Hi everybody!

I have started with RTK and have really liked it! However, I'm already a bit worried I can keep up the motivation on just doing RTK without getting anywhere on the grammar and dialogue.

Are there any (good) methods around that would support learning dialogue/grammar while pushing on with RTK?

Also, what kind of experiences do you have with
a) doing just RTK until it's done and over with (and only then start with any grammar/dialogue), or
b) using some grammar/dialogue resource on the side with RTK? Which resource(s) did you use?

I just finished RTK a week ago and am now starting to study grammar and vocab. I did RTK first because I did not want to confuse the Heisig keywords with actual vocab that included the kanji. I already have some experience with japanese however (from the genki series) so if you are starting from scratch I don't see why you can't do something on the side.

I'm sure that this is very common dilemma, since the Heisig ordering is not conducive to combining with other learning materials, and just memorizing Heisig stories alone for 2000 characters is probably going to be quite boring. I have to congratulate Hanear21 for being able to stick through that.

I'm not quite at the halfway point of RTK1, but starting at around frame 500, I figured that since I was a quarter of the way through, I should be able to recognize a quarter of the kanji out in the wild, so I read some manga with furigana, some children's books, and same language subtitled anime, and also rikai.com just focusing on picking out and observing the use of "familiar" kanji.

My experience might be a bit skewed, because I've been reading manga and hiragana since preschool, so these are familiar, and even nostalgic materials to me - I just never really learned kanji, until I encountered Heisig.

Mushi Wrote:I'm sure that this is very common dilemma, since the Heisig ordering is not conducive to combining with other learning materials, and just memorizing Heisig stories alone for 2000 characters is probably going to be quite boring. I have to congratulate Hanear21 for being able to stick through that.

The trick is to not choose boring stories. Take the stories that makes you laugh, cry, be disgusted, sexually aroused (lots of those around) and whatnot. If you have to stick with a boring story, just make it more vivid in your mind's eye. If you go for something common and ordinary; it's a fail.

Back on the topic, I think doing RTK alone might be the best bet. However, if you haven't learned the kana scripts yet (you probably have before discovering RTK though..), these should go well together with RTK. Just try to avoid romaji at all cost (try to use the IME writing pad, and go from sound <-> writing. Romaji can be learned much later). Just as Heisig said, it's going to bias your pronunciation and make things tougher for you.

I would wait with learning vocab before finishing RTK though. Otherwise you are likely to get confused a lot. Grammar on the other side -- if you can learn it with a minimal vocab then sure, go for it. Though I found that in the beginning I needed vocab to learn grammar. It's a bit.. difficult to learn grammar if you cannot practice it with real words. Vocab and grammar goes hand in hand.

Mushi Wrote:I'm sure that this is very common dilemma, since the Heisig ordering is not conducive to combining with other learning materials

I think it's not conducive to combining with other materials *for learning kanji* (and I think this is what Heisig is trying to warn against in his introduction). There's no reason particularly not to study beginning grammar/whatever alongside RTK if you want though -- many beginner's textbooks don't really introduce kanji for a long time, and certainly they don't expect people to already know how to write kanji before they start.

I have recommended doing audio input while doing RtK to several people.

If your Japanese is below the intermediate level, Pimsleur & Michel Thomas will teach you the basics without introducing lots of rules. Pimsleur is especially effective, because it drills everything into your head without any grammar. However, both are expensive. You may be able to borrow them from a library. Also, Pimsluer, has a use and send back option that lowers the price significantly.

Personally, I recommend using Japanesepod101.com because they cover much more than any other audio program. Some people don't like it, but many others do. You'll have to put up with Peter, who some find annoying. And they will keep asking you to upgrade to their paid service, but you can unsubscribe from their emails.

I think it's a small price to pay for the most comprehensive collection of audio lessons available (700-1000 lessons or somin). If you listen to 1 lesson a couple times a day, your listening-comprehension will be at the intermediate level in 2-3 months.

