I have several books and courses for Japanese and I'd like to kind of pose the question to you guys as how they should be used or if some of them are actually not so good.


I have the following resources:

Remembering the Kana
Remembering the Kanji
Genki 1/2 + audio + workbook
Assimil Japanese with Ease, level 1 & 2
Japanese for Everyone + audio


I also have a few questions I'd like to pose:

- I know the belief about RTK1 that most people here have, but is Remembering the Kana a good method for learning the Katakana/Hirigana? If not, what other books should I look into?

- I know I should learn the Kana first, just to make things easier, but after that's done, should I use RTK1 exclusively or should I do it in tandem with Genki and one of the other courses? If I shouldn't use them in tandem, at what point is it safe to move into a course like Genki or one of the others while doing RTK1?

- How many RTK1 Kanji should someone learn per day? Obviously, everyone is going to be different, but I'd like to get sort of a general consensus of the pace that people use for RTK1.

- Are there other courses that you recommend in addition to/in lieu of the ones I've listed above?

Those resources are more than enough for beginning. Which one works best for you truly is something you need to test the waters of to find out for yourself. Everyone has their own distinct learning style. For katakana and hiragana, the best method of learning them is simply to drill them and memorize them. Flash cards over and over, writing over and over, reading them over and over. Do them in their sets, such as あ、い、う、え、お、 and once you've mastered those move on to か、き、く、け、こ and so forth. You'll have such constant exposure to hiragana and katakana throughout your studies that it'll keep them firmly in memory.

Genki is a great resource for beginning, as it'll provide you with exercises to practice the vocabulary and grammar you learn, as well as listening comprehension practice for the material.

No matter what resource you use, in the end your results are mostly going to be a correlation of how much time and effort you put into it.

What Aijin said.

Also, if you have to have some idea of how many kanji to learn a day, I'd say a geenral range that comes up frequently enough is anywhere between 10-30 a day. You really can't answer the question because we're all so different, it's hard to even get a common consensus. Some people can do 100 a day no problem, and some have trouble doing 10-20 a day. Only way to know is test it for yourself. Personally, I started doing 20 a day, but by the end of the book, I had bouts of doing 5-10 a day for a week or 2, and a week or 2 where I'd do 50 a day. I skipped many many days where I did reviews but didn't feel like adding new kanji (mainly because of boredom) and that's why it took nearly 10 months to finish.

Long story short, don't worry about how many you do a day. Just be consistent and make sure you do that number everyday. Set a goal for say 20, and do 20 everyday (maybe more if you're having a good day). Looking back now, I wish I was consistent, and that's the best advice I can give.

I disagree a lil. If you have Remembering the Kana use that. You should be able to learn them in about two days

I remember learning the hiragana and katakana and it took me a while. When I finally started katakana, I began forgetting hiragana. But everyone is different and some people have an easier time memorizing them.

I learning them at during a Uni 101 class. Thinking back some of people had trouble remembering all of them even at the end of the semester.

Note that the below are just recommendations from my experience.

I too was able to grasp the Kana with RTKana in a few hours with little review. I recommend just writing out a Hiragana and Katakana chart every day for 5 days until you have it down. For the first few days of filling up your chart, fill in the ones that pop out first. Eventually, you should be able to go straight across.

By chart I mean:

a k s t n h m y r w

a

i

u

e

o

So, RTKana for about a week. Be sure to look at the other kana (p, b, j, f etc.) and the compounds (byu, fu, etc.) from an internet chart when you're finished.

Then, I'd do the first 1,000 RTK. Try to have a standard amount per day.

Oh, and listening is really important. Try to watch some subbed anime that you like. It greatly helps with pronunciation down the road if you start this early. Personal youtube favorites are Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Lucky Star.

Once you reach a few hundred after 1,000, start transitioning to doing a few Assimil lessons per day. If you're feeling bogged down, you can start incorporating Assimil a bit earlier.

And, whenever you have momentum, don't be afraid to do more than your daily quota. Just try not to do less until you reach the 1200+ range, even if you're ahead because of previous momentum days.

Eventually, transition to full Assimil with RTK reviews. Assimil is leisurely and effective, but the RTK reviews will be tough. Be warned, doing huge amounts or Kanji in a single day will give you a huge amount of reviews a few days later.

After finishing RTK and Assimil, I'd then move onto Genki.

Do Genki only during the active phase (lessons 50+ of Assimil.)

Assimil teaches grammar through immersion. I did Tae Kim (a grammar guide) before Assimil and it just ended up confusing me. Assimil simplifies Japanese well, and it's only detrimental to know what's going behind the scenes. I would recommend doing Genki during the active phase, though, as it gives you options with production.

So, in a nutshell, I recommend:

RTKana -> Compound and Other Kana -> RTK (1st halfish) -> Assimil Level 1 + RTK (complete) -> Assimil Level 2 + Genki

I never used Japanese for Everyone so I can't give much advise. If it's a grammar book, though, don't do to much before Assimil.

I really recommend smart.fm for Hiragana/Katakana - It will drill it into you and most importantly, you get to HEAR them all proper.

I don't think it matters about doing Remember the Kana first, seeing as Remember the Kanji is just English -> written character, so you have no use of the kana. But the advantage would be that you get more practice time to drill them over and over while you're doing RTK (kanji) so you can move on to actual vocab/sentences; while or after you finish remember the kanji. It also depends on how much vocab/grammar etc. you already know.

