I'm currently on RTK1 about 1/4 of the way through. RTK2 supposedly teaches you the readings. So how come so many people skip RTK2? arent the readings important? Or are they better aquired through sentence mining and KO2001?

Readings are super important and learning them through RTK2 is a total waste of time. It only teaches you readings and does it in a way that isn't exactly optimal (or appealing I might add) and you learn no vocab either.

Learning to read through KO2001 works like magic. Great investment in your learning. Not only does it teach you to read on and kun readings but it builds a decent vocabulary and drills home basic and some intermediate grammar.

*ahem* RTK2 is highly frowned upon in these forums. Well, I think it's fine, but other people don't like it. Whatever floats your boat.

mezbup Wrote:Readings are super important and learning them through RTK2 is a total waste of time. It only teaches you readings and does it in a way that isn't exactly optimal (or appealing I might add) and you learn no vocab either.

Not a total waste of time, and you DO learn vocab. One for each reading. There seems to be a myth going around that RTK doesn't teach words. Every time one of these topics come up someone says it.

Guess that's cos no one even bothers with it because there are much better resources?

I stand corrected on that point. Is it vocab in isolation? If so that definitely ain't the best way to go.

I mean even if you did learn all the readings in isolation plus vocab in isolation you're still going to have to put in a lot of work to get your reading comprehension ability to a reasonable level. It's much easier and enjoyable to do reading, vocab, grammar and comprehension all at once through sentences.

That being said, I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone who is just starting out in the language. It may, however, be different if you were fluent in conversation and only just now undertaking the quest of literacy. If that were the case doing RTK1 and then moving on to RTK2 or doing something like the movie method may work better but that's just speculation.

I think I'd die of boredom doing RTK2.

Personal opinion: When it comes to learning to read Japanese, RTK2 leaves a lot to be desired where other different approaches really shine.

[Katsuo]

Opinions on RTK2 often seem to come from hearsay. I worked through much of it; here are my thoughts:

ON readings: The main purpose of RTK2 is to attach ON readings to kanji. Knowing the ON readings is extremely helpful when learning to read. RTK2 uses two methods combined to achieve this:

1) A vocabulary word is given for each reading (and you have to memorize those words).
2) Kanji with certain "primitives" (from RTK1) sometimes also share the same ON readings. These are grouped so that several kanji readings can be learnt at once. Vocabulary words are provided for these, too.

I found method 2, above, to be very useful. Unfortunately it only works for a minority of the kanji, but it does speed up learning those ones.

Kun readings: These are dealt with more briefly, taking just one chapter of the book. Again there are two methods.
1) Substitute Japanese words (kun readings) for the English keywords on your flash cards where the meaning is similar. Heisig suggests you do this as soon as you are comfortable with writing the kanji.
2) The second method is similar to that in RTK1. You assign a specific meaning to each Japanese syllable and build larger words by making stories. Heisig insists this method is only for when you are having difficulties remembering a particular word, and is not intended as a method to work through all the kun readings.


Some possible criticisms of/ disappointments with RTK2:
1) Compared to RTK1 it is not "fun". There are no stories or similarly entertaining ways to learn the ON readings.
2) Whereas RTK1 is a course that you follow, RTK2 is more of a reference manual. This gives you less sense of progress.

Personally, I was disappointed that there was no mnemonic technique for attaching the ON readings, so I made my own (just a simple sound association method).

Edit: spelling mistake

Thanks for the informative post.

In regards to the second point you made, I've noticed that myself through KO and it makes remembering and reading those kanji quite simple.

As far as mnemonics go I find them necessary only with words that are giving me a serious headache. Sometimes if I keep failing it, when it's come up for the third time and I'm reading it through often I can make it sound like the start of a phrase, a phrase which I then relate back to that word. It's such a good tool to have.

It's a matter of personal taste; they both work. Or rather, any method will work (let's be inclusive of alternatives like kanji town, kanji chains, etc.).

