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2010 July 01, 2:52 am

Right, so about two years ago, I embarked on a failed quest to "learn japanese," after being enticed by some motivational articles from AJATT. Unfortunately, due to certain life events at the time (hello physics & organic chemistry) and some various personality flaws, my epic trek came to a screeching halt with a disappointingly low track record of 323 kanji.

I thought long and hard about my decision and finally, I opted to leave learning more languages for when I retire.

After a whole lot of soul-searching and the oddest epiphany ever, I found my way back to the ancient bookmark that hid this website. Of course, I was eager to jump right back in, but a "quick glance" into the forums turned into a 4 hour session of lurking that led me in circles.

I was previously set on finishing RTK 1, and then beginning the Genki 1 book that I had purchased way back but, A. I can't seem to find it, and B. apparently there are better methods & materials out now?

I plan on restarting RTK 1 because I hear it will help in the future, but then I don't know what I should do afterwards. I read a bunch of study strategies in the stickies above, but I couldn't find anything useful for me because I am a complete beginner.

My question is.. what are some study tools that I should be looking into post-RTK 1? IIRC, AJATT didn't support RTK 2 back then and RTK 3 was optional. All I remember was: Do RTK 1 --> Do 10,000 sentences. But now after browsing the forums a bit people are talking about audio (really?!) flash cards for Anki.. that KO2001 thing, and a bunch of other items that seem like they would be very helpful & were not available AFAIK, back then.

Of course, I do realize RTK 1 will take a while to complete and that should be my first priority but I'd like some input on what to do afterwards..

In short, I don't want this to just be another short-sighted adventure. I want to be able to read & write as well as speak & understand the language at a native level. I also don't want to take the standardized textbook approach that we are too familiar with. I learned more Spanish while living in Spain for a few months than I ever did in my 9 years of taking it in school and I feel that this experience can be applied broadly.

Thanks, I know I wrote a wall of text but any help is appreciated

What I'm doing is
RTK -> Add sentences from Genki 1 and Tae Kim's Grammar Guide into Anki -> Core 6k -> Native Material

For a complete beginner, I would say to definitely get a good textbook that wont bore you to death. I hear good things about "Japanese the manga way".
You dont have to wait until you've finished RTK. Just do whatever you feel like doing. Also check out Tae Kim's grammar guide as well.
I don't really recommend KO2001 at all unless you are an intermediate learner past the beginner stage.

A good textbook and RTK is plenty to keep you busy for months, and at that point you might start to have an idea of what you need to start focusing more on.

TextFugu is quite nice if you need something less dry than a University textbook (i.e. Genki, Minna no Nihongo, Japanese for Busy People, etc.). Some of the grammar terms aren't technically correct, but they work for the purpose of remembering how to use things. You probably won't need to know the correct terminology until you've finished the stuff they have up on the site, anyway.

Check out http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

Ah I see. In that case I will hold off on KO2001 till much later then.

@Marble, I'm definitely going to consider following your schedule.. or combining it with kame3's link.

@Zaxrax, yea, I'm definitely interested in learning the "manga/drama/media way," rather than the textbook approach but I'll try to look for my Genki book as a reference.

What still a bit confused about is how the whole process comes together. After RTK, re-learning kana, and Tae Kim's grammar piece, I feel that I still won't know any vocabulary at all, aside from the few that are given in Tae Kim's guide. Am I supposed to jump into vocabulary (Core series..?) after those three or should I start on sentences? Or both?

Again I am probably over-thinking things and worrying about stuff that comes much later, but I just want a vision of the whole process.

Thanks for the quick replies

what i did/am doing:

1st semester of community college japanese (first half of genki 1) --> 2nd semester of community college japanese (second half of genki 1)+RTK --> KO2001 + AKB48 variety shows/blogs/native material --> 4th semester of community college japanese (second half of genki 2) + JLPT N2 study guides --> JLPT N1 study guides + books

randomly sprinkled here and there are lang-8 entries, trips to japan and meeting said friends from lang-8, watching dramas, reading a few manga, etc. i referred to DOJG a lot as well.
as you can see, my path went all over the place and continues to do so. it's never really straightforward. probably the biggest lesson i learned was that when i make SRS cards, i try not to put in stuff with too many things i don't know. i won't add sentences with 3 new kanji i've never seen held together with grammar i've seen, etc. also, SRS won't help you at all speaking.

calmthedarkness Wrote:What still a bit confused about is how the whole process comes together. After RTK, re-learning kana, and Tae Kim's grammar piece, I feel that I still won't know any vocabulary at all, aside from the few that are given in Tae Kim's guide. Am I supposed to jump into vocabulary (Core series..?) after those three or should I start on sentences? Or both?

Well, if you find Genki, it integrates vocabulary into the lessons. And most if not all of the words are pretty useful. I think an approach with integrated vocab and grammar is probably best.
Coke2k is pretty good for learning vocab once you have some basic grammar. Some of the words can be a bit abstract and a bit difficult to understand if you are unable to follow the example sentences though.

I wrote a very similar reply in this thread:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=9468

You guys rock, thanks for the input.

I've been grinding away at Kana for the past two days .

Even though I want to really buckle down and do 100 kanji a day, I don't want to get that burnt out feeling again.

Anyway, good luck to all!

Develop a habit, and make it very easy to succeed at that small habit.

For example, start with 1 kanji per day for 30 days and develop a habit.
Some say it takes 28 days for a habit to develop.

The point is to develop a habit at first, and only then start increasing the numbers.

success at that habit leads to success,
failure to failure.

StickyStudy app from itunes.
A great option in my opinion.
Simple, fun, and easy app. No need to set anything up, just simple and straightforward learning.