Don't worry so much about being trapped in Heisig. It's one very useful tool to help you with kanji, yes, but don't look at it as an end in and of itself, because otherwise you'll spend 6 months + messing with it without learning any Japanese. RTK takes a LOT of time and effort cumulatively, but if you break it down, you can make it relatively painless. But if you don't try to learn some basic Japanese on the side, you may lose sight of the goal and also get frustrated with RTK. (I know I would.)

So look at Heisig as one tool in your Japanese language education toolkit.

Now you need to gather some more tools to get a good basic foundation in the language. There are a lot of different ways to go about that. I took classes while I was in grad school, and then audited some more classes at a local university after I graduated. (Auditing a university class can be pretty darn cheap, and you get a lot of real help.)

But classroom settings don't work for everyone. Some people prefer to study alone, or in a small group. That's fine, too. A lot of folks do the sentence study method with an SRS like Anki.

You can read some of the posts here and see what books, programs, websites, etc. people are using, and how they're using them. But learning Japanese isn't just about reading, it's about listening and speaking and writing, too. So your goal should be to put together a set of tools to help you meet those various goals in learning the language.

Some people go the alljapaneseallthetime.com route, which is basically a total self-immersion program. It's a bit extreme, but it can net results if you're exceedingly focused. I look at it as a site full of good ideas to build a better immersion environment, and some things that worked for one particular person. What works for me, I use, what doesn't, I don't.

By consuming Japanese media of whatever sort, you'll expand your vocab naturally through encountering kanji "in the wild," in books, and you'll improve your vocab while listening to Japanese programs. It will also improve your pronunciation.

By the time you've finished RTK 1, you'll be able to see that the path after it gets a little murky, because by then you should have some basic understanding of Japanese from your other studies. Some go on to RTK 2, while others learn the kanji in RTK 3, then go back to 2. Still others skip 2 and 3 and go follow other paths. If you do some reading on this board, you'll see a lot of people doing a lot of different things. In the end, everyone does what they think works best for them.

If I was starting Japanese from scratch today, I'd:

1. Start with a good textbook that had audio tracks available, (I rag on the Genki series, but I think it's very good for total beginners.)

2. Then I'd grab Remembering the Kana and learn Katakana and Hiragana. The sooner, the better.

3. Once I had mastered the Kana, (which really shouldn't take too long), then I'd start learning some Japanese-- 20-30 minutes a day-- more, if you have time--using that book or website or collection of notes or whatever you found earlier.

4. After I had made a little progress and started to get comfortable (up to you when that is) then I'd start working in RTK once I felt ready to 'get serious.' RTK I'd probably start with 15-20 characters a day. Not too many, so you don't get burned out, and not too few, so you don't feel like you're not making progress. Even with 10 characters a day, you could theoretically finish RTK 1 in 204 days, so less than 7 months.

The trick to success is to do the reviews every day without fail, if you can. You could probably do it in 20-30 minutes if you keep it to 10-20 characters a day.

I took 6 semesters of university-level Japanese, then stepped away for a few years, then came back, then stepped away again, then came back, then started RTK while reviewing all of my old Japanese. Not having done it earlier didn't ruin me, although I will admit that had I known what I know now, I would definitely have integrated it sooner into my Japanese language education.

The magic of RTK in my opinion is that it breaks down a difficult task into manageable chunks. Learning the writing, meanings, on- and kun- yomi of a character all at once is very difficult. Learning it one piece at a time is far more logical IMO. That's all it really is about. RTK1 just teaches you the writing and a loose (sometimes very loose) meaning you assign to it to help you get a handle on it.

Oops, didn't mean to write a novel.

