I'd say do whatever you feel like doing. It really doesn't matter. What matters is actually doing it, and doing a lot of it.

If you start not liking it, do something else. Whenever you stop having fun you know you're in trouble.

You're wise to start learning kani as soon as possible.  I'd recommend including it as part of your other studies.  Here's why.

There are 4 major ways that you can approach the study of Japanese:

1. Audio.  You hear Japanese, and you try to remember it in your head.  Better hope you've got an amazing memory.
2. Romaji.  You hear Japanese, and you write it down in roman characters to help you remember it.  This is fine if you just want to learn a few phrases to visit Japan on vacation. 
3. Kana.  You hear Japanese, plus you learn how to read hiragana and katakana, and you write things down using them.  Over romaji, this has the advantage of understanding the structure of the language, improving your pronunciation, and being able to comprehend simple authentic and educational materials.
4. Kanji and Kana.  You hear Japanese and learn how to read and write all of the characters.  (I say "write," but these days being able to select the correct character from a list on your PC or cell phone is often sufficient.)

Although this site seems predisposed towards learning kanji first, I don't recommend that, for a number of reasons.  My opinion is that kanji learned in isolation is difficult to remember, and even if you can remember it along with an English meaning (like in the Heisig method), it doesn't do that much good.  Many Japanese words are formed by combining two or more kanji, and when you combine them, the meaning isn't always so clear.  (料理 comes to mind.)  Similarly, trying to remember the readings of isolated kanji seems to me an exercise in futility.  (日 alone has over a dozen readings.)  However, if you learn kanji within the context of sentences, the readings are straightforward and you will remember them as a matter of course, with enough exposure. 

So what I do recommend is: 
1. Whenever you learn a word, learn it with the kanji, as opposed to just through kana or audio.
2. Learn words in context; that is, as part of sentences, not individual words.  Keep your example sentences simple and short.
3. Input your sentences into Anki if you want to remember them.
4. Read a lot of easy stuff.  The Japanese Graded Reader series is excellent.

Learning Japanese is a big project, but kanji offers a shortcut.  Take full advantage of using it at all times.

I would go against what Japaneserule is suggesting.

I would indeed recommend Heisig, of course, being part of this forum, but my counter argument is that Heisig will mean that you have a lot less to remember at once. For example: 料理 - I read that in a sentence a few times and can easily remember it now. I couldn't do that with Heisig, even though the kanji have nothing to do with cuisine.

Funnily I didn't need Heisig to learn 自然、突然、立ち上がる、架空、千島列島　and that list could go on. You don't need Heisig for reading purposes. OTOH, writing ability, when you don't write Japanese on daily basis, requires a crutch in form of mnemonics that Heisig method is based on.

Momusau: Learning the Kanji with Heisig first doesn't mean there's less to remember, but in my opinion it's not more to remember, either, and that's the important bit. It's just splitting things up, so you end up with less things to remember - at any one particular time. If you go full out right now and try to brute force Kanji, you'll be learning readings, meanings, and what they look like all at once. Some people claim it works for them, for me, it didn't, and believe me I tried. After 100 kanji it became a giant jumbled mess.

If you have no trouble keeping similar-looking Kanji apart, then I'm sure you don't need this. If they just look like scribbles to you, though, you'll run into trouble sooner rather than later and you'll know soon enough what I'm talking about.

Inny: As I said, I don't think you *need* Heisig for reading purposes, but I still hold that it's a lot easier and less work and frustration if you have Heisig under your belt. I recommend powering through Heisig, in fact. Don't get caught up with details like "recall rate" and just go as quick as you can. If you have an SRS it'll take care of the rest for you. It doesn't take a lot of time and it'll make the rest of Japanese all smooth sailing. (I know I would never have gotten past the first few lessons in Tae Kim if I didn't have the Heisig crutch to help me through the Kanji in the sentences, for instance)

momusau wrote:

Japaneserule,

I have been learning some vocab just by the name, not even the kanji or kana. Should I go back and put it in sentence format? I'm just about done with hiranga but have yet to finish katakana. What do you suggest?

When you say "just by the name," what do you mean?  Are you not writing anything down, or writing it down in romaji? 

Either way, I wouldn't "go back."  Go forward.  But going forward, you'll need to write words down (or type them in) when you study, and as you do, I'd certainly use sentence format, and kanji of course.

Generally speaking, when I want to remember a new word, I enter it into Anki.  And when I enter it, instead of saying only "電球 = lightbulb," I input "電球がきれた。= The lightbulb burned out."  You can search for sample sentences online, at sites such as Edict.
( http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi- … dic.cgi?1C )

That might be a bit much for you right now, so you may want to just stick with the Assimil course.  Don't try to add too many things at once.

Congrats on finishing hiragana.  That's a major milestone.  Katakana is fairly similar, so you won't have much trouble with that.

Since you've started the Assimil course, I'd recommend sticking with that if it's working for you, and completing the lessons as they're designed.  It sounds like it will give you a solid base.

Yes with a sentence method you generally learn the words using the sentence to give you some context. The best way is to make sure that there's only one new word per sentence and to make the sentence as easy as possible.

http://japaneselevelup.com/2011/02/01/h … ences-j-e/

This article describes how to make a sentence card.
It is recommended that you learn the kana though. But they can be learned within hours/days.

Last edited by Stian (2012 November 20, 4:10 pm)

Ok I am beginning to understand it now, so no english should be on the cards?

Daichi, that's your site, isn't it?

Thora wrote:

Daichi, that's your site, isn't it?

No. I wouldn't make a website with such terrible mystery navigation. The content isn't bad though.

momusau, try it and see if it works for you. Maybe it's a method that works better for me. Who knows till you try.

I would use Kanji though and have the furigana on the 2nd side: すみません今何時ですか

Last edited by Daichi (2012 November 21, 12:17 am)

momusau wrote:

and it's fine if I haven't gotten to it yet in RTK?

Yes, absolutely.  Because you're "getting to it" now.  By doing this sentence, you'll know the meaning of 今 in a more realistic context than memorizing it as a standalone kanji.  When (or if) you do RTK, you won't need to worry about memorizing that one.

momusau wrote:

so to just make sure, if the front of my card was すみませんいまなんじですか
and the word I'm focusing on is いま then the back would have the sentence with that word highlighted and defined?

Personally, I'd simplify it and remove the すみません.  So you're left with 今何時ですか。Put that on the front of the card using kanji.  If three kanji is too much now, you can leave 何時 in hiragana: 
今なんじ　ですか。
You can also insert a space between words to make it easier to read for now, since long strings of hiragana can be difficult to parse. 　On the back, I'd put the sentence in English with "Now" in bold.  Everybody does it a little differently, and some people hate English on the back, but it's never bothered me at all. 

By the way, if you download and install the "Japanese Support" add-on for Anki, it will automatically generate hiragana (furigana) over the words, which looks awesome and saves you some typing.  In Anki, it's under Tools>Add-Ons>Browse and Install.