Sorry if this is a stupid question, but on this site are the kanji above RTK1 (2043+) from RTK2 or 3?

I don't really want to bother with 2, just do the extra 1000 or so from RTK3.

Thanks.

The kanji in RTK2 are the same kanji as in the first RTK, it just teaches the readings. So, 2043+ is from RTK3... but seems like a waste of time to me.

RTK3 is a good start if you enjoy reading books or want to learn Japanese to a reasonable high level I suppose. You can also just learn those you encounter while learning Japanese/reading/etc. and get along with less than another 1000 Kanji. In case you are not sure whether you would benefit from RTK3, just do it on the side.. 5 or maybe 10 characters now and then, just for fun. That's what I'm doing at the moment.

If I ever do RtK3 systematically, I wouldn't just learn the kanji in isolation. I would learn words using them at the same time or it would seem like a waste of time to me.

Codexus Wrote:If I ever do RtK3 systematically, I wouldn't just learn the kanji in isolation. I would learn words using them at the same time or it would seem like a waste of time to me.

Yeah, I agree. Learning them as you come across them is easy enough because there are no new primitives. So that means there's no real need to spend 100 hours on RTK3. Although it'd be better to have done it than not to have done it, it's more of a luxury than a necessity.

There are new primitives. RTK is not comprehensive in that regard, unfortunately.

I am going to start on the new Kanji being added to the jōyō, 191 characters of which you learn 30-some from RTK1. Currently, I am adding them ad-hoc as I see them in sentence acquisition/reading, but will march through them slowly later this year as my RTK reviews get easier. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jōyō_kanji for the list.

[Katsuo]

For more information about the proposed new Joyo kanji (such as readings, etc) see this post, and check out the 2nd & 3rd links under Joyo Kanji Information.

mafried Wrote:There are new primitives. RTK is not comprehensive in that regard, unfortunately.

I actually wonder, how many new primitives are there?

enerccio Wrote:I actually wonder, how many new primitives are there?

Quite a few. I don't know about RTK3 per se, as I paved my own way. But RTK1 is based of the Joyo list, which contains the post-war simplifications. Technically speaking, with all other characters the traditional Chinese is the official form. And there are *a lot* of rare or primitive varients in these characters.