Smackle wrote:

yukkuri_kame wrote:

howtwosavealif is beyond correcting, as far as english goes, anyway.

That is so mean, but it is a bit true.

I should have probably posted that in the demotivation thread.  I am a mean old turtle.

iKnow recently changed to smart.fm and I just haven't gotten around to calling it the new name.  iknow.co.jp and smart.fm both lead to the same site for now.

Keep in mind that there are many values of "learned". You don't want to be in a situation where she writes a random word and says "ok, what's this and how do you read it?".

~J

Yea, do the KO2001 lists: http://smart.fm/lists/47378
The kanji from the core steps don't seem to be in a very logical progression.

There are items in the KO2001 lists that iknow doesn't have example sentences for so I think that is where the difference comes from.  There are also some other minor things you have to work around but over all it is far better than the core series.  I am not sure learning them randomly through anki is the most efficient or even enjoyable way. 

Also try the brainspeed feature for the RTK lists:
http://smart.fm/lists/41878-remembering … nji-part-1
http://smart.fm/lists/41156-heisig-s-re … e-kanji-l1

I would also suggest the majority of your study time now be dedicated to finishing RTK.  You will progress much much faster with smart.fm after you finish RTK.

Last edited by bodhisamaya (2009 March 15, 1:32 pm)

I can read the newspaper in 11 months of self study. Not everything, but a lot.

Ignore roseta stone, it's wasted time.

1) Do RTK or the movie method using a SRS (this site is great)
2) Go for the sentences using anki.
3) Listen to tons of natural audio.

Last edited by mentat_kgs (2009 March 15, 9:00 pm)

I'm a little surprised nobody has linked to www.alljapaneseallthetime.com yet. Thunk, that guy went from no knowledge to completing and interview and landing a full-time job in Japan in 18 months, on his own. He posted a pretty specific guide to doing the same, but a lot of the content on the site is also stuff to get you amped for self-study.

As with anything, the success of classes hugely depends on the quality of the person who is teaching. If the teacher is good, then some classes definitely help and would be highly recommended. Of course, it's possible to become literate without classes, but a good class will help you save time and avoid many mistakes.

I only had 4 months of classes, but I don't regret it. I consider them to have been very useful to me. I just didn't take more because I ran out of money. But now I'm doing good with self-study.

vgambit wrote:

I'm a little surprised nobody has linked to www.alljapaneseallthetime.com yet.

Around here, you start assuming people have already seen it.

~J

howtwosavealif3 wrote:

isn't it like even japanese people like can't read every single kanji/word in a book or whatever like I can't even do that in english (like harry potter lols. I dont' give a shit... i'm not gonna look up everything frikin' adjective that I don't nkow). i heard some japanese people they know what some kanji/word means but doesn't know how to pronounce it while reading a book or whatever.

personally i have no interest reading the news so i don't care if i'm literate with that... i don't really like listening/watching news in english anyways.

i don't like reading novels except for harry potter which is over now and i read twligiht but it ain't that good so i stopped at book 1.

i thnk just focus on why you want to be literate. what you want to read. i'm reading manga but ihate manga but i'm doing it for anime.

But basically you have to read A LOT... like I went from concentrating for 5 seconds to reemmber the pronounciation of some hiragana and going blank for pronounciation of some katakana character to reading hiragana/katakana without "thinking" as well as almost 2000 kanji (well there's a s***load of irregulars so idk).
you know how they say if you know 1200 you know 95% of kanji that's commonly (or is that 95% in newspapers) but i don't think that's really true... at least with stuff iwant to read. all the good stuff in the stuff i want to read is kanji i don't know? you know what i'm sayin... well written crap is well written well so

I read song lyrics (funnest way to speed up your hiragana reading speed)-> websites -> drama script/summary/manga
+ONE BIG MENTION is tae kim's guide  I studied that shit like whatever but as boring as it was... it was beneficial. perhaps referencing as you run into stuff is funner/easier but i did the opposite order for the most part b.c. i learned spanish like this in school so like that principal/way of learning seemed "right" to me...

for manga even if you know all the words if you don't KNOW ( I mean KNOW not just some general idea etc) the grammar there's a chance you'll have no idea what the hell they're saing or why the hell they're saying it or who the hell they're saing it...

wow, you're barely literate in english...

So, I've been plugging away, and am currently at 1300 kanji. By Sunday, I'll be at 1586, if I stay on schedule.  By May, I should be done with RTK1.

I have a question.  RTK3.  Does it make that big of a difference?  Has anyone gone on to learn those kanji, too, and found them to be incredibly helpful in your reading of Japanese?  In other words, should I tackle it after RTK1?

woodwojr wrote:

3) Frequent exposure. Read every day. This may be more information than you actually wanted, but I found that switching over to ero-manga for my *cough* "personal needs" (おかず) provided yet another source of reading that was reliable, even if I was being kept busy by day-to-day life. Warning, this only works if you actually care about the plot

Hilarious advice.

Also, Rich_f, be a bit careful when you're using Genki.  I think Genki is an okay book, and I'm not one of those people who think that every single sentence you ever look at needs to be 100% uber-natural, but there are some things about it that I really think go a bit too far.  Mostly, the book ignores almost all of the differences in speaking style between close friends, people of different ages, superiors, etc.  For basically all of the first book in the dialogues all friends talk to each other like they've never met before, for example.

Even when different speaking styles like keigo and direct style are introduced, the dialogues still continue to be pretty absurd.  It's a pretty good book for teaching basic Japanese skills, and it's a very good book to quickly learn enough Japanese to get by, but the goal is never natural sounding speech.  I think it's very useful, but if you're meaning to use the prevailing method that everyone on this website always talks about it's not really good for that.  Maybe I only think it's useful because I am not doing the method everyone talks about on this website.

If you have the money, btw, it might actually be a good idea to use a different textbook.  Mangaland or Minna no Nihongo or something.  Doing one of those with Japanese: The Spoken Language for speaking practice and in depth grammar would be a good bet, I suppose.

Incidentally, the the zeitgeist of people in the academic world who are interested in language pedagogy has been moving farther and farther away from worrying about natural speech.  The idea is that it is most important to be able to express yourself even if you do not sound all that natural.  You can always work on sounding better, contrary to popular belief.