As the title suggested I am stuck on what to learn to after Hiragana and Katakana. Should I go onto to learning vocab or sentence structure or both? When would be a good time to learn Kanji? It's been bugging me for quite a while now I know that the first two was the first step but after that it got a little confusing as to where to go next.

I'm also seeking on improving my listening so I don't have to rely on subs and listening to song wondering what they are singing about.

Thanks for the help

[s0apgun]

DO RTK1!!!

Hey.
Yes, now would be a good time to start learning kanji with Remembering the Kanji. It a task roughly done in 2 months if you learn about 35 kanji a day. Some people feel it's a bit tedious though, so they do grammar on the side with a textbook like Genki, or start perusing the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. Some can't multitask, so they get rid of RTK before really starting grammar. Once you have kanji and some basic grammar (functionning of the various parts of speech) under your belt you can learn vocab easily, which will help you with the listenning (and grammar will let you parse the clauses).

I've wanted to say this for a while, but Minna no Nihongo as some great audio, which is available in torrent form. Compared to it, Assimil's audio is really crude (no offense).

Thanks for the advice I think I will try it out.

I'm rooting for RTK1 like others, not reallly surprising to get that recommended on this site. If it doesn't seem to work for you, come back here to ask for help or try something else.
Tae Kim ( http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar ) is another grammar resource you might want to check out when you start learning grammar. It's also recommended on Nukemarine's guide.

Also, your nick "Kieli" means "language" (or "tongue") in finnish. Coincidence, no ?

I would also recommend alljapaneseallthetime.com. This place has loads of articles pertaining specifically to learning Japanese. And they recommend, as everyone else here, RTK1 as the next step. If anything, I've learned from AJATT a lot about mindset while studying. It's been a big help to keep the passion going for me.

Merocor Wrote:I would also recommend alljapaneseallthetime.com.

... and I would not.

Inny Jan Wrote:

Merocor Wrote:I would also recommend alljapaneseallthetime.com.

... and I would not.

You aren't allowed to be here if you aren't part of the AJATT cult. This is our secret cultist breeding ground.

Fadeway Wrote:

Inny Jan Wrote:

Merocor Wrote:I would also recommend alljapaneseallthetime.com.

... and I would not.

You aren't allowed to be here if you aren't part of the AJATT cult. This is our secret cultist breeding ground.

Well, you are totally wrong - as a member of AJATT cult, you are allowed to post exclusively at alljapaneseallthetime.com. And now leave this forum to RevtKers.

What he should have said is "and I would not because [insert valid reasoning here]."

And my 2 cents; the articles on that site are a great source of motivation and studying methods. Plus the path to fluency he lays out and the advice isn't going to hurt anyone, in my opinion it's one of the best ways to become great at Japanese.

Talk to me after 2 years (you are going to be fluent in Japanese by then, right?) or... see what it actually takes (Zorlee case) in order to achieve levels that AJATT is luring people with.

Inny Jan Wrote:Talk to me after 2 years (you are going to be fluent in Japanese by then, right?) or... see what it actually takes (Zorlee case) in order to achieve levels that AJATT is luring people with.

I'm just saying take the good advice and apply the practices you like from the site. You don't have to buy anything, you don't have to commit %100 to what's written. I didn't give him any money, but I picked up a lot of good advice, free resources, and put into practice some methods that have really helped me. The point is AJATT isn't going to hurt anyone, it's helpful. A negative attitude towards free learning resources on the other hand...

I think the AJATT articles are definitely worth checking out, but you shouldn't mindlessly buy into all his ideas and absolutely not the products (that are now almost plastered on the front page and give the site a horrible image imo). I agree 100% with his main message that advocates large amounts of exposure while making sure you're enjoying it.

If you want to know more about input based learning (acquisition) I'd rather suggest Stephen Krashen.

http://www.sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=6

Some people are grumpy about these ideas but you should take honest looks at everything and develop your own opinions anyway. Otherwise you might not have been into RTK since it too gets a lot of ignorant criticism in common Japanese learning communities.

antimoon.com is worth checking out too, it's where most of the immersion ideas come from.

It's not that there isn't good advice on ajatt, it's that there's a lot of bad advice too. Just remember that it's a blog. A lot of things were posted off the top of his head. No matter how good or bad any idea, it's still on the site even if it has been abandoned from his current advice and current practices. Most of the ideas aren't original anyway, so the site is somewhat worth skimming through for links.

Whatever you do, stick with it for a while, have realistic expectations, and evaluate your progress periodically to see if what you're doing is actually working. Tweak it as you need to.