Personally I had no problem with the kana... I just used the same method as learning kanji characters, you make up a short story. (which is what remember the kana does) Of course you'll have to stretch your imagination a lot more than with kanji, since they're so basic.

I also read Japanese children books. (all in hiragana, with a few katakana) I have quite a few from when I was little, but I used them to practice recognizing the characters/basic pronunciation. Just reading them as single characters(every sound) is good recognition practice even tho you'll usually be pronouncing them wrong as actual words. Eventually of course you should learn the correct way/tricks to how to say them right together as a word.

For # of kanji I learned per day... at first I could only do 20 or less per day.. but once you get used to it, and know more of the primitives used to create the new characters it gets pretty easy... Now, If I have the time/motivation I can do 100/day, but it's all based on how much time you have to spend on it, work/school etc. Number/day isn't that important tho.. someone could spend 1hr/day for 5 days and learn roughly the same amount as a person who did 5hrs in one day.

Besides the resources you already have you could also try out, core 2k/6k (free on anki) or 2001KO (I'm not sure price, but no free lol) just use the search function to learn about them. And these would be useful to bookmark, if you want to use them. http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar and http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...to-fluency

Tae Kim's guide has some charts where you can hear hiragana/katakana pronunciations and some combined sounds. People use Japanese pod 101 too, it's free as well.

jadoo Wrote:Are there other courses that you recommend in addition to/in lieu of the ones I've listed above?

The two books I read when I was a complete beginner were Tae Kim's Japanese Guide to Japanese Grammar and A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, in that order. They are way better than traditional textbooks, in my opinion, even though DBJG was not even meant to be read cover to cover. It's like Japanese Grammar distilled; you can read both in a couple weeks, and arm yourself with more than enough grammar to start reading real Japanese.

If you read the intro to RtK, Heisig recommends finishing in one swoop. Some choose not to, and break it into sections (it can get boring). There is also an RtK lite option (do a forum search). He indirectly says that it should take about 3 months. But at the time he did it there were about 1850 gen-use kanji.

3.5 months = 16 weeks = 130 per week (20 per day)
7.0 months = 32 weeks = 65 per week (10 per day)

I found that the first 300-600 were really easy to remember and I was doing 30-60 per day. After that my rate dropped to about 20-30.

After you finish RtK, make a sentence deck from Tae Kim's guide.

I'd also recommend JPod. It's great, especially for beginners. They explain a bunch of stuff that you'll find helpful.

You will get a different answer from every person in this thread. Here's mine:

* Do RTK1 first, exclusively. Do at least 25 kanji a day, but you should be able to do more and finish in a month and a half or less.

* Then do the Kana by whatever means (if you have Remembering the Kana, by all means use it), but after RTK1 you will have no trouble with the kana at all.

* Do Assimil's Japanese with Ease (both books), following the instructions exactly. Do not deviate, do not bother SRS'ing the content. The only modification I would make is that you can do more than one lesson a day if you have the time.

* After you're done with the active wave of Assimil, read Tae Kim's guide. Don't bother SRS'ing it or anything, just read and understand it cover to cover.

* Throw out all the other stuff. Go straight to reading/watching/listening native materials and conversing with natives. Optionally, you may do KO2001 or RTK2 or movie method or whatever if you are insecure about the kanji readings. But at this point you definitely don't need any learning materials except a dictionary.


Assimil isn't the most popular resource on this forum, but it plus RTK1 really is an all-in-one solution.

jadoo Wrote:- I know the belief about RTK1 that most people here have, but is Remembering the Kana a good method for learning the Katakana/Hirigana? If not, what other books should I look into?

After memorization using simple flashcards, it just kinda got ingrained into me after seeing words.
Also, if you can karaoke in Japanese, it kinda helps because it's challenging. =)

Quote:- I know I should learn the Kana first, just to make things easier, but after that's done, should I use RTK1 exclusively or should I do it in tandem with Genki and one of the other courses? If I shouldn't use them in tandem, at what point is it safe to move into a course like Genki or one of the others while doing RTK1?

I did the first half of Genki with a class, then I started RTK1, and finished the second half of Genki with the next class while doing it in conjunction with RTK1.

I think either way is fine.

Quote:- How many RTK1 Kanji should someone learn per day? Obviously, everyone is going to be different, but I'd like to get sort of a general consensus of the pace that people use for RTK1.

I tried to aim for reviewing 80 cards in Anki in a session (2 sessions, morning/night). If I had more than 80, I wouldn't add new cards. If I I had less, I would add another lesson's worth.
A pace of 20 to 30 seems alright.
I had a lot of ups and downs when I did it because of things, and sometimes had to hammer in 300 kanji in one session, so I wouldn't take it as a strict template.

Quote:- Are there other courses that you recommend in addition to/in lieu of the ones I've listed above?

IMO just focus on finishing what you have. You don't want to end up like me, who has 4-5 different grammar books that are all being shelved while I work through KO2001. When you get near the end of one, you can start on the next.

I did RtKana first. It is a good way to remember the kana, but it's better in that it introduces you, kind of, to the method used in RtK. If you have the kana, go ahead and use it.

Most people recommend doing RTK first, then going into other materials. That can get boring, so you could go into Genki or other grammar-related materials after a bit of RTK. Doing RTKana will help, especially with Genki, which does use kana a lot.