Good Afternoon,

Just wondering what people's opinions are on "Kanji in Context" and "Kanji Odyssey 2001". For people who have finished (or are working through) KiC and KO2001, do you feel that you've made noticeable progress because of it. Or would just going straight to native media make more sense?

Just wondering if these books are academic to the point where they have no use in real life. I especially like the fact that KiC covers all Joyo Kanji plus 2 other kanji, but am wondering if most of the vocabulary will simply be forgotten or left unused after completing these books.

Kanji in Context was extremely helpful to me in developing my language skill through the intermediate stage, when I still had trouble using native sources fully. I owe it a huge debt for my current language skills.

EDIT: I was also using some native sources at the same time but without KiC I don't think my progress would have been as good.

I'm gonna second that for KO. It's helped me to read to a much higher level than I could before and further to that it's upped my verbal output a lot too by ingraining some useful sentence patterns into me. It teaches a lot of vocab you probably would never bother learning through sentence picking but this is actually a great thing because it's vocab for everyday stuff that I've actually found I've needed more than I would expect! It teaches lots and lots of vocab you will want to know to. The benefit of the KO deck with audio is it's also helped my listening!

I think KiC/Core6000/KO2001 are fantastic to get you to a point where you can dive into the deep end of the real language without totally sinking and IMO it's great to have a structured approach up to that point

How much kanji you know is a poor indicator of your ability to read native sources. What matters is how much and which vocabulary, and the level of your grammar. KO2001 and (I presume) KiC are good starts in this regard. "Going straight to native media" doesn't make sense under any circumstance.

mafried Wrote:"Going straight to native media" doesn't make sense under any circumstance.

I wouldn't state that as a fact, really. I went straight from RTK to native media and I think it's working out great.

I think KiC and KO2001 are awesome tools. I've even considered, occasionally, just as a side-project, doing KO2001. It's hard for me, though. The difficulty comes in where true context ends.

I really despise learning sentences that don't have any real meaning to me. I mean, sure, maybe they contain a grammatical concept I want to learn, or maybe they demonstrate the use of an irregular reading of a certain compound... but if it's just some random sentence, it feels useless to me. It feels like I'm taking a class.

That's why I can't understand some people who devour these giant spreadsheet sentence packs.... How can do learn all of these random sentences and still enjoy studying?

sethg Wrote:That's why I can't understand some people who devour these giant spreadsheet sentence packs.... How can do learn all of these random sentences and still enjoy studying?

I don't consume giant sentence packs, so I can't speak for those. Though, I do enjoy raw sentence sources (みんなの日本語, Kanji Odyssey 2001, etc).

Somewhat random business oriented sentences in KO2001 may seem boring, but to me they hopefully will allow me to have a diverse enough vocabulary to converse about business in Japanese. Sentences that talk about foreign exchange prices, stocks, business trips, etc are all important things for those doing business or at least will help understand conversations, business news, etc.

I hope to move onto native sources after KO2001 and みんなの日本語 II , but for now my vocabulary is not there.

sethg, I'm curious, how did you jump into native media, knowing nothing about grammar or even the most basic vocabulary? I'm not saying that KO2001 or KiC is necessary, but that at least some basic studying is required before being able to use native sources with any effectiveness.

Sethg, I second mafried's question. Can you please elaborate on your experience. I'm interested in knowing more.

I just started reading interesting Japanese things (Lifehacker.jp, a 四年生読書, etc). I would write down vocabulary I didn't know. If I couldn't grasp a grammatical concept, I would check out Tae Kim's guide. If that didn't cover it, I'd ask a Japanese friend on Skype.

I think this method of Japanese discovery is much more fun and efficient than "studying". By really studying what I needed to know in order to understand an article in which I was interested, personally, I feel like I really grasped the concepts more fully.

Sure, you can't just learn from native media. You need a dictionary. Occasionally, you need help understanding particles. But I don't think you should punish yourself with out of contexts examples. I think you should read to discover what you need to learn first.

