I'm about to finish Japanese for Everyone, which is equivalent to finishing Genki I and II. I'm also near finishing DOBJG. For my next stage of learning, I'm tossing up between either:
1. Doing Kore, with the question as audio and the answer as kanji with furigana, or;
2. Going through KiC

I'm leaning currently towards 1, because I think I need the intense audio drilling as listening is my weakest skill. However, I have heard good things about KiC, and that it covers more kanji and readings than Kore. I'm not sure whether it covers more vocabulary than the 6000 items of Kore, though.

Please tell me what you think about KiC v. Kore, and what you think is the best next step for me.

I would actually recommend Core, although KiC is really great. I think KiC is a good deal more difficult, and Core is probably more appropriate for someone who's about Genki 2 level.

Also, the audio makes a huge difference.

Thanks for that advice. I do think I need the extra audio, even if it means I get less vocab and readings than KiC...

Do both at the same time.

Womacks23 Wrote:Do both at the same time.

I'm not sure how this would be helpful.

If you wanted to do both, which would indeed be helpful, you should do Core before KiC. By the time you finish Core you will have a vocabulary big enough to do KiC, and you will have more time to get a better grasp on grammar.

It's easiest to learn a language through a gradual increase in difficulty (n+1), not a random mix of easy and difficult.

But, I could be missing something. Is there a reason you think it would be good to do both at the same time?

KIC is Kanji in Context right?

It's just a big list of words.

Go through core and add in words from KIC that are not included in core.

I heard that KiC is a big list of *sentences*, not words... is that incorrect? (These sentences contain all the readings of the 1945 Jooyoo kanji, or so I have been told)

[Katsuo]

KiC in book form consists of three texts teaching the old Joyo kanji using vocabulary and sentences:
Book 1: Kanji dictionary with vocabulary words and English translations
Book 2: Sentences and phrases for the first 1,200 kanji (Japanese only, i.e. no translations)
Book 3: Same as book 2, but covers the remaining kanji

There is also an app for the iPhone/ iPod Touch that includes all the material in the books plus audio files.

Whether you like it will depend on your taste. It would be a hard slog for most, I think.

Yeah, it's three books. Here's one example sentence (albeit a longer one) from the first sentences book, for 結束.

外国から見ると、日本は産業界と政治家と官僚が結束して、経済発展を進めているようにみえる。これが「日本株式会社（Japan　Inc.）」のイメージとなっている。

Most sentences in Core look something like
彼には清潔なイメージがあるね。

I'd say that's a pretty huge leap in difficulty. If you're just doing the words, of course the difficulty is pretty much the same.

Oh I see... It would be like a struggle getting each sentence into Anki from KiC, if they're all like that But then again, maybe if I just get in there and do it, it will "shock" my system and force me to learn.

Just out of interest, which covers more vocabulary items - KiC or Core (which as 6000 obviously).

vinniram Wrote:Oh I see... It would be like a struggle getting each sentence into Anki from KiC, if they're all like that But then again, maybe if I just get in there and do it, it will "shock" my system and force me to learn.

Just out of interest, which covers more vocabulary items - KiC or Core (which as 6000 obviously).

KiC covers more, but I have no idea how many.

Actually, there's already a KiC spreadsheet, which members of this forum put together. You don't need to type in each card.

A bigger problem with the KiC sentences is that a lot of them are long enough that it really slows down the time it takes to do each card. Short and sweet is probably best for SRS.

However, the KiC sentences are far better in terms of putting the word in context, and are more like sentences you would see on JLPT 2 or something.

You could try downloading and suspending all of the core sentences. Then go through the Kanji in Context reference book and un-suspend sentences containing the target kanji/vocabulary. When you come across KIC entries that do not exist in core, you could always make your own card.

That's basically what I did two years ago.

just another thing, I've been browsing the forum and read through this thread: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1486;

someone said that "KIC's workbooks don't provide sentences for every iteration of every kanji. It inexplicably skips some readings, and some kanji"

Is this true, and if it is, to what extent does this occur? Are there lots of the jooyoo kanji missing, and are there many readings missing? Or is it too few to even notice?

[Katsuo]

Some readings are rarely used in Japanese (these are indicated in book 1). Overall it's quite thorough; there's even a phrase for monme.

Keep in mind that KIC contains only kanji words, whereas Core6000 has kana words as well. KIC apparently has ~8000 words (the KIC list I compared has 7300). They were ~3000 words in common.

Ah right. Well I think I'm leaning more towards KIC right now, because I'm starting to realize that picking up readings through 'exposure' isn't going to work quick enough, and I need an intensive method.

One more question: Does every vocab word in the workbooks appear in a sentence? Or are some vocab items presented without appearing in a sentence? I've been trying to look around for a preview of a few pages, just to make sure before I fork over AUD$100, but can't seem to find any.

There's also the KO2001 books.

http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/2001.Kanji.Odyssey

I looked into them, but neither KO2001 or Core seem to cover the kanji as thoroughly as KIC.

vinniram Wrote:I looked into them, but neither KO2001 or Core seem to cover the kanji as thoroughly as KIC.

Remember though, that thoroughness is not the only factor when choosing.

I think KiC is a great series of books, but I feel like I wasted my money buying it. It was too tiring to do, so I switched to Core. I learned a lot, in a quicker amount of time, just because it took less effort. I didn't learn as much as if I had stuck with KiC--but that's irrelevant because I couldn't bring myself to do KiC.

But, now it sits on my shelf as a thorough reference book.