wonderflex Wrote:So, for example, if there are three Kanji all right next to each other, I wouldn't speak out the three of them indidually and it would form a word. Rather, I would notice the three of them, realize that those three make a certain word, and then learn what the word is that corisponds with them?

I guess a lot of the part about reading really throws me off. It's probably because I have some sort of fundimental misunderstanding about how Kanji work when combined.

The individual Kanji do in fact have a way to say them (many per kanji) but I think your confusion comes from the fact that the keyword, or meaning of the kanji, does not directly correlate to the reading of that kanji.

It pretty much sums up to something like this. Each kanji will have several short readings associated with it. When combined with multiple kanji you read them together, but there's no easy way to know which reading to use so you have to learn each word individually (over time you will get better at figuring it out though). When a kanji stands on it's own it will use one of it's readings as well. Also, if you're not yet familiar with the kana, hiragana is used with kanji to express the verb/adjective inflection of the root word.

I hope that help!

wonderflex Wrote:determine if I’ve created a proper course of action for learning Japanese

First, as has been said already, that was a beautiful post. But let me ask you a question. Have you ever had a massage, in the US? Remember how you feel afterward? Somewhat relaxed, but ...HEY! You missed a spot! That's sort of the feeling I get after reading your post, and all the responses. Let's try to give your language learning experience a happy ending.

Learning to converse takes a great deal of human interaction. Leaving it out is not an option. It is the skill you can develop the quickest to a useful level. Doing this early will help you learn the other skills, allowing you to reach your goals faster.

If conversation is not one of your goals, than I take it all back. But if it is, you will need to work at it. The earlier you begin the better.

Also, your research does not appear to be complete. It is only on this forum and a few other places on the internet where your method wouldn't be considered extreme. Maybe it's the right one for you, but probably not. I suggest you read a lot more about language learning when you're still at a stage that it can really make a difference. Since you've already covered it, avoid sources that have you spending most of your time doing flash cards.

I do advocate doing Heisig early on though. Good luck with whatever path you choose.

leosmith Wrote:

wonderflex Wrote:determine if I’ve created a proper course of action for learning Japanese

First, as has been said already, that was a beautiful post. But let me ask you a question. Have you ever had a massage, in the US? Remember how you feel afterward? Somewhat relaxed, but ...HEY! You missed a spot! That's sort of the feeling I get after reading your post, and all the responses. Let's try to give your language learning experience a happy ending.

Learning to converse takes a great deal of human interaction. Leaving it out is not an option. It is the skill you can develop the quickest to a useful level. Doing this early will help you learn the other skills, allowing you to reach your goals faster.

If conversation is not one of your goals, than I take it all back. But if it is, you will need to work at it. The earlier you begin the better.

Also, your research does not appear to be complete. It is only on this forum and a few other places on the internet where your method wouldn't be considered extreme. Maybe it's the right one for you, but probably not. I suggest you read a lot more about language learning when you're still at a stage that it can really make a difference. Since you've already covered it, avoid sources that have you spending most of your time doing flash cards.

I do advocate doing Heisig early on though. Good luck with whatever path you choose.

You bring up some good points about interaction. I've been rather fortunate in several ways:

1) I live in Eugene, OR, home of the Mighty Oregon Ducks. We have a lot of students from Japan.

2) The Eugene school district has Japanese as an option for high school, and because of this there are a few language clubs.

3) My friend Charlie is from Taiwan and has a small understanding of Japanese, but a very large understanding of Kanji.

I'm hoping to be able to tap into the Japanese students eventually - just want to get through the Kanji first though. In just the three weeks I was in Japan I realized just how much of a positive impact interaction had. It shows your flaws really quickly and makes you want to find a way to fix them quickly.

And as for other places around the net/world/neverhood - I don't really care if they think the methods taught here or on AJATT are extreme (in a negative way I take it).

In the past I've tried so many different traditional, and not as traditional methods, of studying Japanese. For some reason they never would seem to last though. The fire would often die before it was even lit.

