you have 89% coverage. This does not include supporting kanji, but I doubt that'd add much.

Just checking, but if you did a just the 555 of 2001KO Book 1 you'd have 70% coverage.

Going off just that, I'd advise any self study student starting off to utilize the RTK Lite version of 2001KO in Heisig order. After that, begin learning a thousand to two thousand words from Core 2000 and 6000 vocabulary organized in 2001KO order. That meshed with basic grammar from Tae Kim's basic and essential has to be an incredible starting point for any beginning student of Japanese.

This seems to work fine with Anki too
Just need to copy/paste Seen Kanjis' tab and it recognized them all!

Thank you Spines11!

@Daichi: Good suggestions! I made the first change, and for the second change i just made it so you never actually leave the page, the results are just updated on the page.

@Nukemarine: I totally agree. With RTK Lite you are able to see the results of your efforts much quicker. You get the same coverage with 1115 kanji as would normally take ~1700 kanji

Surprised that the 440 Kanji i learnt before RTK (combining Genki+AP Japanese Kanji list) gave me 65%

I think people should remember that just as with vocabulary, 90% is nothing. It sounds like a lot, but it doesn't feel like it when you're actually using it. Every kanji you don't know which you run into is a sting in the eye. With only 90% coverage, you'll run into unknown kanji a LOT.

Tobberoth Wrote:I think people should remember that just as with vocabulary, 90% is nothing. It sounds like a lot, but it doesn't feel like it when you're actually using it. Every kanji you don't know which you run into is a sting in the eye. With only 90% coverage, you'll run into unknown kanji a LOT.

We're talking about starting out here. If it's a new kanji, it's likely a new word too. For someone like me that was limited in daily study time (but could handle iPod and other immersion techniques), then getting a leg up on 90% of what you run into (grammar, kanji, vocabulary) ASAP works much better than spending the same amount of time getting 98% coverage on just kanji recognition.

Cause trust me, it's also a sting to have all this kanji ability yet not understand what the word or the sentence is saying. I say that from experience. Hell, that's why I made that long ass post in that other thread.

If you have a fast pace (well, more time per day), or at a later period in studies then do all of RTK. But a limited pace may be an indicator that you need smaller chunks spread out. As you go on in experience (reading and listening to real Japanese), you begin to tailor your study toward your weaknesses. At a certain point, maybe instead of adding (kanji, word, grammar point) on an encounter by encounter basis, you take a systematic list (RTK, Core 6k, Kanzen Master for ex.) and get through those.

But yeah, 90% leaves a pretty big hole especially with kanji. Still, it's likely that 10% will also be attached to a word you don't know (which RTK won't solve).

I see that it's all one page now, nice.

Thanks. I actually made that change back in December, did you have Javascript disabled?

BTW, if anyone finds any bugs let me know

Just checked the kanji coverage. It states i know 99.694 percent. Sure doesn't feel like it. I always run into kanji i don't know. But that;s the nature of kanji.

ta12121 Wrote:Just checked the kanji coverage. It states i know 99.694 percent. Sure doesn't feel like it. I always run into kanji i don't know. But that;s the nature of kanji.

Really? I've finished RtK 1 (98.491%) plus a few kanji I've added here and there, and I feel like I'm rarely ever running into kanji I don't know. Admittedly, I'm not reading any full blown novels right now though.

And as Nuke said, if I do encounter a new kanji its probably in an unfamiliar word. So adding/learning the kanji at the same time as I add the word tends to be fairly easy.

@blackmacros
I went up to 3007 kanji in hesig and abit more after that. But i've stopped adding kanji, as i find it's more effective to just learn kanji via new context+words.
yea, it's probably just words i don't know, not really a kanji thing. I know the meanings yea, but in context those kanji mean something different, depending on context. I haven't gained the ability to just breeze through a novel just yet. But is becoming more familiar. Kanji isn't much of a barrier to me anymore, it's just the words+context that is the barrier to me going to the next level of understanding and reading.

All i need is more time. That's abit it. I'm sure now i can get to a high level of understanding+reading. Now if i could only do that for writing+speaking i'd be on my way!!!!

99.805% including Heisig 3 kanji, 99.333% counting only those I can actually read. Strange thing is, this applet does not recognize about 90 characters. Guess these don't show up in Wikipedia?
Feels like slowly getting there though

RTK1 = 98.491%

This proves that although my Kanji seems to be OK, it's vocab I do not understand.
Point taken... :/

I recently started my kanji deck up again for the sake of kanken. I have rtk1+3 in it and I've already had to add about 70 non-rtk characters in the one month or so since I restarted it.

@Evil_Dragon: What are a few of the kanji it didn't recognize?

It would be nice to have this integrated into the Anki Kanji stats plugin. And thank you Spines11.

Hm i was thinking of adding more kanji. But at the moment, just feel it's better to learn from context+words. But since i'm not taking kanken (well not yet) in due time i guess. I guess i could do is that, add another 3000 to get to 6000 in around 6months or so? That's doable and won't take too long. But i think it's probably best i devote some time to find all those kanji and then just do them slowly, more easier that way in the long run.

JxPlugin 2.1 already gives you all kinds of stats on the kanjiz in ur deck. I find vocab to be the best one and "coverage" to be the least useful.

ta12121 Wrote:Hm i was thinking of adding more kanji... I guess i could do is that, add another 3000 to get to 6000 in around 6months or so?

are you trying to learn japanese or janji? you might consider chinese if you are all gung ho about learning so much kanji.

now i know it gives you a clear goal of what to follow/learn, but learning ridiculously rare kanji (see thread on ghost characters) wont help you learn japanese. there are a kanji that i have asked my japanese friends about, and they claim its not japanese

i havent done rtk3, but 98% is pretty nice coverage. if i were you, i would pick up a novel or something and learn all the unknown words/kanji that you find in there.

if you put as much effort into treating your favorite book like rtk as you did learning rare kanji, your problem of not being able to read would diminish.


idk if i came off as an ass or not, but i used to be gung ho about kanji until i got to japan and realized how off my focus was.
japanese = words, not symbols

@Asriel
I am considering learning mandarin or cantonese because those were the originally languages that started me off. But i failed on cantonese so badly, and i decided after immersing myself in japanese for a while to learn japanese. And after taking a level 1 course, i decided nop this won't work. So i basically went onto the web and searched sites. Until i find AJATT, this site and anki. That's where i am right now. I will go onto mandarin after i get fluent in japanese. Yea i haven't really gone past 3100 kanji. I don't think i'll learn anymore. Like you said, it's words not the kanji that's the problem. Also i actually am putting alot of effort into learning words+contexts. But i still feel like i suck in terms of those. I'm noticing i can read alot of kanji compounds when i take my time with it. Although i doubt i can read all joyo kanji yet. It's been around 6 months only

Spines11 Wrote:@Evil_Dragon: What are a few of the kanji it didn't recognize?

You know, I'd tell you, but I don't really feel like comparing those two lists.
I'm guessing it's some rare Kokuji and traditional forms though. I just tested 遖 which it did not recognize (and I actually would not be too surprised if this character did not show up in any Wikipedia article). Same goes for 颱, 嚙 and 迚.