A few years ago I completed half of RtK1, but for various reasons I stopped (and basically stopped learning Japanese altogether).

I'm going to start again with RtK from scratch.

One of the reasons why I ended up quitting the first time was because I felt burnt out from all kanji and no learning of "real" Japanese. I just found it too hard to stay motivated after the first burst of kanji enthusiasm. So this time around, I would like to balance my kanji studies with learning actual Japanese words/grammar, because I don't want the same thing to happen again.

I figure while I'm doing RtK, I will start SRSing words and sentences. Probably from a resource like Kanji Odyssey (which seems like a good choice because I can select words which are based on kanji I've already done in RtK).

I am just looking for opinions about whether this is sensible. Has anyone here started SRSing words/sentences while doing RtK? Was it ultimately a hindrance, or were you glad you did it this way? I realise it will probably slow down my progress through RtK, but I would rather finish it later, rather than get burnt out/demotivated with kanji studies.

I did a search here and there were already some threads discussing this kind of thing. Very interesting! But I thought I'd ask again, because opinions about language learning often change or develop over time, especially in hindsight.

Funny you post such a question - I was in a similar situation to yours about a year ago. I had done some kanji 500 from RtK1 and wanted to learn something that I could use in a planned trip to Japan (strokes are useless if you can't... use them ). So, I decided to go with grammar and vocab for some time. I stopped on kanji altogether and went with - hold your breath - romaji/kana. These days I'm back to kanji and progress through Read Real Japanese.

Now, I can't really say kanji first, then grammar or grammar first, then kanji method is better - either way you will have to spend time to absorb the material. If I could go that year back, I probably would include kanji while learning grammar. You might want to take a look at [1]this site to see how to approach kanji that you don't know yet, and at the same time make use of Heisig's mnemonics method.

[1]http://www.ravenbrook.com/project/etp24/tool/cgi/heisig-index/?action=frequency_order

Thanks for your reply! I also have the book "Read Real Japanese" which I bought when I originally started my Japanese studies. I am nowhere near the level where I can even attempt to read it, but I use it to motivate me - just this afternoon I was flicking through it, and thinking "won't it be great when you can get started with this? Better get cracking on the kanji!". Heh.

I will also check out the link you posted.

You can very well learn basic grammar while working through RTK. You can read Tae Kims Grammar Guide for instance, or get a book like Genki or Japanese for Everyone. The latter one is very cheap for all the content it has to offer. Without even basic knowledge of grammar you wouldn't have much fun working with KO or similar decks.

You can also supplement RTK with a book called Kanji isn't that hard! You can use it to learn to read, and acquire some vocabulary on the side, or to use the mnemonics instead of Heisigs RTK. Here is an example from the book:

背
漢字の「北　（きた）」では、二人の人が後ろ向きです。昔の中国では、暖かい南を向いて座り下から、「北」は「きた」です。「月　（にく）」は、人の体の部分を表しますから、「背」は「せなか」です。上の人に「せなか」を向ければ、動詞の「そむく」になります。

In the Kanji 北 two people have their backs turned on each other. In old China, people sat facing the warmth of the south, so 北 is north. 月 signifies a part of the human body, so 背 is the back. If a back is turned on a superior, it means the verb "to go against, disobey" 背く.

The words in brackets are the hints how the kanji is made up. There are also pictures pointing out which is which. The text always felt monotonous, almost as if a person is speaking very slow while holding a lecture, but this shouldn't stop you to give it a try. You can learn from it, and get exposed to Japanese text, and this is what you were asking for, right?

Other than that, read Nukemarines Guide for Beginners. And dig through the history of this forum, to find other suggestions, because there are plenty.

I studied other things while working through RTK. I don't feel it was a mistake and I'd recommend others do the same.