I've tried that multiple times but I would always run into too many unknowns, which is why I'm hoping to finish KO2001 and hopefully reduce the number of unknowns.

EDIT: I think I might give dramanote reading a try (again) and put KO2001 to the side for awhile, see what happens.

Nii87 Wrote:I've tried that multiple times but I would always run into too many unknowns, which is why I'm hoping to finish KO2001 and hopefully reduce the number of unknowns.

Hey, if it works and you don't get burnt out, go for it. You've just got a much larger threshold for that kind of stuff than I do. I did this kind of stuff when I studied French and I got to a point where I would feel resentment towards the language and the culture, just because of how painful the language seemed to be at the time.

I can see where you'd be coming from, ya know, not wanting to jump into native materials... there are a lot of unknowns... but make it something you really really enjoy (Death Note manga, anyone?) and let your love for the story drive you.

I think everyone has their own tolerance factor for unknowns. I started blithely reading manga before I even knew my hiragana and katakana (I was fifteen. I had NO idea...) and retrospectively I can say it was a bad idea but I was so delighted when I could make out anything at all, and testing hypotheses and having them turn out to be wrong was its own kind of fun. I'd been studying for a year and a half when I first started reading a novel, and again, I was delighted that I could understand anything at all of the plot line. But at the same time, I was taking classes and studying from textbooks and reading formalized grammar explanations, or I would have been totally lost, or I would have had my grammar fossilize around my bad hypotheses.

Interesting. Like Fillanzea says, I guess everyone has their own threshold. For me I found it frustrating to look at a page and not understand a single word. And the more interested I was, the more frustrating I found it to be. It wasn't until I had a solid grasp on grammar, and a vocabulary in the thousands that I could make out enough of what was going on to enjoy reading it. I then jumped into native material and never looked back, but I don't think I could have ever done so before. I would have found it too frustrating and given up studying (as I did, actually, on numerous occasions).

For me, even more so than frustration, I just encountered too many things that I literally could not understand -- even with dictionaries and grammar books I couldn't look up the sentence structure or the conjugated form. It took so long to struggle through one sentence and only get 60% out of it that I found it more boring and frustrating than a textbook.

I've seen this all the time on Japanese forums; people declare that they're going to wade through a manga or book and if they can "just get through the first chapter" they can finish the whole thing -- I've never seen any of those people get through more than 3 or 4 sentences.

mafried Wrote:"Going straight to native media" doesn't make sense under any circumstance.

I agree. After trying to do the AJATT method of "doing only interesting things" I'd try and read manga, watch anime, dramas, movies, play games etc in Japanese. I'm making more progress doing KO and doing those other things in addition. KO is my study, the other stuff is my fun. Random sentence picking wasn't nearly as efficient.

I also don't understand how people go straight from RTK to KO. KO is an intermediate resource- you'd be better off covering basic grammar and vocab (ie AT LEAST 3級) before starting. Maybe something like Genki I&II or similar. Not sure about Tae Kim's as I haven't used it, but that sounds like a good resource to.

If I had tried KO when I first got out of RTK I would have been pretty frustrated.

yudantaiteki Wrote:For me, even more so than frustration, I just encountered too many things that I literally could not understand -- even with dictionaries and grammar books I couldn't look up the sentence structure or the conjugated form. It took so long to struggle through one sentence and only get 60% out of it that I found it more boring and frustrating than a textbook.

I'm in complete agreement. Reading through a book or manga and picking up a word/grammar structure here or there just wasn't doing it for me

There are a few people who seem to be able to wade through things and just keep going, like Alyks, but I am not one of them. Even playing a game like FF in Japanese and not understanding most of the dialogue was boring. It boiled down to just fighting.

Do both! Study and play!

For shizzle. Just saying that only play and no work didn't... umm... work... for me.

For me there is a lot of vocab in KO that I don't know. But I found the sentences sooooo damn boring. So I bought a book intended for children in grade 3 - I think that there are a compareable amount of unknown words however the whole experience of reading is much more enjoyable.

captal Wrote:

mafried Wrote:"Going straight to native media" doesn't make sense under any circumstance.

