Quote:I like this idea, but there's a problem with it. RtK grows your vocabulary of primitive elements over time. Tae Kim jumps in to the full set from the start. Thus, RtK will be playing catch-up for a long time before it makes kanji easy.

But there aren't that many kanji's in tae kim, about 600 or so, 150 new ones in every section, and it's very repetitive in the kanji's and words it uses. I'd be more worried about the ko2001/smartfm phrases.

Besides having a view hundred kanji's down, which he does, and I think you forgot that, gives him a head start. Adding 500 with rtk lite in another month, hardly any unknown kanji's will show up, depending on how much more there is still left in the rtk lite version of course.
Though by then does know the basic grammar structures, the reading of the first view hundred kanji, and gotten quite used to the Japanese language. And I think especially the last part is quite valuable when going to Japan, with only 3 months to go, I'd start with it as quick as possible. And if that means a few still unknown kanji's showing up, than well, just let that be so, he can always try to ignore those, until they are learned through rtk.

mezbup Wrote:I still think it's not entirely necessary although I definitely agree it's much much easier when you're familiar with the various primitives. Hence why I'd advocate an RTKlite > Tae Kim > KO approach. If you can pump that out in three months it's good bang for buck IMO!

I agree with this. RTKLite is really enough kanji to be starting with for moving onto basic & intermediate grammar and learning readings with KO approach. If you go through this structured route, you really don't need more kanji than that until after finishing KO, though you can be working through the rest of RTK at the same time as KO since they don't cover the same kanji.

After reading studies about radicals and imageability (how concretely visual a definition is) with regards to their contributions to overall semantic and phonetic knowledge of kanji (+ words/compounds), I've definitely decided to work harder on consciously folding those elements into my study process when learning words, to speed things up and enhance my pattern recognition, et cetera. I'd definitely recommend that from the onset.

Before, and it worked great for the most part, I just relied on the spontaneous application of RTK knowledge as a whole (rather than breaking it down further to primitives), and the momentum of SRSing and using as many senses as possible.

After doing RTK and personally, meaningfully internalizing the kanji as wholes from the bottom up, we've the benefit of not just relying on the residual design of semantic/phonetic radicals as they're retained in general usage, but really using various resources--corpora analyses, cognitive studies, self-study methods like RTK, SRS--to optimally design our personal exposure and awareness.

Ex: Probably will focus more on using leftmost radical rather than keyword to initiate RTK-derived association with definitions, avoid wordplay because I don't think they're necessary with exposure esp. with ON readings & my self-study style, and likewise focus on conceptualizing definitions, especially for unfamiliar readings and KUN, in a very imagistic, concrete way.

References: HBPK 10, 78

Related: HBPK 39, 41, 49, 56, 59 -- Primarily 10 and 78 at the moment, and 78 has some nice tangents to my desires to see stroke order/practice used more minimally/efficiently (also see 100, and the batch of links around it to kinetic research).