Probably the reason RTK2 is frowned upon is not because the method is bad, but because after RTK1 you don't need it. To have made it to the end of RTK1 you must have developed the skills necessary to come up with a RTK2-like system on your own, and one better suited to your own personal strengths to boot. So why spend money on a book telling you what you already know or can find on the internet for free?

As others said, Reading are very important. Many just are not using RTK2 to learn them. I think most that advised against it did give RTK2 a fair shot. I tried it, and found the Key primitive concept useful but limited. I abandoned it before starting out with iKnow words.

To be honest, had Heisig hit upon "Movie Method" or Memory Palace early in his studies, he may have made the book about that instead. With those you continue the use of visual memory, can still utilize Key primitives (those become major themes in the stories instead), plus the keywords from RTK1 still have a use. In addition, Movie Method or Memory Palace works great either after RTK1 or instead of RTK1 depending on your story making abilities.

So one can learn readings either in context (KO2001 or iKnow lists), systematically (RTK2 or Movie Method), or both. I'm going the both route.

It's easy to learn the readings in context while doing the sentence method. I don't see the need to learn them separately anymore.

I`m sorry, could someone tell me what KO2001 means? is it a book?:-)

http://rtk.wikia.com/wiki/Acronyms

http://rtk.wikia.com/wiki/KO2001

I still don't get the "learn in context" method, and even Heisig can't.
How is it different? You get finer grammatical nuances from context.... and that's about it. You still NEED to learn the compound as it is, so, RTK2 seems way MUCH better, since you get some system to it (such as pure, semi pure and mixed groups).

enerccio Wrote:I still don't get the "learn in context" method, and even Heisig can't.
How is it different? You get finer grammatical nuances from context.... and that's about it. You still NEED to learn the compound as it is, so, RTK2 seems way MUCH better, since you get some system to it (such as pure, semi pure and mixed groups).

The benefits as I see it:

RTK2: downloads the raw data into your brain faster.
Readings through sentence mining: Installs the Japanese language pack into your head.

Bottom line, you could go through all of RTK2 and be able to read things out loud and you'd be in exactly the same bout as someone learning a foreign language from the same language family. You could pronounce 90% of it and understand 10% of it. Granted from this standpoint you can then progress to actual reading comprehension quite quick. IMO the person who will benefit the most from this is someone who can already speak and undertand japanese verbally but not read or write. Since they know the vocab if they knew readings and meanings they could just start reading and pick things up with no dictionary.

A drawback I see to RTK2 is when it comes to real reading not knowing which reading to select and getting maybe a little flustered with this. Learning through context, most of the time but not always you'll select the correct way to read a word you don't know because it becomes intuitive.

If you go the reading through sentence mining route, it may be a little slower but it means you can read. If you're efficient with this method 1000 words a month is a reasonable target. Go the KO route and you've got 1110 kanji down pat without too much trouble, filling in the second half should then be a breeze. Plus you can functionally read enough to get by in everyday life.

A drawback I see to learning to read through context is you may miss out on certain readings, possibly some rarer ones. Always room for improvement.

I wouldn't say I'm knocking RTK2, I just think it has its place with people who already know the language but as yet are illiterate and can benefit from quickly filling in the missing data to readily aqcuire reading ability.

Well I do both. I primarily use RTK2 as a way to systematically learn the on readings and I use sentence mining to learn hiragana words, kun readings and grammar. Additionally, in order to increase my vocabulary, I learn one or two additional words in addition to the examples provided in RTK2 for each reading. And then I try to find sentences using these words to help me understand usage.

Like gibosi said, it's not RTK2 vs Sentence Mining. You don't have to choose one over the other. You can supplement RTK2 with sentence mining or vice versa. Or if you only use RTK2, you'll still finish at some point and move on to something else.

A word is meaningless unless you see it used in context. 90% of the time whilst writing sakubuns for class I find myself checking the dictionary first for the raw meaning to which I get about 5-15 different words on average. I then find myself checking each nuance in some small sentences project to see if the word I looked up is used in the right connotation.

From far away it does look like you are learning new words but you really aren't unless you USE them in writing. But I guess it depends on how long it actually takes one to learn on-readings?