After reading All Japanese All the Time and then starting this out, I've found that I've been incredibly psyched and even have pushed on when I didn't want to. It's a great feeling to think that I'm fighting this time, and that I'm going to win.

Two weeks ago I didn't know jack. Two weeks later I know 276 Kanji that I never though in my life I would ever get to know. Now I see how this lack of knowing Kanji was one of my major stumbling blocks in being able to succeed at a learning Japanese from home.

Japanese was everywhere. Real, native Japanese - but I couldn't read it, so the tasked seemed ever the more daunting. Now I see how easy can be. Sure, this is only the tip of the iceburg. 20% of a Kanji is upfront, and the other 80% lie beneath the ridged waters, but as far as I see it, if I can learn to write them all out at last I've given that 20% a beat-down.

If Average Joe Utah can do it in his bedroom with a lot of dedication in 18 months I should be able to do the same in 24 months with nearly a lot of dedication, using the same crazy-as-all-get-out method.

Word.

wonderflex Wrote:

yukamina Wrote:

wonderflex Wrote:2) After I finish RTK the keywords will also need to fade away, and be replaced with Japanese keyword(s) instead.

No, you don't need a 'keyword'. After RTK you'll move on to learning words that use the kanji. People around here typically learn the words using context like sentences.

Quote:7) After I am finished I should make a different card with hiragana on the front for each reading of a Kanji, and have the Kanji on back.

What, like drilling on/kun-yomi to kanji? Don't do that...

So, I won't be learning how to say individual Kanji. Instead I'll be learning how to say words, made up of multiple Kanji? So, when I look at a sentence I'll need to figure out which group of Kanji form a word in Japanese, and then learn said word?

So, for example, if there are three Kanji all right next to each other, I wouldn't speak out the three of them indidually and it would form a word. Rather, I would notice the three of them, realize that those three make a certain word, and then learn what the word is that corisponds with them?

I guess a lot of the part about reading really throws me off. It's probably because I have some sort of fundimental misunderstanding about how Kanji work when combined.

Preferably you'll have audio and/or kana to go with the Japanese sentence. If you're using something systematic like the smart.fm/KO2001 project, then you'll quickly pick up an awareness of kanji readings.

wonderflex Wrote:If Average Joe Utah can do it in his bedroom with a lot of dedication in 18 months I should be able to do the same in 24 months with nearly a lot of dedication, using the same crazy-as-all-get-out method.

I think that would make you above average, especially with your full Duck load.

Learning kanji is a big hurdle, and makes Japanese different to learn than other languages. After messing around with several techniques, many of us have found that learning kanji out of context using Heisig is the most efficient way.

Unfortunately, many people who do this huge and intense exercise, I'll call it a crusade for short, become crusaders. They finish Heisig, and instead of going back to normal language learning techniques, which work quite well in Japanese after one learns kanji by the way, they look for the next crusade. They go for the RTK2 crusade. Or the KO2001 crusade. Or the 10,000 sentence crusade. They continue this isolation, doing their flashcards and hiding behind their computers.

What they will find out, if and when they finally exit the crusade mode, is that they still have a long way to go. To become fluent, you must actually use the language for a great deal of time. With a difficult language like Japanese, probably thousands of hours. Crusading hours have value, but may not have as big of an impact on the total number of usage hours that you think.

To learn a language efficiently to fluency, study hours should be a small fraction of usage hours. In the beginning, you will need to study more and use less. In the end, you'll be doing nothing but using. Crusading for too long will take away time you could be actually using the language.

So instead of crusading, one should try to learn things through language usage as much as possible. There are certain things, like study of kanji and grammar, that are most efficiently learned out of context. But for everything else, try to learn in context. Every person is different. I know people who never have to use a single flashcard, not even for vocabulary. I know others that can't learn anything unless they take it out of context. The former have a great advantage over the latter. An individual should spend as little of her time out of context as is practical.

