First of all I apologize if this should go in a different forum, so I picked the one that clicked the best in my mind at first look.


Second of all, I know in the end I am going to need to discover what works best myself and adapt my study methods to increase my learning efficiency and enjoyment. I got very interested in Japanese for all the typical boring reasons several years ago(anime, manga, woo! wouldn't it be cool to not need subs?!?!?!).

However, with several years having passed and my anime addiction cured I came to realize that I am still just as interested, if not more in learning the language and more about the culture. I bought a few things a few years ago when I found them cheap before I bailed on learning because screw that, its work!

Now I have dedicated myself to studying everyday, even if its just a little. But I would like a little advice on how to split up the studying and what order I should make use of my resources in, or if I should do a little of everything from the beginning.


What I Have
Genki I textbook, workbook, and answer book.
RTK 1 6th ed.
Pimsleur CDs(I,II, and III. 90 of them I think?)


What I'm Currently Doing
While I waited on RTK to get here I read through the first 2 chapters of Genki I and did all of the reviews in the book and in the workbook, speaking out loud and trying to act both parts for the "classroom" parts that were to make use of 2 partners.

Since RTK has gotten here, I haven't went through Genki anymore and am doing RTK currently at 30 kanji a day. I have only completed 2 days so far but am satisfied with the stories and my ability to write from memory, even if it is only short term at the moment. There are only 2 or 3 that I have to think deeply about the story to write out at the moment. (I do use Anki as an SRS before I forget to mention it.) I don't see 30 a day as being problematic and will let me finish in about ~3 months.




TLDR

Should I finish RTK before doing anything else? Should I read through and complete Genki I while I do RTK? When should I start working on things such as Core decks for sentences?


Also how useful are Pimsleur CDs? I bought them kind of on a whim(they were very cheap used on ebay) but are not sure of their actual use. Will they give me any long term benefits other than learning how to order food at a restaurant or will I be able to pick up a decent vocabulary/grammar sense from them?


I guess the main thing is I know RTK is going to teach me how to write an enormous amount of Kanji, but even at 30 cards a day it will take nearly 3 months to complete. I just don't want to waste time that could be used learning something else if it would be helpful to.

That being said I don't want to do something that will be harmful to my learning if it will be counter-productive to the RTK experience.


I think I had more to say/ask than this but I guess I lost some of my thoughts while writing up this wall of text, so I will edit the rest in later I guess.

-learn hiragana&katakana

-Buy an electronic dictionary or download a quality dictionary for your smartphone.

-zip through the Genki book taking from it what you will. Don't get bogged down in exercises. Just read the explanations, example sentences and passages, practice reading hiragana/katakana, and absorb whatever vocabulary you can.

-Since you have pimsleur, you may as well listen to it during your commute to school/work if you have one.

-Go through the kanji in RTK order, learning some words that use each character. Write words out. Do some light flash carding, SRSing or wordlisting of this material.

-Start watching a lot of japanese Youtube, drama or anime. Preferably subtitled in Japanese.

-Sing along to Japanese songs with subtitled lyrics on youtube etc.

-Start reading japanese comments on youtube and short online articles using rikaichan (mouse over dictionary for firefox)

-re-examine grammar at some point, for example reading through taekims guide (google it)

-keep watching, listening, reading any japanese material that is enjoyable to you.
-occasionally repeat or shadow what is being said, or read text aloud.

*On average try to spend 90% of the time you think you're devoting to japanese study to listening and reading real japanese while using dictionaries, translations and context to deepen your understanding.

Every once and a while try speaking to natives for fun (google sharedtalk).

You should feel a slow but steady improvement in your ability to understand authentic japanese.

Edit: forgot to mention, and I believe this is huge, don't worry that the meaning is vague or your grammar understanding is sketchy, just make sure that your overall level of comprehension is slowly improving. And it will if you stick to it.

In my opinion:

lixingke Wrote:Should I finish RTK before doing anything else?

If you can, you should (possibly do the kanas first if you haven't already, nice little warmup). Some people get demotivated and quit in the middle of going through RTK, but if you have the motivation, it's definitely worth the time investment.

lixingke Wrote:Should I read through and complete Genki I while I do RTK?

Nope, or maybe very little, if you can avoid the need to learn kanji in order to read Genki. I did some Tae Kim while going through RTK (basic grammar section I think). If you want to do grammar, just make sure it doesn't get in the way of RTK.

lixingke Wrote:When should I start working on things such as Core decks for sentences?

As soon as you have some basic understanding on how japanese grammar works (after RTK ofc).
Check out http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

lixingke Wrote:I guess the main thing is I know RTK is going to teach me how to write an enormous amount of Kanji, but even at 30 cards a day it will take nearly 3 months to complete. I just don't want to waste time that could be used learning something else if it would be helpful to.

