Once again, I'm sorry if this is like one of the most frequently asked questions ever.

So I have a few alternatives I'm considering right now. I can from here on do:
- Tae Kim
- UBGJ sentences (and the text itself)
- core2000 (although I still don't get how smart.fm works)
- KO2001
- Kanjidamage (http://www.hellodamage.com/kanjidicks/main.htm)

I'm still a bit confused right now, I'm not sure how to effectively mine sentences, and I only know probably basic Japanese grammar.

Thanks for any tips given in advance.

Tae Kim. The other sources demand you know basic grammar, which is exactly what Tae Kim teaches you. Read his explanations and mine his sentences (if you feel the need to, most basic Japanese grammar will be stuck in your head in no-time regardless) and then move on to any of the other sources.

I'm a big fan of Kanjidamage (also the blog of Schultz, the guy who wrote it, is hilarious), but it's not something to do after RTK--you do it instead of RTK. So you can cross that off the list!

Thanks, I'll probably go Tae Kim then. Does that mean after Tae Kim, I'll probably be free to choose where I go next after that? Or is it recommendable to go vocab first?

I'm still a bit aggrieved after reading Kanjidamage once again, since if I had done that properly, I would have gotten all the onyomis and some of the keigo in one go. :p

敬語？ Don't you mean 訓読み, or am I missing something?

On subject,

I went RtK 1 -> Core 2000, since I had already read Tae Kim and had a pretty good grasp of basic grammar, verb conjugation, that sort of thing. Not enough to generate it, but enough to understand and look up the things that don't immediately come to mind. If that doesn't describe you, Tae Kim is the logical next step.

Next, I could review Tae Kim with Nukemarine's deck, but I'm going to focus on deepening my current vocabulary by studying monolingual definitions.

Tae Kim's grammar guide is the best of its kind currently available, but after that it's basically up to you. Try sentences. Try vocab. Go with whichever one works best for you.

If you're going the vocab route there's no reason you can't do both. In fact it might help, since you won't be going through Tae Kim as fast you might absorb some of the info better. At least that's what I'm trying to do. Even though I'll be coming back to reference Tae Kim I feel that if I try to just read it all as fast as I can I'm not going to retain as much.

I'd recommend UBJG. I'm not too far into the book, but it literally follows the i+1 method in everything I've covered. For each new grammar concept you get around ten example sentences, each usually containing one or two new pieces of vocabulary. There's also constant reinforcement of what you've already learned. I'm really digging it.

Ah yeah, a mistake on my part there, I meant to type kunyomi but somehow my mind wandered off on its own and decided keigo would be excellent to type in there.

I'll be finished with Tae Kim in around 2 more days.

I'd hate to make another thread, so I guess I'll bump this up with another question. Judging by the responses, I'd probably go UBJG and Core2k at the same time. Will that be too much at the same time? I might also go KO2001 instead of Core2k, too.

I also looked over at the core2k vs KO2001 thread. I guess from what I skimmed over, "do both" is the common answer?

I thought the common consensus was do one or the other, as it's pretty much the same result. Core2k uses easier and shorter sentences than KO, but Core2k has a horrible word order.

Now, if you can sort the Core 2k list into a version of the KO order, you might have a winning system (Core sentences with simpler sentences and audio, but KO's more intuitive word order). A program that can do that should be in those threads mentioned.

The program you mentioned, was it this one?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...4#pid77484

Yes that program can sort your sentences. The program is actually from http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/ContribFugounashi as I think the link on that thread is dead. I would also consider sorting your sentences based on frequency as mentioned in that thread. You can see from the graphs at the top of the post how much it improves the rate of introduction for new kanji. My KO deck has become 100 times better since I did so as I no longer have huge loads of new kanji introduced in cards. As a test I sorted the Core2k sentences by frequency as well and I can say that they are much friendlier that way, I just preferred the KO ones myself.

I apparently downloaded a file called sorted-sentences.zip from.. somewhere, although I don't remember exactly in which thread.

But I went through a couple of the sentences, and I'm seeing:

会社に行く時、山手通りを通る。

Suppose I don't know what 山手 and 通る is. The answer section is empty as well. So, basically, when I SRS this, do I only need to know the meaning of the sentence or do I have to write it out by hand from memory after memorizing its readings?

And looking back to the post, that pretty much means I can sort any kind of sentences in a list using those methods, is that right?

Also, is this the Core2k in KO2001 order?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2419

Again, many thanks.

intermu Wrote:I apparently downloaded a file called sorted-sentences.zip from.. somewhere, although I don't remember exactly in which thread.

But I went through a couple of the sentences, and I'm seeing:

会社に行く時、山手通りを通る。

Suppose I don't know what 山手 and 通る is. The answer section is empty as well. So, basically, when I SRS this, do I only need to know the meaning of the sentence or do I have to write it out by hand from memory after memorizing its readings?

