It can be overwhelming in the beginning.  No worries, go here http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5322  or go here http://japaneselevelup.com/   (both are very resourceful guides)

You know hiragana and katakana, that's great. However you really need to finish RTK first and foremost. It is common for beginner vocabulary to contain kanji that is learned at the end of RTK.  For example in my Genki I textbook in chapter 3 勉強 and 聞くare two words you will come across that have very basic meanings, but the kanji are taught at the end of RTK.  So when trying to learn vocab at the same time as RTK you will run into foreign kanji quite frequently.  My suggestion to you is to finish RTK, it is a fundamental step in learning japanese. You could work on other things at the same time but I would focus the majority of your energy on RTK.  Even at a pace of 20 a day (which is a reasonable pace) it will still take 100 days to finish, if you're consistent. 

There are no set rules for how you go about learning japanese.  People will gladly give you advice on this forum, but ultimately it is up to you.  Take a look around the contents of this forum, there are tons of resources for every step of the way.

Do not worry about readings just yet.  It has been discussed numerous times on this forum; doing RTK may seem easy because your on frame 150, but once you hit frame 1500 it starts getting intense.  Learning the readings just really does not make sense, some kanji have many readings.  You will spend months trying to learn readings at the same time, which will hinder your progress.  Once you finish RTK and start learning vocab in context it will start to make sense and readings will come naturally; you will begin to see patterns and be able to guess some readings of vocab words just by their kanji!

The best way to learn vocab is in context, like the core deck you mentioned earlier.  You will not only learn a word but learn the word in context.  The benefit to this is that you will understand how to actually use that word.

I saw your thread on immersion and here's my 2 cents.  Do RTK.  Then work through core 6k and tae kims grammar guide.  After that you could do full immersion, but like everyone else said you need a base to work off of.  Japanese is a very different language than english, words, grammar, phrases, intonation and any other aspect of the language are radically different.  Even stopping learning after tae kims and core 6k,  is stopping short of the finish line.  There are times when I fully understand all the words in a sentence but have no idea what the sentence means!  When learning a language the learning never ends.  In english I'm sure you come across words you don't know and need to ask what they mean.

There is no easy way to the end, immersion just develops your listening skill and reinforces some vocab/grammar.  It is not a sole tool for learning a language.  I'm doing the Tae Kims grammar guide at this moment and sometimes even when the grammar point is being broken down and thrown at me I need to re-read it several times before I begin to get it.  I have no idea how someone would be able to understand it without any previous study on the topic.

If you can finish RTK no problem and are ready to move on, you have the determination to keep going.  If you can't finish RTK, I would question your love of the language and question if learning japanese is for you.  Japanese is hard and sometimes you will get discouraged.

ryanjmack wrote:

So after RTK I should go straight to Core 6k without doing Core 2k?

Also, should I learn the entire sentence, or just learn the word? That's still the part I'm confused about. Or is the sentence just there so you know how that word is used in context?

Xanpakuto wrote:

You can do Core 6k right now if you want, just it's a little harder without RTK. To compensate for not finishing RTK, I write them in a notebook and study them by brute force.

I do core two ways
Recognition
Kanji --> reading + audio

Production
Kana --> Kanji + audio
(write out kanji)

You can learn the entire sentence, might take a bit longer though. Or you can learn the entire sentence through audio only

Audio deck
Audio ---> Sentence
(maybe write down the sentence?)

What about Core 2k? Skip it?

And what does the ----> mean? Is that like front/back of the Anki cards? (I'm new here)

Animosophy wrote:

I do wonder sometimes if there are people out there who just study without much curiosity about the learning process and what skills/knowledge they ought to gain from whatever it is these hypothetical people do.

Maybe. The pitfall of the self-learner is that there are so many learning styles that, no matter what you choose to do, someone on the Internet's gonna tell you you're doing it completely wrong and that THEIR way is superior. At some point, you have to stop obsessing about method and just study. IMO, the value gained from "meta-studying" - investigating methods, playing around with tools - tends to diminish fairly quickly, and is ultimately better spent being exposed to Japanese.

Animosophy wrote:

I think the only way to really get through all of the hard work like vocab building and grammar without having to think about it all so much is through good Japanese language classes. Then you don't have to give a damn about what material you're presented with so long as you understand it and keep up with it. Unfortunately us self-learners have to deal with a lack of structure and establish our own, which takes research, effort and planning, and inevitably changes with our interests, and as we progress. It says nothing about how much and how fast you can learn in either case, but it does highlight the common factor of success: lotsa hard work.

I dunno, having studied Japanese in class for 10 years, I'd say there're a lot of pitfalls there too.  Namely, the vocab and the "reading" material chosen by your teacher is usually the driest, most boring crap ever, and it saps motivation pretty fast.

As well as that, the teacher might choose a curriculum style and have goals for class that are meaningless to you or detrimental to your learning...