If you want a word list to work through in parralel with RTK I'd recommend you use this core deck because you can sort it by RTK order. That's what I used, but it did get quite frustrating because RTK isn't in any kind of frequency order; you'll find yourself learning rare N2 and N1 words before much more basic ones. You could try taking just the words from core 2000 (or N4 + N3) and see if that works better. (Edit: I think I read that other people on this forum have just treated RTK as something completely seperate from their regular Japanese study. You could try just working through beginner material in and ignoring the kanji you don't know, or using the RTK method to learn the kanji you come across.)

I'll second the reccomendation for Tae Kim's grammar guide. I don't know whether it's better or worse than Genki etc, but it's free and good enough. Just don't buy Japanese for Busy People; it is terrible.

The most important thng is to keep progressing, so if you find yourself getting sick of RTK again, just put it to one side and go study some actual Japanese. You can go back to it later if you feel you need to, but it might not even be necessarry. I think the most important thing RTK teaches you is how to learn kanji for yourself. Familiarity with the radicals and common primitives is also very helpful, but learning all the kanji in the book is actually not that important for a beginner. If I was re-doing it I'd probably do RTK lite.

P.S. I didn't finish RTK, though I did get close, and I don't feel it's held me back at all.

Thanks for your suggestions, Nagareboshi and Splatted. Very helpful. Honestly, I think I like language learning theory just as much as learning languages, heh. I find these discussions fascinating.

I'm glad to hear that there are others who have worked on other aspects of Japanese while doing RtK and that it was helpful. For some reason I have this idea in my head that people generally do RtK by itself, and only afterwards move onto sentences etc. I guess I've been influenced by the AJATT guy who advocates this as the best way.

I should point out too that I do have a very basic knowledge of grammar. I also own the Genki textbook, which I bought during my first Japanese attempt. While it's a good text as far as language books go, I've realised that I'm just not a textbook person. This time around I think I might go through Tae Kim's guide, and use Genki as a supplement. And then after Tae Kim, a grammar handbook (I know there's one that seems to get recommended a lot - essential Japanese grammar?)

Also, Splatted - I agree that RtK is excellent at teaching familiarity with radicals, which is so helpful. I'm considering if I should just do RtK lite. But ... I'm worried that if I do the lite version, I will never be motivated to study the rest of the kanji in a methodical way. And without RtK I doubt I would get very far with those remaining kanji.

I wouldn't worry about grammar, it is by far the easiest aspect of learning Japanese. If anything the biggest hurdle is vocabulary. You could combine RtK with grammar/vocab study I guess, but the RtK order doesn't exactly make it a very efficient process. RtK inevitably gets boring, that's why I just burned through it in a few weeks so I could finally get to real Japanese.

taupe Wrote:I'm worried that if I do the lite version, I will never be motivated to study the rest of the kanji in a methodical way. And without RtK I doubt I would get very far with those remaining kanji.

I get why you're worried about that, but that's why I say the most important thing about RTK kanji is that it teaches you to learn new kanji by yourself. You don't need to be systematic about it. Just learn the kanji when you need to learn a word that it contains. If it's quite a simple one and you know the primitives you'll probably find you don't even need to bother with a mnemonic. Kanji do get easier as time goes on, so even if you need to be systematic right now you probably won't in the future.

Another thing to remember is that even if you do complete RTK you'll still need to know more kanji, so to me it makes sense just to learn the most useful ones and then get on with some real Japanese.

@Kuma

So you recon the grammar is easy? Do you mean passive grammar or the active one. I would agree (to some extend) about the former but totally disagree about the later.

Examples:
1) Passive (ie. J->E) - translate the following:
僕は書評ってできればやりたくない。

2) Active (E->J) - translate the following:
This meat is hard and old people like me who don't have teeth can't eat it.
Hint: "Re: this meat, (it) is hard and re: for old people who like (I see&reason) me don't have teeth, (they) can't eat (it)."

I would work on grammar and listening skills, but if you have fun working with some written sentences, too, that'd be okay. I don't think you should expect to be able to read much for a while, though. Whatever keeps up the fun factor isn't a bad idea, IMO.

I'm doing some audio as I go through RTK. You should check out Michel Thomas. You'll get some of the basic grammar down well and practice speaking.