I agree. After trying to do the AJATT method of "doing only interesting things" I'd try and read manga, watch anime, dramas, movies, play games etc in Japanese. I'm making more progress doing KO and doing those other things in addition. KO is my study, the other stuff is my fun. Random sentence picking wasn't nearly as efficient.

I also don't understand how people go straight from RTK to KO and I don´t regret it at all. KO is an intermediate resource- you'd be better off covering basic grammar and vocab (ie AT LEAST 3級) before starting. Maybe something like Genki I&II or similar. Not sure about Tae Kim's as I haven't used it, but that sounds like a good resource to.

If I had tried KO when I first got out of RTK I would have been pretty frustrated.

I pretty much jumped straight from RTK - KO. I did the basic grammar in Tae Kim´s guide and went for it. I don´t know, I think it will be frustrating in the beginning of the sentence face no matter where you start. KO2001´s grammar is pretty basic stuff, and the frustration lies in the difference between remembering kanji/stories to learning readings. At least that´s my opinion! =)

captal Wrote:

mafried Wrote:"Going straight to native media" doesn't make sense under any circumstance.

I agree. After trying to do the AJATT method of "doing only interesting things" I'd try and read manga, watch anime, dramas, movies, play games etc in Japanese. I'm making more progress doing KO and doing those other things in addition. KO is my study, the other stuff is my fun. Random sentence picking wasn't nearly as efficient.

I also don't understand how people go straight from RTK to KO. KO is an intermediate resource- you'd be better off covering basic grammar and vocab (ie AT LEAST 3級) before starting. Maybe something like Genki I&II or similar. Not sure about Tae Kim's as I haven't used it, but that sounds like a good resource to.

If I had tried KO when I first got out of RTK I would have been pretty frustrated.

I finished RTK1 a wihle ago and i am doing KO2001 right now.
The first 100 sentences are really a pain, but after that it becomes easier.
Right now i can blitz through it about 50-100 sentences a day if i want.
So its not really hard after you finished RTK1.

But i am worried about the grammar, the grammar in KO2001 is quite basic.
Tae kim covers the grammar for KO2001 (At least for me now)
I am doing the KO2001 alongside with some grammar. (Tae kim)
The problem is. if i have finished tae kim. What are some good suggestions to further improve my grammar?
Some book suggestions anyone?

The grammar isn't hard, but to me it seems like most the stuff you'll see on 3級 (which isn't hard, but it's a launching point).

The biggest problem to me is- how do you swallow all the new vocab? I regularly run into sentences that have a couple words I don't know, and I'm closer to 2級 than 3. For someone who hasn't seen 5 or 6 words in a sentence, what do you do?

captal Wrote:... For someone who hasn't seen 5 or 6 words in a sentence, what do you do?

Look up the ones that show up often or just seem interesting to you.

captal Wrote:. For someone who hasn't seen 5 or 6 words in a sentence, what do you do?

Take the sentence and break it into two (or more) sentences wherein you convert some kanji to hiragana. Or as nukemarine suggested, suspend the sentence and wait till you have seen those unknown compounds.

captal Wrote:The grammar isn't hard, but to me it seems like most the stuff you'll see on 3級 (which isn't hard, but it's a launching point).

The biggest problem to me is- how do you swallow all the new vocab? I regularly run into sentences that have a couple words I don't know, and I'm closer to 2級 than 3. For someone who hasn't seen 5 or 6 words in a sentence, what do you do?

In the beginning I made several cards per sentence, with only one word highlighted.
I made everything from 1 - 5 cards per sentence (5 new words = 5 cards)
BUT after a while you get used to learning readings, you can handle more per card. I stopped making multiple cards at frame 130-ish, and even though I encountered sentences with 3-4 new words, I didn´t have to struggle that much. I don´t know, personally I came up with methods of learning readings by trying and failing, and after forcing through the beginning of KO, I streamlined the process and was able to add more with less problems...