This is going to be my 3rd time around with RTK. After fooling around and applying someone's method here and someone else's to no success I have concluded that I need a systematic, non-natural and if I may add brutal approach to Japanese. For example, I have been reading for a while now under the impression that I would just pick up Kanji from exposure. Well, I am not picking it up. A lot of Japanese is maybe boiling down deep inside, adding up to my massive pool of passive learning but I have had enough with failure.

I am going for RTK, the original flavor plus 400 or 500 of the rarities found in RTK3. Then I am going to link the readings with the keywords (creating stories with the keywords and mnemonics given to readings) that I should be able to recall by looking at the Kanji alone. I don't know where I will be after that second round, but hopefully able to read more than 2500 kanji without all the 'flow with the language', 'let it sink in' and 'you'll pick it up' bullshit.

From there I guess I could start linking words, either through the Kanji keywords or the mnemonics used for readings, or both. Whichever way should work and reinforce all the learned stuff.

I will not stop doing the other real native stuff like watching dramas and reading my books, but if I don't do this I don't know how else I could learn Japanese for real.

Comments?

I wouldn't regard RTK as a 'brutal approach'. It all sounds good, but if you just get some music on and relax and study, you'll enjoy RTK more and probably get more out of it.

Keep in mind that doing RTK will not teach you the meanings of the kanji. Sometimes the keywords happen to coincide with one meaning of a kanji, but not always. It's certainly possible to learn how to read Japanese without doing RTK, but doing RTK will not teach you how to read Japanese.

Plus, if you want to learn how to read Japanese, why are you aiming at doing half of RTK3? There is very little in RTK3 that will vastly help you with the Japanese you will be reading as a beginner or intermediate.

If you want a systematic, non-natural way to learn Japanese, I would suggest Core6000 over RTK (although using both together wouldn't really be a bad idea). If you don't understand the grammar being used, then I would recommend something like Genki I&II followed by Tae Kim's guide. That's all pretty systematic.

I've done it twice, only actually finished it the second time around 7 months ago.

I did the reviews for 5 months, then went to Japan for a few weeks and stopped all reviews. When I got back I decided I cba, I caught up with all my sentence reviews and haven't looked back.

Maybe one day I will do it again, but right now I don't see any point. I can tell the difference between the characters now and pronounce a load of them. Learning new characters as I bump into them is fairly easy.

Admittedly I can't write them very well from memory any more, were as I used to be able to write basically all of them from memory based on the keyword. I don't actually care about that now, I didn't have to write at all while in Japan, and when I go back I likely wont need to much then either.

RTK has given me the power to increase my vocab through text and mine sentences with ease, I am happy with that. No point wasting learning to write them all from memory again now, time is better spent on other things

I don't know what your Japanese is like in other areas, but learning all those rare kanjis and such as you mentioned is a complete waste of time unless you are already advanced level.

@lardycake Who told you it was a waste of time was lying and you went ahead a believed it. Like I did too years ago. In my experience with Japanese, the more you know the better. Doing RTK and then doing it another time for the readings it's going to be the one thing I am going to do right in Japanese that I didn't do from the beginning and now I regret everyday.

turvy Wrote:@lardycake Who told you it was a waste of time was lying and you went ahead a believed it.

...or maybe doing RTK was actually a waste of time for them. I tried doing RTK 1 1/2 years ago, and it wasn't helpful for me. I don't for a second regret quitting RTK, and view my time spent using it as time wasted.

However, if you feel that RTK is going to work well for you, by all means work your way through the book. It's clearly worked for a lot of people, but just because someone says that it was a waste of time for them doesn't mean that they're liars.

If RTK didn't work for you what did?.

turvy Wrote:If RTK didn't work for you what did?.

I've been working my way through Kanji Odyssey and it's been incredibly helpful in both learning kanji, and learning new vocabulary.
Textbooks like Japanese for Everyone and Tobira also have helped me a lot with learning kanji, and reading books and manga have helped me re-enforce what I've learned.
But what worked for me might not necessarily work for you. Admittedly, my progress is probably not as fast as some of the people here who have used RTK, and I have difficulty writing from memory, but I'd rather stick with a method that works for me, even if it is a bit slower.
You mentioned in your first post that picking up kanji through reading didn't work for you, so picking up RTK again really might be what you need to become more comfortable with kanji.