I am starting with KO2001 next month. There's a lot of compounds/readings listed for each Kanji, and I am sort of overwhelmed with them. There's "Important Kanji Words" on top and then "References" with many more readings on the bottom.

I don't think it makes sense to learn all of them for every Kanji - but how to make a selection?

Any advice? What do you folks learn? Just the top part with "Important Kanji Words"?

Thanks for your help!

I recently started on this. I'm going to study a word if and only if it appears in the example sentences. For the first 20 kanji, just skip them because there are no example sentences.

Ah, that's an interesting concept. I'll look into that, thanks!

Hmm... This is coming from the other side of KO. I'm midway through KO2, although I stopped using the sentences in KO a while back. They just bog down my reviews too much. I use the Yahoo and ALC dictionaries for speed/expediency/brevity. (I use the KO sentences every now and then, but I break them up.)

If you're planning on taking the JLPT or some other standardized test at any point in the future, then I *highly* recommend *not* skipping any of the vocab on the side, even if it means looking up sentences somewhere else. (But days of the week, numbers and stuff like that early on, well, you can figure that out on your own.)

I found I had to pick up another book to help with JLPT vocab prep to cover some of the blind spots in my vocab... KO is not really geared for that, and it misses some words in a weird sort of way. I can't quite put my finger on it. Other words get delayed in an odd sort of fashion, too.

thanks, rich-f, good advice. lots of vocab, then... progress will be slow.

Ive gone thru them both. More then likely the compund will pop up later in the book with an example sentence so dont worry about it.

Another option is to find a list of the words used in 2k1KO. Sort that list with Cangy's program so you only learn words that have kanji you're learning or one that's appeared before. Put these in Anki, then use something like "Tatoeba" plug-in to get sample sentences for words that aren't in the sentences in the book.

Nukemarine brings up a good point. Sorting can be really useful. You avoid having to learn too many new kanji & vocab words early, and don't force yourself to learn unfamiliar kanji out of sequence. The early KO sentences are kind of notorious for that.

If you sort, things are a nice sort of gradual evened-out trip, with no surprises.

Either way, you'll wind up at the same place, so it's more of a personal preference thing.

If you're worried about progress feeling slow, then you might want to try sorting. Things will move along more steadily.

If you don't sort, you're probably going to feel that things take longer to get through for the first 150-250 kanji, depending on how much Japanese you already know. That's if you use the KO sentences. They introduce a LOT of new vocab, which isn't a bad thing. It's all useful vocab that you need to know, but it adds to the up-front workload.

But after that, it isn't so bad.

Thanks a lot for your valuable answers. I'm around N3, but after taking a 4 year break, a lot has disappeared in the more dark areas of my brain... I want to systematically re-learn / learn the material.

I'll have to find out how that sorting thing works, but I guess I'll find out somewhere in this forum.

This forum is great.

Thanks again.

If you don't want to sort it yourself, there's Kore:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5091

It uses smart.fm sentences instead of the KO sentences, but it comes in a flavor that uses KO's kanji order, and everything is sorted so you don't have to learn things before you learn other things.

I'm not completely sure what exactly it covers vocab-wise, so check the thread. A lot of people like it.

Since you're starting KO from #1, that's a good way to go, and it saves you from having to use a sorting program to figure out what's what. The smart.fm sentences are generally shorter and easier than the KO sentences, which speeds up reviews.