Hi there,

So you did RTK1 and then immediately went onto this kanji odyssey?  From the looks of your post, 2001KO is the way to go.

Where would you say your reading/writing level is after doing 2001KO on the JLPT scale?  i.e. level 1, 2, ect.

Thanks and congratulations on finishing the first book!

Replicator wrote:

Hi there,

So you did RTK1 and then immediately went onto this kanji odyssey?  From the looks of your post, 2001KO is the way to go.

Where would you say your reading/writing level is after doing 2001KO on the JLPT scale?  i.e. level 1, 2, ect.

Thanks and congratulations on finishing the first book!

1. Yes went straight to KO, but I did have 5 years of grammer under my belt from college.
2. Not sure, cause I am not interested in the JLPT, but having just a quick look at the books at the book store, there doesnt seem to be a lot of unfamiliar kanji there. Grammer is a different issue of course.

Congrats, zazen666. That is great news for all of us. I'm glad to hear KO is so effective.

PParisi wrote:

Congrats, zazen666. That is great news for all of us. I'm glad to hear KO is so effective.

Thanks!

Cool, thanks, onward.

nest0r wrote:

Congratulations senpai. I'll get here, one of these days.

Thanks! You will make it!

Congratulations! It's good to hear that even without doing volume 2 yet, you're already seeing major benefits in your ability to read. I just started the book last night and will be trying to do 2 pages daily.

Good luck with book 2!

I just finished book one today, it took quite a long time considering, something to do with so much new vocabulary.  I also went through two other books at the same time, though.

I've been going back and fixing any mistakes I found on the google spreadsheet, so I think the whole thing has been checked twice now, it's pretty safe to use.  I found a lot of mistakes, especially around the 500 mark, but I can't guarantee I found all of them, of course.  Major ones have definitely been put to bed though.

Congratulations to both of you.  This is very motivating to hear.

OK finished both book today an hour ago !!!
it took me 8 months both way (recognition and production) with  the completion of the kanzen master 2kyuu in the meantime my studies and a bit of laxism during summer time....so I feel as proud as when i finished RTK1....

for those wondering about the results :
Hell yeah I feel A LOOOOOOOOOOOT better than a few months ago : i can read mangas, anime script ,website ,video game quite easily .
-about video game : for instance I'm playing at hotel dusk right now , It's an adventure game  so it's not like playing mario kart in japanese....especially since there are a lot of traps and game over can come out of nowhere if you're not focused on what NPC are saying and your answers....   ) . I took a look at the trial game serie 逆転裁判  ace attorney  and I didn't feel in a alien world either.
-contrary to the well-spread belief  news aren't really a hard nut to crack : once you feel comfortable with kanjis it turns out quite easy . Grammar is basic ,presentation standard , there is a lot of hints and background . Listening is another deal though even if I improved in this area too (not to the same extent though) ...
-  I didn't venture much to light novel .... This is a whole different world . ....Maybe it has something to do with the very lightnovel I'm reading :the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya. As GITS  it can be quite litterate sometimes especially when nagano is speaking . But I don't have as much trouble with the "melancholy " manga  so I guess light novel are simply harder : phrases can be insanely long ,  a lot of pretty advanced kanji can pop out and grammar is far more complicate .

So yeah it works . Definetely .When I look at my fellowcamarads 's sluggish pace , the repetitive failure , the despair   I can't even imagine another way of proceeding (even if the classic method works : it's a just a LOOOOOOOT longer and way more painful)
:- RTK1 with RVK
- a bit of beginner formal studying (it was minna no nihongo for me but from what I heard geki or japanese for busy people, japanese for everyone, aren't bad either)
- KO2001 with anki  (by the way it won't hurt to use TTA technology : I batched files in text aloud and even if the pace isn't totally natural , even if there is bunch of mistake - the soft has a a hard time with 方　今 for instance  - most of the time it's quite good . And it's very important to HEAR japanese. )
- a 2Kyuu grammar manual (it was kanzen master for me but here again the array of books available is just mesmerizing .If I had to do it again maybe I would have choosed unicom manual as it's provided with a cd .... maybe i'll do it if I find some people to type in the same way we did with KO2001 )  with anki

currently I'm slightly behind the top of the class who has been studying japanese for 5 years  : she's obviously stronger than me in kanji reading  but when it comes to writing (thanks to RK1) and to grammar (thanks to the 2Kyuu manuel )  I'm a lot better than her . And I only spent 1 year and 4 months while she spent 5 years in university on it devoted exclusively to japenese . It's also a fantastic slap in the face of anyone denying the efficiency of the RTK1 method . You just have to complete with another method for the reading (frankly I'm a bit skeptic about RTK2  I side with kathzumoto on this one . That's where KO2001 is a perfect parter to RTK : as you learn according frequency of the kanji all the stuff you learned becomes immediatly usable . You have a maximum efficiency)  but separate the writing and the reading is not only good it works better than the classical way!

