I´m very sorry to post a topic on something which has come up a number of times, but having trawled the forums endlessly i simply cannot find a satisfactory answer to my query. I would like to know if there is a complete Kanji Odyssey 2001 anki deck available for download anywhere? If its a matter of infringing I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with buying the books first and then downloading it. My main concern is that after having used anki for so long I have no idea how to study with a book and would much rather have a pre made deck than make my own. ( I made a genki one a few months back and that took months).

Also would the community recommend doing core or 2001 or indeed both?

My situation is as follows, I have finished rtk after a year (also having reached about 3000 vocabulary and sentence mined genki) does anyone have any other recommendations for me?

Again I hate to bother you all with my ramblings but this community has been a wonderful help in the past =)

P.S. is there any pre made way of going from this sites reviewer to anki? Or any anki kanji deck with japanese key words?

Once again thanks!

On a KO2001 anki deck, look here.

As for which one to do, I tried both (along with JRTK) and did both until about 750 cards in, and then quit doing KO2001. Here's what I thought:

KO2001 pros:
* Is organized by kanji readings
* Slow audio (good for beginners)
* Goes over all/most readings for a kanji

cons:
*Slow audio (can get boring)
*Not as much vocab as the Core series (though more readings)


Core series pros:
*More natural audio
*More vocabulary
*Slightly higher grammar level/variety of grammar on Core 6000,
which might be good or bad for you.

cons:
*Not systematically organized, kanji reading-wise.
*Lots of business vocabulary


I'd say try out both until you know what works better for you.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "doing" Core. Sentences? A lot of people just use it for the vocab so you'll have to be more specific.

Another con of Core is that its vocab definitions are sometimes so bad that you end up having to double check each word in a dictionary just in case you get a dud definition. Fortunately with Rikaichan this isn't so much of a problem, although when Core & Rikaichan disagree you then need to check another dictionary to be sure.

That said, Core is still incredibly useful as a beginner vocab resource for obvious reasons. If it wasn't so unorganised it'd be essential. Hopefully one day someone will reorganise it into 'Step 1: Work', 'Step 2: Home', 'Step 3: School', etc.

I haven't used KO2001 so I can't comment accurately on that. From what I've seen it seems like overkill: as far as I'm aware KO2001's thousands of sentences never really go beyond beginner-level grammar. You could finish KO2001 after hundreds of hours and still not be able to read basic manga. That seems wrong somehow, and I can imagine it being massively demotivating.

Another difference is that KO2001's sentences are usually much longer than Core's. If you're like me and just want a simple and straightforward way to review vocabulary in context, this is a big deal.

That's true...
Both KO2001 and the Core series' translations really need work at times.
I forgot to mention, there's also Kore, AKA the Core series sorted by kanji, which looks good as well, though I haven't tried it.

After you do KO2001 and Core series, then the real test begins. It's because of that feeling of "what do you do now?". Best thing you can do is get all the basic/grammar/words,etc down. Once that's done+majority of major kanji(1000?+). Then start vocab and go from there. Immersing in the language in huge amounts helps so much as well, which is a definitely a plus in the long-term