Just some thoughts

s0apgun wrote:

^ On that note, recently I've given up on my Core6k and grammar decks. It really was becoming めんどくさいな～. Instead I have been reading manga for around an hour daily with the help of the KanjiTomo OCR. Its been great so far because the time flies and I end up reading longer than an hour whereas with Anki I was becoming restless to get through an hour session. I also supplement the reading with lots of new anime with subtitles and old anime I've watched already without subtitles. Not trying to say I don't love Anki, because I do, but I certainly have clocked maybe 1000+ hours into it over the last year and a half.

Yeah see, I like using Anki for RTK. But when I was going the Core2k, I hated it. Maybe because I wasn't doing it right or something, I don't know. But it was really annoying and I couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Once I get done with RTK, is there another way to start learning Japanese without studying the Core sentences in Anki?

Last edited by Igloo9 (2013 September 08, 5:57 pm)

Stian wrote:

I used the sentence method promoted by Japaneselevelup and AJATT and found that enjoyable enough for about 14 months... before I deleted my 6250-card deck...

Look into other methods until you find something that fits you -- Nuke's guide doesn't work for everyone...

What's the Japaneselevelup sentence method? I can't seem to find it on their site.

Actually, what's the AJATT method, too? I've read so much of that site but some of his articles are confusing to read.

quark wrote:

http://japaneselevelup.com/how-to-use-anki-to-master-japanese-part-2-sentences-j-e/
That should be the page where he explains the sentence method.

Thanks. About the regular Core2k/6k question, could you answer that for me too? I still haven't gotten an official answer from anyone yet.

Am I supposed to study the sentence, or just the word it gives? Because it'll teach you a word, but then it puts the word in a sentence after that. I assume it puts it in a sentence to show how it's used in context, but what part of that card do I actually study?

Do I still study just the word? Do I memorize the sentence? Do I try to learn the specific grammar in a sentence? I don't get it. I tried to examine the grammar and figure out how it works but it confuses me. Actually memorizing the sentence seems kind of hard. Do I just memorize the word or what? I'm confused.

Igloo9 wrote:

Am I supposed to study the sentence, or just the word it gives? Because it'll teach you a word, but then it puts the word in a sentence after that. I assume it puts it in a sentence to show how it's used in context, but what part of that card do I actually study?

Do I still study just the word? Do I memorize the sentence? Do I try to learn the specific grammar in a sentence? I don't get it. I tried to examine the grammar and figure out how it works but it confuses me. Actually memorizing the sentence seems kind of hard. Do I just memorize the word or what? I'm confused.

From what I understand, you study just the word.  The point of the sentence is to give the word some context.  So no, you don't need to memorize sentence itself, it's just a helpful little extra. In fact, when I was using Anki, I very rarely read the sentence on the card and focused only on the word on the front of the card.
Have you spent any time studying grammar?  That will make reading the sentences in your Anki deck a lot easier and will allow you to focus more on the kanji and vocabulary that you're learning.
As for your earlier question, the AJATT and Japanese Level Up sentence method are essentially the same.

Last edited by quark (2013 September 08, 9:45 pm)

Igloo9 wrote:

I thought it was recommended to not actually study grammar? According to AJATT and various other places, you sort of naturally learn grammar on your own. Kind of like when kids are growing up and learning to speak, they don't actually learn the grammar behind what they're saying. They just know it sounds right. And I've read it's the same with Japanese. You study vocab and stuff through Anki, and do lots of input and immersion, and the grammar will just come to you naturally.

I don't put a lot of stock into that theory.  We're adults, not babies or children.  Those native speaking children are receiving correction from the people around them, not to mention that they also formally study grammar in school.
Proper grammar study is faster and will give you a more concrete idea of grammar rules than stumbling through incomprehensible material.  The purpose of immersion in the beginning stages is more to help re-enforce and refine what you've learned. Once you hit the Intermediate/Advanced stage, yes, immersion can help with learning new vocabulary.
Keep in mind though that I'm not a huge fan of AJATT and think that there's a lot of value in traditional study methods. Ultimately, what you decide to do is your choice, but don't be afraid to experiment with different methods and see what works for you.

Last edited by quark (2013 September 08, 10:34 pm)

Igloo9 wrote:

I thought it was recommended to not actually study grammar? According to AJATT and various other places, you sort of naturally learn grammar on your own. Kind of like when kids are growing up and learning to speak, they don't actually learn the grammar behind what they're saying. They just know it sounds right. And I've read it's the same with Japanese. You study vocab and stuff through Anki, and do lots of input and immersion, and the grammar will just come to you naturally.

AJATT still recommends reading over grammar explanations for the fundamentals of the language. It also recommends SRSing sentences from text-books. It just means the bulk of grammar (in the broad sense of using natural sentence structures and words context-correctly) is better learned through immersion.

Last edited by ryuudou (2013 September 08, 10:27 pm)