I just finished RTK 1 completely about a month ago. After doing plenty of reviews to get my reviews per day down in Anki and reading a health amount of the 完全マスター読解二級 I picked up RTK 2+3 and began learning the On-yomi in RTK 2, which is admittedly a bit weird, but it's progressing.

I've been following these forums ever since I started RTK 1 (the stories were amazing, I really couldn't have done it without all of you) and I'd like to get involved in the Core 2k, 6k, and 10k decks that everyone keeps talking about. The problem is, I've searched forum threads and the internets alike and I can't seem to find a guide to starting the core.

What I mean is, I'm looking for the core 6k deck (which I believe has 2K+ an additional 4k words) and the extra 4k words that make up the Core 10k. All together in a batch is fine, so are three separate decks. I'm okay with either.

I've been studying Japanese for about four years, and looking at the examples that people have posted from the core 2k deck makes me think that it might be a touch easy, so separately might especially be better. I use Anki religiously, so in that format would be preferred.

I really need someone to walk me through what I should do (and then maybe sticky this guide; seriously, finding out what to do has been hard). Please teach me: Are the files in shared decks? If so, which ones? The audio/pictures/extra media: is it separate and has to be "installed?" If so, from where and how do I install it?

Or do I simply give smart.fm my tens of dollars?

I'm totally ready to take my Japanese to the next level, so any help at all is really appreciated. I just don't know where to even begin.

[s0apgun]

Goto shared decks, type in i+1 and download Nukemarine's latest deck (5999 facts)... should say when it was last uploaded or modified which was a couple weeks ago. The deck is called Core 2k/6k Optimized Japanese Vocabulary.

Then goto his thread for beginners on here and download the associated core media files. Then you're all set! http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

Don't pay to learn Japanese, there are so many resources for free that are better than what you could pay for. IMO, core will be fine even if some of the stuff is easy in the beginning (2k) its still necessary and it will get harder.

Also, you can just suspend the cards that you think are easy.

Thank you so, so much. I'll get on this right away!

... and if you're a guy, when you're about half-way through you'll get to lots of sentences spoken by a female voice that end in の。 Change that in your head to something more appropriate for male speech like んだ so that you don't subconsciously learn to speak that way.