If I remember correctly, the sorted-sentences was an export from thurd's anki deck after he had sorted it by frequency. Unfortunately since it was just an export you would have had to create the deck fields by hand before importing it in order to have everything work correctly. That's probably why the answer field was blank for you. You could open the txt file in a text editor and try to decipher what the fields are based on looks which might not be too hard. Another option which is what I did is to use the deck from http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=3283 and do the sort on that. You'll need the one with the searchable text though of course for the sorter to work.

intermu Wrote:And looking back to the post, that pretty much means I can sort any kind of sentences in a list using those methods, is that right?

Yep, I'm finding it incredibly useful. You can pretty much take any sentence material and re-order it into what "should" be a more gradual learning experience.

intermu Wrote:Also, is this the Core2k in KO2001 order?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2419

I believe that is more of KO2001's word progression built with sentences from smart.fm but not necessarily from Core2k (from what I can see). You would just have to use the smart.fm importer on the Core2k lists and then sort your deck afterwards using the KO2001 order to get that result.

I realized that when I had experimented with frequency ordering the Core2k list I had only imported the first step (200 sentences). So as an experiment I imported all 10 steps into a deck and did a frequency ordering on the whole thing. If you are really wanting a gentle introduction of kanji this is certainly the way to go. The difference is night and day with the original order (or lack thereof).

I don't really understand how to actually run the program correctly (installed Perl and stuff but is still lost), so I guess I'll go from the KO2001 deck.

I guess I'll try and sort the decks later on when I'm in the right state of mind.

Question just so I don't get lost: a simple yes/no will do.

In the KO2001 anki deck, when the question card shows the sentence as well as the kanji, all I need to do in there is just read the whole sentence and understand the meaning of the sentence (and the words), right?

I also tried the smart.fm deck finally (Firefox gives errors for that so finally used Chrome to open it), and any opinions on how good it is compared to KO2001?

Intermu,

Yes, if you set up your cards to show a kanji sentence, then the idea is to be able to read outloud the entire sentence, understand what it says as a whole and what each of the individual words mean.

A variant that I do is either bold a word or have it displayed off to the side that I want that sentence to help me learn. That's the word I write down if I do not read or understand that word correctly.

Kanji compounds in TRK?

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to be asking this question, but I'm on 670 kanji using RTK 1. And I know that there is still some time to go before I finish, but I am curious to know how to study compunds? Does RTK 2 teach you compounds? I sometimes learn new compounds that I come across by chance. But I would like to do it the right way from the start. What does the RTK method recommend regarding compunds? And what do you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
:o)

LouiseSand Wrote:I am curious to know how to study compunds?

Compounds are words. I learn them the same way I learn new words in any language: a lot of passive exposure and one or more example sentences.

Quote:Does RTK 2 teach you compounds?

One compound per frame, to illustrate that particular reading: 天 is テン in 天気（てんき）which means "weather."

Quote:But I would like to do it the right way from the start.

Don't worry about the "right way." Compounds are words, and your brain already knows how to acquire words. Trying to study all the compounds before you start reading would be extremely boring anyway: there are tens of thousands of compounds.

If you want to study the most common words starting out (helpful, but not required), I recommend Core2000, and a lot of people like Kanji Odyssey.

LouiseSand Wrote:I sometimes learn new compounds that I come across by chance. But I would like to do it the right way from the start. What does the RTK method recommend regarding compunds? And what do you guys recommend?
:o)

As Gandhi said: "There is no right way to learning, learning is the right way."

Start reading the real stuff from now on. If you are uncertain about a grammar point, then whip out your grammar book. Most importantly, study for the long term. If you read a lot, many words will come to you naturally IN THE LONG TERM. I suggest you play around with alc.co.jp. Type in stuff that you want to say, such as :

"I think..."

Or try to see if expressions in English are also in Japanese, such as:
Two birds, one stone.
一石二鳥

Asking another question here again to avoid thread redundancy.

I'm fresh out of RtK, and 300 cards in KO.

Now I'm wondering what did people do when starting out, especially while looking at new jukugo. I'm confronted by new jukugo on some sentences, and whenever I see one of those new jukugos, my first instinct is to link it to Heisig keywords instead of the reading first. Will this be a bad habit for me?

Besides that, I also usually remember the general meaning of the sentence itself, will this fade by as I get in more cards?

Dear wildweathel, Sebastian and mr_hans_moleman

Thank you so much for your helpful answers. You confirm that I should keep going and not worry about how I learn compounds. How refreshing. I needed that. There are so many great words out there to learn. And now I don't have to feel guilty about learning them even though I haven't finished RTK 1. Wow, I can start having the dessert allready!

Thank you.

:o)
Louise

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Food for thought.