IMO, you can pick the most unscientifically fruitful and generally worst possible methods out there and still learn Japanese, so long as you don't give up. BUT it will probably take a lot longer than it needs to. Hence my advice. Try stuff, see if it works, analyze it, modify it, or toss it if you don't get realistic results. (As opposed to ditching something reasonable because you have unrealistic expectations.)

I would recommend a little RTK and a little Minna no Nihongo, because RTK is *really* useful, and Minna no Nihongo is an excellent textbook series that will plunge you into full-on Japanese right from the get-go, and it's written by professionals. (Nothing wrong with that.) MNN also meets all 4 of your language learning needs, so you stay balanced.

Also: Just RTK alone and there's no carrot. MNN is the carrot to keep you doing RTK.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:I think the AJATT articles are definitely worth checking out, but you shouldn't mindlessly buy into all his ideas and absolutely not the products (that are now almost plastered on the front page and give the site a horrible image imo). I agree 100% with his main message that advocates large amounts of exposure while making sure you're enjoying it.

This is what I meant by recommending AJATT. Not all of it I agree with, of course not. And I definitely don't have the money to blow on the subscriptions. I study at my own pace with whatever motivates me, and that's the most helpful advice I got from AJATT.

rich_f Wrote:Whatever you do, stick with it for a while, have realistic expectations, and evaluate your progress periodically to see if what you're doing is actually working. Tweak it as you need to.

IMO, you can pick the most unscientifically fruitful and generally worst possible methods out there and still learn Japanese, so long as you don't give up.

Just recently I read of a study where they recruited some volunteers to do language learning programs. http://backseatlinguist.com/blog/?p=135

They were all volunteers, and they were all studying languages of their own choosing.

There were 150 volunteers in two groups. One group did Rosetta Stone over a 20-week schedule, one group did Auralog's Tell Me More over a 26-week schedule.

145 of the volunteers dropped out before the end. That's a 98% attrition rate.

The conclusion that I draw from this study is that the most important thing to do when you're self-studying is to find ways to motivate yourself and stay committed to the program. You can spend a ton of time figuring out the most optimal way to learn a language, but if you don't find a way to put yourself in the 2% who stick with it, it's worth very little.

Fillanzea Wrote:145 of the volunteers dropped out before the end. That's a 98% attrition rate.

Madness.

I can totally relate to it though, it took me two attempts each separated by a year just to do RTK. Now I completed it I realise what a small task RTK actually is in the grand scheme of things.

That said I feel like RTK did more for me than just learning kanji, it was a right of passage that taught me how to complete a task that requires a certain amount of focus over several months. Now it's just a process of rinse and repeating new tasks of a similar size such as KO2K1/Core2K etc.

Fillanzea Wrote:There were 150 volunteers in two groups. One group did Rosetta Stone over a 20-week schedule, one group did Auralog's Tell Me More over a 26-week schedule.

145 of the volunteers dropped out before the end. That's a 98% attrition rate.

That alone, to me, is reason to keep going: To prove I'm part of that 2%

Fillanzea Wrote:

rich_f Wrote:Whatever you do, stick with it for a while, have realistic expectations, and evaluate your progress periodically to see if what you're doing is actually working. Tweak it as you need to.

IMO, you can pick the most unscientifically fruitful and generally worst possible methods out there and still learn Japanese, so long as you don't give up.

Just recently I read of a study where they recruited some volunteers to do language learning programs. http://backseatlinguist.com/blog/?p=135

They were all volunteers, and they were all studying languages of their own choosing.

There were 150 volunteers in two groups. One group did Rosetta Stone over a 20-week schedule, one group did Auralog's Tell Me More over a 26-week schedule.

145 of the volunteers dropped out before the end. That's a 98% attrition rate.

The conclusion that I draw from this study is that the most important thing to do when you're self-studying is to find ways to motivate yourself and stay committed to the program. You can spend a ton of time figuring out the most optimal way to learn a language, but if you don't find a way to put yourself in the 2% who stick with it, it's worth very little.

I second this, but I'll also add that sticking with it can involve completely changing the focus of your study. As long as you keep going with Japanese it doesn't matter if you stop working through Core 2000 after the first hundred and start reading the news, or you get bored reading news articles and start reading shoujo manga, or you get bored of reading manga and start Subs2SRSing dramas. All of these things will improve your Japanese, and switching activities can help keep things fresh and stop you from quitting.

I'm of the opinion that beginners should just experiment with the different methods available and see what works for them. I found SRSing doesn't really do that much for me and wish I'd done more reading right from the beginning, but I'm not going to recommend you do that because I know a lot of people have seen great results from intensive SRSing.