Learning 2000 kanji is going to take a while no matter how you do it. Going through RTK will speed up learning new words and kanji enormously, so it's a long term investment. People wouldn't be doing it if it was a waste of time.

nadiatims Wrote:-Go through the kanji in RTK order, learning some words that use each character. Write words out. Do some light flash carding, SRSing or wordlisting of this material.

[EDIT: fixed quote, sorry nadiatims]
I'd say do NOT learn words while doing RTK. It slows down the process a lot, and you have to learn the readings as well, which is EXACTLY what Heisig advises against.

Clasu Wrote:In my opinion:

lixingke Wrote:-Go through the kanji in RTK order, learning some words that use each character. Write words out. Do some light flash carding, SRSing or wordlisting of this material.

I'd say do NOT learn words while doing RTK. It slows down the process a lot, and you have to learn the readings as well, which is EXACTLY what Heisig advises against.

Actually I wrote that. It may take a little longer, but at the end of it you've made a start on a bunch vocabulary, and absorbed a bunch of readings. You're also going to get a lot of recursion because the same kanji and readings will pop-up in different compounds, and you can practice your hiragana to write out the readings.

btw, this is the advice of someone who is already fluent. And actually I did use RTK (including 3) and objectively, it's OK but it's not ideal. The ordering is ideal, but mnemonics and keywords are largely unnecessary.

nadiatims Wrote:

Clasu Wrote:In my opinion:

lixingke Wrote:-Go through the kanji in RTK order, learning some words that use each character. Write words out. Do some light flash carding, SRSing or wordlisting of this material.

I'd say do NOT learn words while doing RTK. It slows down the process a lot, and you have to learn the readings as well, which is EXACTLY what Heisig advises against.

Actually I wrote that. It may take a little longer, but at the end of it you've made a start on a bunch vocabulary, and absorbed a bunch of readings. You're also going to get a lot of recursion because the same kanji and readings will pop-up in different compounds, and you can practice your hiragana to write out the readings.

btw, this is the advice of someone who is already fluent. And actually I did use RTK (including 3) and objectively, it's OK but it's not ideal. The ordering is ideal, but mnemonics and keywords are largely unnecessary.

One of the biggest problems I had with RtK is getting all those English words confused with other English words. And when you get further along into your studies the keywords might actually vanish from your head. I think adding a single vocab word for each kanji is very minimal extra work that can reduce these particular problems. I wish I used the method described here from the beginning. I would probably still be doing RtK if I did.

nadiatims Wrote:Actually I wrote that

Sorry about that, copypasted and forgot to change the name (fixed).

Anyway, I did RTK the "traditional" way (keyword and stories etc., vocabulary and other stuff post-RTK), and found it working for me. The order is indeed the best part of RTK, and other than that just do whatever feels the best way for you.

Many thanks for the quick replies, and for reminding me of something I forgot to mention. I already know all of the Kana so I won't have to bother re-learning them.


And I was wondering about something as well. Do people suggest not letting things such as grammar, etc "get in the way" of RTK because they will actually screw up the learning process, or is it just a more of "you could be learning more kanji with that time" suggestion?

lixingke Wrote:Do people suggest not letting things such as grammar, etc "get in the way" of RTK because they will actually screw up the learning process, or is it just a more of "you could be learning more kanji with that time" suggestion?

Both, I suppose. If, when learning grammar, you need to use a kanji that you haven't learned from RTK yet, it can cause problems later. Well, you can just try to ignore those parts I suppose, or work around it somehow else.
And the time part: RTK consumes quite a bit of time per day, depending on how you do it (I spent around 3-5 hours towards the end). It's important not to burn out during it, so don't force yourself to learn grammar on top of it, but if you feel like you could do more, it's an option to doing more RTK that day. Though, the faster you're done with RTK, the faster you get to do other stuff full time.

[Zgarbas]

I wouldn't do Japanese RTK if I were a complete beginner. Maaaaybe add a japanese word for it alongside the keyword and not focus on it for a bit of exposure, but I'd stick to the English keywords.

It will be quadruple the effort and might not only stagnate your learning but turn you off it completely. I am doing JRTK and have a few words with which I am unfamiliar with, and they are a huge problem in my reviews. It is very hard to remember the new words, AND the kanji, AND the stories(which will still need the English keyword...). I can't imagine doing that when not knowing any of the words in the first place. It is also rarely a good idea to go through so much difficulty at the very beginning of learning a language since that might kill your motivation to learn it.

I would focus on RTK and Kana. It will delay the learning by a few months but it will be damn well worth it and speed it up in the long run =).

download rikai-chan on firefox.

and go through lyrics of songs you like.. I'm gonna guess you have a bunch of anime songs you like.

It'll be fun and you'll learn lots common words and common verb conjugations/syntax/etc/etc in songs and whatnot.

when you jump into learning japense with anime at a later phase, check out the forum/thread where people link to download japanese subtitles.