My opinion (for what it's worth) is that the book Japanese the Manga Way could be studied easily while doing RTK. It introduces grammar concepts without requiring one to know any vocab. Obviously knowing vocab makes everything stick better, but you could probably still learn quite a bit without it.

paasan Wrote:Take the stories that makes you laugh, cry, be disgusted, sexually aroused (lots of those around)

Wow, where can I find the latter types of stories? But your pace would be slow though if your lesson ended in like 15 minutes, and besides, I'm currently on Mr. T stories. They do often make me laugh though. I pity the fool who doesn't at least get an occasional chuckle out of those.

pm215 Wrote:I think it's not conducive to combining with other materials *for learning kanji* (and I think this is what Heisig is trying to warn against in his introduction).

Good point. I very easily forget that, because when it comes to the Japanese language, I am rather monomaniacal about kanji, because I consider it to be a chronically infuriating barrier to approaching near-native proficiency. (Although I'm sure I'll find plenty of other deficiencies going forward.)

Mushi Wrote:

paasan Wrote:Take the stories that makes you laugh, cry, be disgusted, sexually aroused (lots of those around)

Wow, where can I find the latter types of stories? But your pace would be slow though if your lesson ended in like 15 minutes, and besides, I'm currently on Mr. T stories. They do often make me laugh though. I pity the fool who doesn't at least get an occasional chuckle out of those.

Valleygirl... /drool

And I pity the fool who didn't choose Mr. T as a primitive (that's me)

Thanks for the good comments and suggestions! I signed up for Japanesepod101 to get started with the spoken language. It's convenient for me to listen to while getting to work and coming back, about 30 mins each direction.

Mushi Wrote:I'm currently on Mr. T stories

paasan Wrote:And I pity the fool who didn't choose Mr. T as a primitive (that's me)

This is probably obvious to everybody else, but I'm curious - who's Mr. T and what's the connection ?

tnikkine Wrote:This is probably obvious to everybody else, but I'm curious - who's Mr. T and what's the connection ?

The person primitive (see Person 951) is very common, and most people associate with it a particular person to ease the process of creating stories. Mr. T from the TV show A-Team seemed to be the most popular choice.

Apparently, Mr. T loves bling-bling and used the quote 'I pity the fool' a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T

I never watched A-Team which is why I didn't choose it, but after working through tons of stories with the person primitive I now know everything about Mr. T. Tricky part with not choosing him is that everybody else chose him, and you have to make up your own stories.

there's a few others you could use. there was always at least one story for "Jedi" as the person primitive.

I used Joey from Friends and I've added 90% of my stories to the site.

I looked around for 5 min for a good Mr.T intro video. This is pretty good:

Plus the primitive, kind of looks like a slouching 'T'

oregum Wrote:I
Personally, I recommend using Japanesepod101.com because they cover much more than any other audio program. Some people don't like it, but many others do. You'll have to put up with Peter, who some find annoying. And they will keep asking you to upgrade to their paid service, but you can unsubscribe from their emails.

And some people listen because of Peter. I find their new lessons really dull because only Naomi-sensei and some new hosts teaches now. They stick to the script so much that it is painfully obvious and reminds me of all the other pod101 series such as french pod, german pod etc.

My problem is that I kept sort of stalling on RTK, First time I got up to 400ish, then didn't review for a few weeks, which turned into months. Started over, got to 700, And again, 1200, and yes sadly stopped again.

Started again a few weeks ago, Decided that I needed something else to do alongside RTK to keep me more involved.

What I ultimately decided on was doing nukemarine's sorted core2k6k beginner vocab deck in parallel with RTK.

The beginner stuff is easy since I know most of the vocab after watching hundreds of hours of subtitled anime. And even when I come across a new kanji, I just take time to study it with the heisig method. The fact that I recognize a decent number of primitives makes it not so bad.

Trying to split my time 50/50 between the vocab deck and heisig. I guess we will see how it works.