Last edited by rich_f (2008 January 08, 1:47 am)

My Hindsight Recommended Course to Learning Japanese:

Foundation (in this order):
Hiragana/Katakana Your basis for all Japanese to come. NO ROMAJI!
Pimsleur Listening Excellent introduction of essential Japanese through drilled listening/speaking (easy to find on torrent, if you're into that)
Heisig 1 It takes a while, but it solves what most consider the largest hurdle to Japanese
Tae Kim's Grammar Japanese explained from the inside


Vocab Building & Application (in any order/combination):
Vocab Drilling (Meguro JLPT Resources)
Heisig 2
A text (JFE, Minna Nihongo)
Reading (manga, children's newspaper, etc)
Writing (journal, Mixi, etc)
Listening (TV, radio, podcasts, etc)
Speaking (partner, exchange)

(I will never compromise on my belief that the very first thing you should do is learn the kana. First, it solidifies your pronunciation since you understand the Japanese phonetic model. Next, it immerses you in Japanese. I believe romaji is a horrible crutch for people who want quick and dirty use of the language, not learning. Yes, it's slow and difficult at first. But saying romaji is easier is like saying riding a bike in a marathon is faster. You got to the finish line quicker, but you haven't run the actual race! Also, learning the kana is a great motivator; it's frickin' cool to learn new squigglies. I still remember clearly the first Japanese I recognized and could read "in the wild").

Depending on your learning style, I would recommend a textbook for 3 months or so before you start Heisig. It will have wet your appetite for more Japanese, and also exposed your need for a better way to learn kanji (you'll realize soon enough how difficult it is to learn kanji any other way). Also, a few months of more Japanese study will make the Japanese you already know immediately applicable with Heisig. All those words you know will be little "aha!"s when you learn the kanji in Heisig.

I would actually go back into textbook/other sources mode after RTK1 for awhile before going into RTK2.

The others have explained enough about "getting trapped" in Heisig. It's just not possible if you have a vision of what it is.

Last edited by dingomick (2008 January 08, 4:54 am)

I agree with you Charley that the best thing to do (if possible) is to do RTK1 first to get its benefit as early as possible.  However, RTK seems to have quite a high drop out rate, and while I was studying it there were certainly times when I didn't know if I could keep at it.

Getting a good taster of Japanese study for at least a few months may improve the chances of some people completing RTK1.

When I was doing RTK1, since I had studied kanji before the hard way I could see right away how much more effective learning kanji this way was, by comparison.  By the time I got past the half way point I already started to see the benefits of the kanji knowledge I was building, because I knew some Japanese and could see the kanji I was learning being useful right away.  By the time I did 3/4 of the book, unknown kanji were a minority and a bit of an annoyance, and so I wanted to finish the book even more than when I started.  It was very motivational for me, which helped get through the hardest chapters towards the end quickly.  With zero Japanese knowledge, I wouldn't have had that extra motivation to help me through.

Last edited by vosmiura (2008 January 08, 6:32 am)

Just to clarify, the steps I outlined in my post are pretty much to do be done all roughly at the same time. I don't think you need 3 months to get comfy with the language before starting RTK- you just need to reach a point where you understand why you need it.

I didn't need to use Remembering the Kana to learn Hiragana and Katakana. I pretty much just brute force learned them in a couple of weeks in my Japanese class-- it was a summer school class, so we met for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. We didn't have time to forget.

So we also started learning kanji within the first few weeks as well. It was sort of like, week 1- hiragana, week 2- katakana, week 3 & 4 - absorb, week 5- start with kanji from there on out.

But if you're going to be doing self-study, then Remembering the Kana will probably help you to remember them, so go for it.

You could also try the approach of doing nothing but RTK1 until you finish the book. It's a valid approach, it's just that some people will get burned out that way. Learning a little Japanese on the side will sort of keep the goal in front of you, and you won't feel like you didn't learn any Japanese because you had your nose in RTK1 all the time. It's a personal preference thing. Do what you feel is best.

I also view the kanji as a large set of ABCs like CharleyGarret. My hindsight recommendation note this and puts them right after the kana. I wish I had done the kanji right away. That said, it is a hindsight desire. I don't know if I, or anyone, would have been dedicated enough to finish RTK1 as fast as I did without more motivation of either "real Japanese", or the frustration of other methods not working (I had so much fun doing RTK1 though that I doubt it, but will never know). I have yet to hear of anyone who has done RTK1 first thing and their feelings about it. Most come around to RvTK later in their studies. Maybe you can be one of the first. And maybe all the motivation you need is a community like this!

Oh, and I just memorized the kanji by brute force and pictograph mnemonics. A week for each with a couple weeks solid review is good. Start with hiragana.

Last edited by dingomick (2008 January 08, 5:10 pm)

Yes, the kana.

Don't mess around. Memorize your kana first.