woodwojr wrote:

Pretty much what you're doing, except faster (I kid, I kid--while you probably can speed up once you catch your stride, choosing a good pace is more important than choosing a fast pace). What other Japanese studying have you done?

~J

Well, I have a little schedule thing on renshuu.org, the JLPT section, and I've read through some of the sections on Tae Kim's grammar guide. I know kana well, except for parts of katakana, they just seem harder to remember for some reason. Truth is I've never had a very good memory...

I'm just afraid that whatever I might be doing alongside RTK would be harmful to my overall progress...I know I've seen others express the same concern here and other places.

I also would love to get some books, like Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar (I read a topic on it here, it sounded nice), but I'm broke. I guess I need to get a job.

Well, if you're already relatively experienced, I've found it's helpful to practice sentences that contain kanji you've gotten in RTK. However, if you're at a point where that would be primarily learning rather than review, it may slow you down which is undesirable.

~J

get a textbook and get going. something like minna no nihongo is good. it uses kana from the get-go, so you'll be forced to learn it. it's a bit harder to start with, but it's really useful in the end. if that looks to hard, the Genki series is good, and so is the J-Bridge series. they all come with CDs for listening practice (though you may have to buy it separately).

pimsleur is fine if you don't have access to a native speaker or private tutor. if you can get either one of those, skip pimsleur.

learn the kana ASAP.

and don't worry about "what comes next" until you've finished the simple textbooks. if you start thinking about what comes next before what you need to do right now, you'll find yourself making study plans instead of studying.

I did the first wave of 'Japanese With Ease' alongside RTK, and the second wave after I finished RTK.

Never give up.