I've been thinking about what to do when I finish RTK, and I know RTK 2 deals with pronunciation. However, I have read several people's advice not to purchase Volume 2 and rather to learn the vocabulary through context or sentences.

I know next to no vocabulary (only a little from Pimsleur Japanese, and then again, it's mainly focused with everyday speech), so I don't know how I would begin learning from sentences or novels or manga or anything like that.

Can someone share how they learned the readings? And, if it was learning lists of vocabulary, do you have any suggestions what vocab to start with?

Start with a basic textbook. The Genki series is a popular pick.

Buy a manga that you like or one that looks interesting. Make sure it has furigana. Kids mangas like Crayon Shinchan or Detective Conan are good. Start learning words there. Just keep learning words and buying new manga. The key step is to keep reading, no matter what. Things will get easier and easier, you just have to persist.

SRS'ing Core2k/6k? It's popular from what I've heard.

What's the difference between the two if anyone knows btw? Is there shared vocab, resulting in 8k words?

Core 2k is part of Core 6k. IE if you have the full Core 6k, you have Core 2k. Core 2k came out first, so it has a separate name.

Core 2k is the first 2,000 of the 6,000 words. But unless you know a decent amount of grammar, I'd avoid trying to read manga. It can be a frustrating and discouraging process. Some will recommend Tae Kim, and his page is good. I think a textbook would be best, and I don't think you should focus on reading while neglecting listening. Most textbooks come with audio dialogues. Core 6k is great for listening as well, but the sentence structures can get over simplistic and repetitive after a while. They're great for beginners though.

Oh, and if you did Pimsleur, I hate to break this to you, but it's very slow compared to native speakers. You should find something faster. JapanesePod101 is great in that regard, and they have a one month $1 premium coupon on Retailmenot.com. Just download everything and then cancel so you don't get billed further.

As much as possible, learn the 'kun' readings first. If you don't know the difference yet, 'kun' are - generally speaking - the readings that characters have as standalone nouns or as the first part of other words (phonetic kana always follow the leading kanji in verbs/adverbs/adjectives).

This is for two reasons - I've been told by native speakers that their strongest associations with the characters are with those readings, but, more importantly, 'kun' readings are vocabulary. Add a reading and a meaning to a character and now you have a word! And also a better understanding of the character.

Of course, don't apply this exclusively. You obviously have to learn early on the compound readings for common things like the months of the year and the days of the week, and you'll want to learn all sorts of things you come across in your textbook or chosen native material. Just saying, as a tie-breaker, if in doubt, first learn a basic verb or adjective for the character rather than a complex compound.

(Technically, 'kun' and 'on' have nothing to do with compounds or not, but that's more or less beside the point in this advice.)

The problem with that advice is that sometimes the kun-reading is a rare word.

I second the textbook idea; apparently some people are able to jump directly from RTK into native sources -- personally I don't know how this is possible without using any sort of textbook or core2k or grammar guide.

Thank you for your suggestions.

I just have 2 questions:
I searched Core 6k Kanji in google I I didn't get any results except people saying "I am using the Core 6k with Anki and it is good". Does anyone have a website link to them?

Second, should I just use these sources (genki, japanese pod 101, and basic manga), or should I focus on memorizing lists of vocab (like I do in Spanish class at school)?

I used RTK2, although it seems to be out of favor. It helped me a lot, but there might be more efficient ways.

What other kinds of study have you done, other than RTK1?

I know the kana and did Pimsleur Japanese level 1.

Marble101 Wrote:Thank you for your suggestions.

I just have 2 questions:
I searched Core 6k Kanji in google I I didn't get any results except people saying "I am using the Core 6k with Anki and it is good". Does anyone have a website link to them?

Second, should I just use these sources (genki, japanese pod 101, and basic manga), or should I focus on memorizing lists of vocab (like I do in Spanish class at school)?

Download Anki and then the core 6k deck for it.

Having a lot of vocabulary under your belt helps with understanding native material. Otherwise you might find yourself to be overwhelmed by the contents.

If you haven't done any grammar, you might want to try a textbook of some sort to learn some. I wouldn't want to jump into Core2k (or Core6k) without some grammar, personally.

So, today, I flipped through the first Genki textbook in a bookstore, and I think it looks pretty good and will probably buy it.

I also took a look at AJAT (all japanese all the time) and it mentions learning the readings of kanji by learning 10,000 sentences, then using native material. While I would love to jump to native material, how can you learn readings and grammar by just learning sentences?

I don't know about grammar (you might be able to understand it just by comparing the translation with the sentence and noticing patterns, but I would still advise you to study grammar separately), but as far as readings are concerned your brain should automatically notice common patterns with how kanji are usually read as you learn vocab (single kanji and compounds). For example you might notice that the kanji bldg. has the same reading in the compound eigakan(movie theater) and toshokan(library). Further, the "ga" in eigakan ("brush stroke") is also read as "ga" in manga (comics). It's almost impossible to not notice these things.

Genki seems to get good enough reviews. I agree that it's possible to learn readings via sentences, although grammar is a different story.