Do more kanji.

Or, try pimsleur and get a handle on spoken speech.

Or, study a little from something like Tae Kim's guide or Japanese for Everyone.

Most people say to focus on RTK and only RTK. This is because it's easy to get overwhelmed and because everything you do sort of builds on your kanji foundation. Ultimately, decide on your own.

As you go through RTK you find it gets more and more hectic. Decide now how much time per day you're dedicating to active studying. Every hour you want to do is roughly 10-15 new kanji reviewed and added in addition to about 30 reviews per day with about 6 missed needing better studying. (rough guide based on my experience). So, if you want to study 8 hours a day, you could go through 100 kanji. Difficult but not impossible. Also, you'll be changing up how you approach RTK as time goes on. Reason being you'll find what is working and what is not.

Want to do while doing RTK? As you mentioned AJATT, just follow his advice: DO FUN STUFF IN JAPANESE. Watch Anime, J-Dramas, J-Movies, JPop, Radio, whatever in Japanese. Get used to hearing Japanese conversation in all areas of life. Put up posters from Japan in your room. Get a kanji poster. Convert your computer's OS to Japanese region. This is the passive parts of AJATT that'll put you above and beyond anyone that only does active studying.

In addition, you can do other areas of active study that do not involve learning Kanji: Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone are popular choices.

Pimsleur is a Japanese language course based on "listen and repeat" and "do you remember how to say ...?". There is nothing written. It's a series of 30 minutes audio lessons where you can learn little dialogues.

Last edited by Marta (2008 August 19, 3:13 am)

Thanks for the input so far. I listened to one of the 30 minute sections of Pimsleur. While I do like it, I feel like it may interfere. Maybe I'm just thinking too much about it, but I guess I will have to wait till tomorrow for my review to see the effects.

I'm also a relative beginner, and I'm doing RTK plus Rosetta Stone (version 3) daily. There really isn't much (if any) overlap between the two. Since I usually tend to focus on the writing and reading aspects of a new language, to the detriment of listening and speaking, I'm really enjoying Rosetta Stone as a way to get my mouth and ears working, even if it's just baby steps at the moment.

I work full-time and have a family, so taking it in small chunks is best for me (RevTK reviews mornings before work, an hour or so of Rosetta Stone in the evening, and learning 10-20 new kanji from the book before bedtime). I'd love to be one of the amazing people who are jamming 100 kanji a day, but realistically, it ain't gonna happen for me. My goal is to keep it going no matter what, and I know that facing massive 3 or 4 hour reviews would kill the momentum. Even at my snail's pace, though, I should be done with RTK1 before the end of the year.

Kanji is only one part of Japanese-- keep that in mind. There's nothing wrong with studying some of the language basics on the side... just keep it as something to do if you have spare time and you're finished with RTK for the day. I like Genki as well. It does a solid job of teaching you the basics. Japanese for Everyone is also really good, too. Minna no Nihongo is going to require that you know how to read hiragana and katakana... then again, most credible texts will require that, too.

The sooner you learn hiragana and katakana, the better. It took me a lot of reading before I could internalize them and easily recognize them without having to think about it. So the sooner you get started, probably the better.

And you may not think it's useful to keep up with your German, but as someone who had a similar attitude after 6 years of French in school, and after having forgotten just about all of it 20 years later, I can say now that I wish I had made the minimal effort to keep it up. You don't have to be a German expert, but it's one of those things that can never hurt to know.

Nightsky- Ya i figured as much. Just not being an expert in the Brain's memory retention methods and such, I thought there was always the possibility that it could hurt somehow.

annabel389- I used rosetta stone to try and relearn the polish i forgot as a child. I wasn't too in love with the program, but i could see how it could work for others.

tuuli- Ya i mean I am a student (and currently unemployed xD) and I still get to enjoy summer until september 2nd, so i'm wondering if I should do higher amounts of kanji until then. But then I worry about having too large reviews (which i enjoy actually).

rich_f- Ya I like the way you put it. Before I found out about AJATT and RTK, I was going through a brief site on grammer, beginning vocab and such (which has a ton more information also). I think I might sift through that site a little more before I try to call it quits with speaking english (to learn japanese). I'm not a huge fan of textbook exercises only because of the boring tone it brings to my studies =/. I did do a half hour of Pimsleur which was pretty cool. I see how if you actually pay attention and repeat all of the words, that it can help.

mentat_kgs- Like I said before, I begin school in exactly 2 weeks, and since I actually enjoy reviewing the kanji (each time I get them correct I feel awesome and that just works as inertia to keep me going through). During summer i wouldn't exactly mind having 3+hour reviews, but I'm not sure during school. I only have classes on monday and wednesday, but they are from 930am to 630pm. So I am hoping that I can plan a schedule that will work along with my school.

