I'm using iKnow! for vocabulary study.  I have the corresponding iPhone/iPad app and there seems to be an option on it to show only kana.  In addition you can turn on/off the type of questions you don't want to appear.  I'm not sure about the web site version since I hardly ever use it.  If you have an iphone/ipad or even an android phone (there is an android version) that may work well for you.

Since I did RTK1 before starting iKnow! I leave everything turned on.  While I was studying RTK1, I wanted to do some more Japanese studying at the same time.  What I did was read the Genki textbooks and when I did vocabulary, I ignored the kanji.

No problem.  If you have any further questions about iKnow!, let me know.  I'm near the end myself.

I'll probably be done at around the 7th month mark.   But I've put in a ton of hours per day.  It's gotten a bit complicated for me near the end so I've slowed down a bit.

I'm lacking in grammar so I won't be able to converse well.  After I knock off adding new words to iKnow! I plan to go back and review Genki I & 2 and Tae Kim's Grammar Guide.  I always read the sentences.  If I don't know a word I usually look it up.  Do you have any Japanese grammar background?  If not, I think that's why you are skipping the sentences.  While doing RTK1 I went through Genki I & 2 athough I didn't stringently memorize it.  That's enough grammar to get you to understand the sentences in core.  Alternatively you can start reading Tae Kim's guide since it overlaps Genki and covers even more ground(and its free).

LittleRed786 wrote:

You're right, I have zero Japanese grammar background. And that's simply because I find educational books too boring to keep me motivated. And that's the reason why I'm not using RTK. I purchased Genki I and II (with audio CDs) but I haven't had a look through it. I guess I'm going to have to overcome my fear of books.

Have you tried taking a few basic sentences and using Tae Kim to look up the relevant grammar? You could start with simple copulas, and build up from there. Maybe take five sentences that come up in iKnow, skip them for now, but sit down with them later and pull them apart until you thoroughly understand them. Then do this later in the week with another five...and so on and so on.

I prefer to learn grammar by reference as well. It gets easier once you get a basic foundation in how sentences are laid out in Japanese. Tae Kim is good for that.

I'd consider watching Japanese subbed anime then reviewing the sentences in Anki along with Core2k. You can use Subs2SRS and the Morphology plugin to give you nice i+1 sentences. Honestly, it's quite a bit of a setup, but I think it's worth it.

Frankly I found Core boring as hell by itself. But if you mix it up with something fun (and with meaningful context), I think it would be a better experience.

I find that learning the vocab with kana instead of kanjis defeats the purpose of learning the vocab. Why not take the slightly slower approach(with kanjis) and get a stronger foundation? There aren't that many Kanjis in core2k anyway, aside from the most basic of the basics.

I found "Japanese the Manga Way" by Wayne P. Lammers the most entertaining entry-level grammar primer ever. I don't really have enough experience to recommend anything with much authority. I do own Genki I. It's effective, I suppose.