I just got RTK for Christmas - yay!! - and I've been working on Core2k and Kana for the past few months. I'm starting to really get comfortable with kana and I try to read in it as much as possible. Now that I'm doing RTK, should I put a pause on the Core2k, because RTK doesn't teach the Japanese versions and I tend to skip over the kanji in Core2k decks for now and rely on kana instead. I worry that if I keep doing Core2k, when I finish RTK1, I will have to start Core2k over to plug in new kanji knowledge and re-learn the vocab. So I have two or three options: continue with Core2k while also doing RTK and grammar studies or finish the Core 1k and then start on RTK - I don't want to do this because I want to start on kanji immediately, or finish pause on Core and go back to once I'm done with RTK.


Thoughts?

I don't think you should pause vocabulary study for RTK. You want to get those words out of the way as soon as you can so you can start doing stuff with them that's interesting.
Don't worry too much about associating the kanji with the word at this point. After all, Core2k is meant to the the 2000 most common words. You're going to see them all the time anyway, so it's not a big deal. It's not like you have to actually relearn all the words again.

You should do whatever your time allows you to do.

If you're short on time, stick with rtk.
Have around 3 hours a day, you can probably do rtk and core.
If you have all day, you can use a textbook, rtk, and core at once. Beware of burnout however.

I recommend dropping core right now however. You don't need all that vocabulary yet. I'd focus on getting all the basic grammar down. Besides most of the vocabulary you will find in the beginner textbooks you will find in core. So you can just fly past those when you encounter them in the future.

NaomiD Wrote:Thoughts?

You already have two conflicting thoughts above me. And this happens, only you can decide what you should do yourself.

RTK is useful to get over the scare of those intimidating characters. For me personally, I got burned out on RTK after restarting it a couple times. But I got maybe half way through but I dread those Kanji no longer. If you can finish it, it can be very useful. If you can't, you can at least get over the fear of Kanji with it. There are several subsets of RTK that allow you to cut the amount of time you need to spend with it like RTK Lite or Lazy Kanji Mod. Who knows, those might be more suited to your needs.

As for Core, It covers a great deal of important vocab you will need to communicate. And it's very useful. I personally am using using Subs2SRS in conjunction with Core. Core gives me a good base and Subs2SRS with my favorite anime keeps things interesting for me.

As for doing both Core and RTK at the same time, there isn't going to be a lot of overlap. RTK is in a wacky order, but it makes sense for itself. Core kinda builds upon itself, and I tends to start with more frequent characters first. But just because you meet a Kanji in RTK first doesn't mean it's going to be bad when you see it in Core or vise versa. I do not see any faults in stopping one for the other, but if you have the time, why not learn some of the language now? You could also try something more aural like Assimil or Pimsleur to learn some basic vocab while you RTK instead.

I personally find one of the big faults of RTK to be all the confusing synonyms. Second issue is you learn absolutely no real Japanese from it. It's not hard to make a simple mod to expose yourself passively to some real Japanese. I personally like this mod:
japaneselevelup.com/how-to-use-anki-to-master-japanese-part-1-kanji/
It basically suggests you add a Japanese word that uses the kanji to the front of the RTK cards. It's not needed to answer the card, but it's extra exposure to real Japanese and it really helps for those crazy English synonyms.

Anyway, my two yen. In the end, it's all up to you.

I'm currently doing RTK Lite and CORE2 simultaneously (and I'm also giving Coori a trial run), and I like the overlap. I find it very helpful when the RTK kanji show up in the other two. First, it shows me the RTK kanji in context; and second, I can understand the sentences in the other two better if I recognize the kanji. Even if the Heisig keyword isn't the exact meaning of the kanji, I can usually guess the meaning easily enough in the context of the sentence.

However, RTK is my first priority, since I'm still adding kanji, and I do it (almost) daily. I do Core when it's due, which at this point still isn't every day. I only take a run at Coori when I have extra time, usually on the weekend. I like it a lot (better sentences and format than Core, IMO) EXCEPT that so far I don't feel like their SRS algorithm is working for me.

I should mention that I already have a pretty good understanding of basic grammar, and have picked up a good chunk of basic vocab along the way, too.