Thanks again for the input.

To add to what rich_f said, Heisig has also written a nice little booklet where he teaches you the hiragana and katakana in 3 hours each ("Remembering the Kana"). I used this booklet to learn them and can recommend it.

Just make sure you pace yourself.  Yeah, its all fun and games now and easy.  Wait til you get farther down in the book.  I had to break up lesson 8 into 2 parts. Lesson 18 will be broken up into at least 3 days for me.  That is over 80 kanji to learn in one day.  Not me. (I try to do one lesson a day)

Should you do other things along with RTK? Yes, like learn Japanese.  Even if you learn all 2048 kanji in the book, you still do not know Japanese.  You achieve the same level that a Chinese or Korean student has when learning Japanese. You recognize the Characters. Even if you can pronounce them, you don't know what they mean.  And you know nothing about grammar or how the language works. 

You should learn RTK with the intention of not being able to use it until later.  Why learn it now?  Because you will be glad you did when you start learning real Japanese.  You are learning two different things.  You are learning Japanese, and you are learning Kanji.  The two are independant from each other. Almost like learning two languages. Then later, you combine them. 

The Pimsleur method has been mentioned.  I recommend the Learn in Your Car series as a follow up to the Pimsleur Course.

Before the Pimsleur Course, which took me 9 months to complete, I would recommend the Japanese in Mangaland books.  They are the best at giving you an introduction to the new language.  Why?  The Pimsleur Course has a lot of holes in it.  It never answers the why of alot of things.  I found myself saying, "So thats why this happens. So thats what that means.  So thats why I say this here, and say it like this over there."  after reading those books.  I wish I would have read them first, but I did not know any better.

Oh, and if you havent learned Kana yet, I would drop RTK and learn that ASAP. In fact, I would not do RTK until you have a good grasp on Kana. 

Good Luck

Jon_B wrote:

After having done 4 lessons in Pimsleur (2 yesterday, 2 today) I am thinking that I am not going to continue it. I could see how it would be a good system for some people, but since i have KeyHoleTV (streaming japanese tv) on all day, I can clearly hear a difference in speed, and with some people intonation and tone. The last thing I want to do is fake myself into thinking that I am learning. So I think I am going to go no-tape for my learning.

I think its a good thing you are so determined to learn via so much natural input, but how do you plan on getting to the stage when you can really benefit? I know as well as you know that by watching Japanese TV now it just feels like a lot of noise, where you cant even distinguish between different words. RTK alone isnt going to teach you any Japanese, and you aren't going to pick up hardly anything at all passively listening to native Japanese when you dont even know the fundamentals of the language.

I know the beginning is going to be very very slow, and I accept that the more work I put into it, the more the results will show. I am wondering what exactly I should learn before I make a switch to Japanese only (I know this is a ways away). But I still want to find things to do in my off RTK time that will help me build basic vocabulary, grammar, and other basic necessities needed to be able to survive in a Japanese only environment. If anyone has info on this that would be awesome. Anyone who has experienced this point in their learning please post your thoughts.

As has already been mentioned, a textbook, and ideally a course like Pimsleur.

You can't run before you can walk, which you clearly are eager to do. The Pimsleur course isn't slow enough to cause you any problems, and you will learn something from it.

Well after the first few Pimsleur tapes I actually can pick the words from their out from tv which was refreshing. I hear stuff like わかります　and えいご　(not sure if these are correct spellings) and i've heard the word じょうず　alot during the olympic coverage.

I guess that it is a start, and that I should use that. Are there any alternatives to textbooks where one can get the same information? I'm not asking for the holy grail of japanese learning or anything its just I remember how boring and useless the exercises from the German textbooks I used were. Haha just heard そ　です　ね。

Last edited by Jon_B (2008 August 20, 2:42 pm)

I'm starting to think that doing more active learning while doing kanji is the way to go, without a doubt.

I'm halfway through (well, a little less, at exactly 1000 for about 2 weeks now (yes I know I'm mid-lesson)) and I just can't bring myself to do more. I can review still, but even that's becoming stressful very quickly. So, I've decided I will keep reviewing, and keep adding kanji, albeit slowly, but I also want to start tackling things such as "All About Particles" and the mangajin books. Hopefully by the time I'm done with those two things, I'll also have managed to finish the kanji.

Why am I doing this? Well, when I started learning kanji, and then burnt out from blowing through the first 500 in a few days, I regained my momentum by studying it along with my university class. The combo of learning kanji in Heisig and then seeing them appear in a class reading was very rewarding (plus it reinforced the kanji A LOT). So, being on the verge of going back to high level university classes (still a joke in regards to learning speed, especially when thinking about AJATT), I figure I'll just put a lot of other Japanese on my plate and then eat some kanji on the side. And please excuse that horrible, horrible metaphor.