I'd rather not only do RTK all day - is there anything else I should do in addition to RTK? I've taken a stab at Genki and a little bit of Core2k, but it just seems like those'd be waaay easier after RTK. And when I watch/read stuff, nothing sticks because I don't put sentences in Anki. Any ideas?

You could carefully do simple sentences and vocabulary. As you progress you'll find that there are a lot of words you can learn whose characters you've gone through already. Browse through some grammar explanations, like Tae Kim's ones. I liked to rewatch some of my favorite anime shows without the English subs.

Get a head start on grammar. Tae Kim's grammar guide is a good start. It would be a good idea to also get familiar with the most common words; there's no good reason to avoid them just because their kanji come up later in RTK. There's a lot more to a word than knowing how to write its kanji.

Yeah i'm actually pretty good at grammar just from reading a lot about it. Should I just do romaji sentences/vocab then? Ive done a bit of that already.

somstuff Wrote:Yeah i'm actually pretty good at grammar just from reading a lot about it. Should I just do romaji sentences/vocab then? Ive done a bit of that already.

Have you learned hiragana and katakana yet? If not, it would probably be more beneficial to learn those before you start learning words using romaji. Generally, romaji is something that should be avoided.
If you know your hiragana and katakana already, maybe you can start learning how to pronounce the kanji you've already learned in RTK, or learn some simple compound words. From there, you could maybe find some simple example sentences to study using those words.
Or you could go the old-fashioned route and get a hold of a good beginner textbook. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to work through a beginner textbook without having finished RTK - books like Genki are aimed at people who are essentially starting from zero after all.

Oh yeah I meant kana, idk why I said romaji. Sometimes I do romaji just because its more convenient for typing. And okay, thanks.

You can learn words from song lyrics with rikaichan. U could listen tojapanese . It doesn't hurt in picking up the Intonation etc

But aren't courses balanced with the grammar and the vocabulary? If you've got a grip on quite some grammar but your vocabulary is low then maybe doing some course at this point wouldn't have that much value.

Whatever, do something that feels helpful but still is enjoyable, and get through RTK quickly.

When in doubt, *****.
Edited by MOD

lardycake Wrote:When in doubt, *****.
Also edited by MOD

Really.

Anyway I agree with most of the above, go for grammar. It's pretty vital to know at least the basics, and it doesn't depend on you having masses of kanji already memorised like vocab and sentence decks tend to.

Genki I starts with practically 0 Kanji. I was planning on doing it with RTK, but everytime I tried to type one of the sentences in it from Romaji to Kana, Google Transliterate would ask me if I meant the kanji version. Eventually, I decided that it would be better if I just plowed through RTK.

However, if you're okay with just Kana, I recommend Genki I. I absolutely despise Pimsleur as it is so boring and slow. I have all 90 lessons (from a friend) and it was so boring. Please whatever you do don't buy it.

lardycake Wrote:When in doubt, *****.
Edited by MOD

Can't go wrong with that.