I thought I would start a thread about the reading section on RTK.

I was wondering how you guys use the reading section in your studies. It doesn't really seem useful to just cut/paste an article and look for the kanji I already know. Maybe I'm missing something but any ideas would be great.

正直言うと、僕はその部分を使わないっす。
読解力は小説や漫画で勉強するんだ。

[ファブリス]

Hi charchy,

It was just meant as a game of sorts, something to do besides RtK before you can get into actual reading. The section is called "reading" for lack of a better word. It is not meant to help you translate or anything.

In this section you can enjoy trying to guess some compounds from the keyword meanings. It doesn't work all the time of course.

You can use it to test your memory from kanji to keyword, and see if your stories work well both ways.

You can also see your progress since more of the kanji in a given text will appear in the blue colour, as your progress through RtK1.

It is definitely encouraging to see more and more blue (studied) kanji appear as you progress through RTK.

I just pasted in a couple articles from Asahi Shinbun (my Japanese teachers have said that Asahi Shinbun uses more kanji and kanji compound words than any of the other newspapers) to see how much kanji coverage my RTK studies have given me so far.

I'm happy to report that my study through to #1625 in RTK covered approximately 90% of the kanji used in each article. Not bad!

It would be nice if it were a Firefox plugin that you could turn on/off like Rikaichan.
The only necessary input would be the highest frame number that you've studied so far.
Maybe a color selector for the highlight color.

Right click, turn it on, and see which kanji you are supposed to know....... :-p

I really like the 'reading' section. Useful not just for the hover over and coloured kanji, the text size is really easy on the eye.

One of the site's main feature is obviously the 'review' section but that's just a means to an end. The 'reading' section allows us to put our skills to the test.

ファブリス Wrote:You can also see your progress since more of the kanji in a given text will appear in the blue colour, as your progress through RtK1.

I think it would be useful if RTK1 and RTK3 kanji were different colours. Perhaps RTK3 could be green, for instance.

Also kanji that you have not yet studied (but are in RTK1 or RTK3) could be light grey.

I agree with synewave that the text size is really easy on the eye! A definite plus for me.

I would also like to second the suggestion to have a different color to indicate RTK III kanji (green sounds fine or perhaps a shade of blue that is noticeably different from that for RTK I kanji). A slight greying or other "low key" color change to indicate RTK I (and possibly RTK III) not yet studied kanji would also be a great addition.

chamcham Wrote:It would be nice if it were a Firefox plugin that you could turn on/off like Rikaichan.
The only necessary input would be the highest frame number that you've studied so far.
Maybe a color selector for the highlight color.

Forget the Firefox plugin, the reading section could become a main feature of the site if the site itself was equipped with Rikaichan like functions.

And as for the colour changes, failed kanji being red might be good.

I love the reading section. If I'm bored and want to improve the speed of my kanji recalls, I just plop a Japanese article in there and try and recall the blue kanji as quickly as possible. It's a nice alternative to the spaced repetition approach to studying. I don't do this too frequently, however, so as not to mess up the spaced repetition process by reviewing from short-term memory.

Still, a definite plus. The only negative is the few times it's distracted me from my studies .