Last edited by ghinzdra (2009 January 12, 6:47 am)

First, congratulations!

I'm wondering though, what google spreadsheet are you talking of? Link?

Thanks,
Marcel

It was precisely my point .
It's more than a good book after RTK1 . The two of them are simply a perfect pair .
Roughly speaking there are only 2 problems with kanji :
1 : the writing is awfully confusing . You can practice for years and still forget almost everything about them if you don't practice (with the traditionnal method)
2 : there are a f..... bunch of them to learn before having a decent grasp on a basic natural japanese text (gaijin-friendly book doesn't count . ). Most of the time 1000 kanjis is spoken of as the bounder .
- Except it's a lot (that's why a 2B or 2-3kyuu is to be created within months . The gap is just too great for many people.) .
- Except it depends on WHICH kanjis you are learning : and the official classification is neither based on writing construction (see point 1)  nor 100% based on their frequence.... for a japanese guy as he's living in a 100% kanji environment even if his classical education is failing the daily situations provides him with the important kanji.


So now with a RTK- KO2001 system
1st point is taken care of by RTK : best proof of this is that even if I didn't practice the RTK kanji for months   (well I'm not a wizard ... I couldn't manage to deal with my studies , a 2KYUU grammar japanese book ,KO2001 and RTK1 . Maybe when I get a shot at uberman- polyphasic sleep...As I was confident about the RTK method I didn't pratice them after a while and even now  out of 2000 about 800 of them still remain to learn for a latter use...It's not like I will forget them ) when a new one came up within my KO2001 studies It took me barely a couple of minute to rebuild the link with the story laid out for months now . Because it's good story , good memory. Sure it's not as vivid as it used to be  but it stays here and eventually I have ALWAYS remembered the story . While the inaccuracy of the gesture memory (which is still important ,  it's just not enough) leads to start almost from scrach if you didn't practice for a long time and you' re still a beginner.
2nd point is the job of KO2001 : You really learn what you need to learn in priority :NOTHING MORE !  here what i learned of the jouhou kanji
Grade 1: 75  sur 80  (93.8%).
Grade 2: 152 sur 160 (95.0%).
Grade 3: 188 sur 200 (94.0%).
Grade 4: 180 sur 200 (90.0%).
Grade 5: 168 sur 185 (90.8%).
Grade 6: 138 sur 181 (76.2%).
JuniorHS: 350 sur 939 (37.3%)
as you can see I don't even know all the kanji for the 1ST F.... GRADE!  and I hardly noticed it while I was reading : simply because while they're rated 1st grade, 2nd grade , 3rd grade   maybe in fact they're 9th grade in practice (I'm counting out jimei and nanori meaning : if you need to learn japanese name those kanji can be useful but considering even the japanese themselves have trouble with the name... I don't think it can be acknowledeged as a "priority") . 
and on top of that you don't learn simply kanji (at least if you do it with anki) you learn phrases :  even if it will never be as natural as japanese for japanese , it's still good japenese : what adjectives goes with wich noun , which adverb goes with which verb , wich noun goes with wich verb   what are the difference between very close notion ... you learn about links and background . The same way as Kanji in context except it's considerably easier (I bought KIC recently I know what I'm talking ) not to mention the "frequency point" .

for the stuff I read (video games , anime script , sport website ,seinen mangas ) 9 out of 10 times I understand what's going on : and of those 9 I'd say 5 are native-like comprehension . (You have to take into account that i'm also 2kyuu grammer level yet: if you just know kanji sometimes I guess it won't be enough )
As i said previously I can't talk much for novel or professionnal stuff. But I'm rather optimistic about the prospect . I'm still looking for a good angle , right now I guess reading light novel won't be as fun as the rest ... But starting from  now on work is on a downhill it's just a matter of time . The hardest point is already behind me cause i have a whole new playground : I don't learn japanese  , I live with it . It's not an ordeal , it's a challenge (as I know I'm going to get stronger )  and a great pleasure (when you begin to watch matrix and star wars in japanese things become really fun   ).

as far as I'm concerned RTK and KO2001 should simply be sold together.

N.B: by the way if anyone is interested by typing in KIC we can do the same thing we did with KO2001. Slot and all the stuff...KIC is on 2000 kanjis and  I want the 800 whose I don't know the reading

Last edited by ghinzdra (2009 January 12, 7:49 am)