I am new to this forum, I hope this post is in the right place and that my questions have not already been done to death somewhere else in the forum. I have found a bewildering amount of info and have looked for answers before posting but I'm still lost, so I'd like to ask a few questions here and hopefully some kind members who are ahead of me can help me out here, thank you!

I want to spend more time studying and less time combing through forums I wasted hours yesterday and was more confused than enlightened by the end :/


Here's my story. I am new to Heisig's RTK vol.1.
I am not new to Japanese and having done JLPT N3 am setting my sights on N2.

But, my oh my, Kanji is my Achilles' heel. Those I have learned have been from exhaustive reading practice, but after taking N3 it's become apparent to me that I won't be able to get much further unless I really take on Kanji. I can really see the advantage to the Heisig system for me in so far as I am fast at remembering readings and jukugo but terrible at telling similar kanji apart and recalling their meaning/writing in the first place. So RTK looks like the way to go.

But I have a BURNING question - the idea of the so called 'RevTK lite' containing the 1000+ Kanji for N2 level study is +really+ tempting. I'm led to believe it contains the primitives needed to make sense of the stories thus not busting the crucial Heisig ordered learning system.

So, does RevTK lite still 'work'? If it does, ideally I'd like to try it and then come back to do a full book study after wards.

I'd love to hear from those with experience. I've heard it said before that knowing the most common Kanji will get you reading about three quarters of everything. The idea of learning more common (whilst N2 Kanji may not perfectly correspond to the most common Kanji I'm sure none of 'em are archaic or obsolete) 1000 or so Kanji and being able to recognize 75% of what I see is seductive! I seem to have little trouble with readings once I can, erm, Remember The Kanji.

BUT does the RevTK lite sequence maintain Heisig's crucial learning order, or close enough?

Or should I bite the bullet and learn in the Heisig book order even if that means learning odd Kanji of limited use from the beginning? That seems demoralizing when I can't get the idea of a shortcut to the 1000+ most useful Kanji out of my head.

To sum up - I'm wondering if there is a workable way to marry the Heisig system with the most used Joyo Kanji i.e. the first 1000+ of 'em. Or with the JLPT N2 level Kanji or it's approximate.

I'm early on in the book, and I don't want to go barking up the wrong tree.

Advice from those who've tried the RevTK Lite version and from those with experience will be much appreciated. I especially would like to hear from those on the other side of this about how they got over the hill

Thank you!

go through the 2000 kanji in heisig order, skipping those you know, and learn a word using some of the major readings of each kanji. In most cases it's probably enough to just learn one word demonstrating the most common onyomi and one word using a common kunyomi reading. Learn these words using flashcards or wordlists or any other method you enjoy. Learning a tonne of vocab in this way will do wonders for your reading ability. If I recall correctly N3 expects knowledge of only 1000 or so, but these will not necessarily correspond to RevTK Lite so I recommend just doing them all (normal RTK).

The answer is simple: If you can do the whole book in 2 or 3 months, go for it. If you see that it will take longer for you (like most of us, 6/12 month), do first RTK lite, as you will only find the rest 1000 kanji or so later in your studies, and it is not the best use of time juggling those kanji in your head for 1 year or more until you use them.

@usis35 - thanks for your reply. Are you speaking from your own experience, did you do RevTK lite first yourself as you suggested to me?

nadiatims Wrote:go through the 2000 kanji in heisig order, skipping those you know, and learn a word using some of the major readings of each kanji. In most cases it's probably enough to just learn one word demonstrating the most common onyomi and one word using a common kunyomi reading. Learn these words using flashcards or wordlists or any other method you enjoy. Learning a tonne of vocab in this way will do wonders for your reading ability. If I recall correctly N3 expects knowledge of only 1000 or so, but these will not necessarily correspond to RevTK Lite so I recommend just doing them all (normal RTK).

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6618
Don't suggest things you haven't tried while learning readings to RTK.

ianob Wrote:@usis35 - thanks for your reply. Are you speaking from your own experience, did you do RevTK lite first yourself as you suggested to me?

Yes. My level is between N3 and N2. I have done RTK lite and about half of the remainder, so I have in anki about 1700 kanji.
When I try to read native materials, with great difficulty because of my level, I find all sort of kanji. But when I use studying materials I am perfectly OK with RTK lite.

Ginmanm Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:go through the 2000 kanji in heisig order, skipping those you know, and learn a word using some of the major readings of each kanji. In most cases it's probably enough to just learn one word demonstrating the most common onyomi and one word using a common kunyomi reading. Learn these words using flashcards or wordlists or any other method you enjoy. Learning a tonne of vocab in this way will do wonders for your reading ability. If I recall correctly N3 expects knowledge of only 1000 or so, but these will not necessarily correspond to RevTK Lite so I recommend just doing them all (normal RTK).

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6618
Don't suggest things you haven't tried while learning readings to RTK.

You're right I didn't do this for kanji. But now I'm learning Mandarin, I find I can learn hanzi just by learning and writing vocabulary for each character. This way I get hanzi and readings for free while learning a tonne of vocabulary. I don't have to spend any time making mnemonics. In the long run this is more efficient.

nadiatims Wrote:go through the 2000 kanji in heisig order, skipping those you know, and learn a word using some of the major readings of each kanji. In most cases it's probably enough to just learn one word demonstrating the most common onyomi and one word using a common kunyomi reading. Learn these words using flashcards or wordlists or any other method you enjoy. Learning a tonne of vocab in this way will do wonders for your reading ability. If I recall correctly N3 expects knowledge of only 1000 or so, but these will not necessarily correspond to RevTK Lite so I recommend just doing them all (normal RTK).

This doesn't make much sense to me, if you're gonna learn that way I'd have thought going by kanken order would be better else you'll be learning a load of rare / pretty useless vocab early on.

I did rtklite first and am now finishing off the rest. I think it's less efficient over the 2000 kanji but if you want to improve reading or aim for N2 it's useful. It's just more difficult because you don't see the same radicals coming up so often.

I think N3 is about 650 kanji, and rtk lite is about 1050 so you could finish off lite then do rest, or just go straight through. I think it depends if you are aiming for a short term or long term goal. I wanted to read and do N2 so I choose the short term route.