Here's a sample balanced approach.
1) learn to speak the language first, building friendships with Japanese. You don't have to be good in the beginning; nobody is. Just be conversational. Audio programs like Pimsleur, Learn in your car, Michel Thomas, etc are very helpful.
1) Podcasts and other easy listening material are essential to begin to get an ear for the language.
1) Really nail down the kana. Write them out, use flashcards, do whatever it takes at first to get them memorized. Then actually use them by working your way through one of the many kana workbooks available.
2) More conversation. Get a Japanese girlfriend if you can.
2) More listening. Up the level of your listening material, but stay comprehensible.
2) RTK1 with this site, an SRS or paper flashcards. Physically being able to write them quickly and beautifully is a necessity.
2) Start working your way through a good text book. Genki or Japanese for Everyone spring to mind. Read Tae Kim as a supplement to you text. Keep in mind that most people who try to learn grammar by gleaning it wind up studying it anyway.
3) More conversation. Time to get all that grammar into your speech. Surround yourself with Japanese friends and girlfriends. Get intimately involved with the culture.
3) More listening. Try native material. Some TV, movies, radio, etc should be comprehensible enough to be worth your while to listen to by now.
3) Reading & writing. These should be your weakest skills, so don't be surprised if all that kanji work hasn't resulted in immediate success. Using flashcards, learn to read and write all the vocabulary you've learned to this point.
4) More conversation. Keep improving your grammar, and stay involved with the culture.
4) More listening. Try to wean yourself off of easy material, and listen to things a Japanese adult would.
4) Reading. Start off with readers, VOA, or any comprehensible material you can find that has audio. Translations are the best, but mouse over dictionaries are also nice. Listen, read, listen and read, in native and target languages. Figure out a combination that works well for you. As soon as you have good comprehension reading the item with no aids, move on.
4) Writing. Write essays. This will probably help your speech more than anything else. It's best if you have someone to give you a theme and make corrections. Strive for perfect grammar. In the beginning, use all the resources at your disposal to help you. Wean yourself off them with time. Recommend writing as you want to talk, not bookish.
5) Conversation. Enjoy.
5) More listening. It takes a long time to develop good listening skills. Keep it up.
5) Reading. Master newspapers. Read as much as you can fit into your balanced schedule, and listen to the same news that you read. This will help your listening too. It's straight forward, somewhat formal language, beautifully pronounced. Take confidence in knowing many westerners have learned to read newspapers, and make the skill your own.
5) Writing. Enjoy.
6) Conversation. Enjoy.
6) More listening. Movies and TV.
6) Reading. Novels, signs, menus, ads.
6) Writing. Enjoy.
7) Enjoy. If you don't enjoy on a regular basis, expect some decline in skills, but you'll get them back when immersed again.

leosmith Wrote:2) More conversation. Get a Japanese girlfriend if you can.

Hmmm...I'll need to ask my wife about this one.

On a serious note, thank you very much. That was a very nice and concise post, with a majority of it making great sense to me. I will try to integrate as much as I can into my learning plan.

leosmith Wrote:Unfortunately, many people who do this huge and intense exercise, I'll call it a crusade for short, become crusaders. They finish Heisig, and instead of going back to normal language learning techniques, which work quite well in Japanese after one learns kanji by the way, they look for the next crusade. They go for the RTK2 crusade. Or the KO2001 crusade. Or the 10,000 sentence crusade. They continue this isolation, doing their flashcards and hiding behind their computers.

Nice nice nice, I get this feeling all the time. I especially am flustered when people say that they're diving into RTK3 before actually learning any Japanese. It seems to me that without a good system like RTK learning the kanji is a big leap and few people are brave enough to jump it without someone outlining the whole thing for them. Or rather, they don't know how, so they never really cross-over into seriously learning the kanji.

People who do RTK get over the kanji leap pretty easily. But a lot of people who do it become really used to the SRS flashcard method, and they no longer seem to be able to cross over other important leaps in learning the language. They're right back where they were, stuck before a different leap.

I'm not really talking about the majority of people here, but I've definitely seen some people fall into this sort of trap. I also don't mean to put down these people, we all get stuck at points in learning a language, and it happens in many different ways.