why is kanji in context too advanced for you?

too much vocabulary all at once?
is the grammar too complex?
you can't separate grammar from vocabulary, or isolate grammar points?
are you moving at a pace slower than you envisioned? are you forgetting things too easily?

what's your experience with written native material like?

aphasiac wrote:

Considering this question gets asked at least once a week on here, someone needs to sticky nukemarine's thread..

i think i answer it differently every time

it's a good way for me to reflect on what i've done and what i've learned since the last person asked it.

Do you only have the workbook 1 and 2? Or do you also have the KiC Reference Book? The Reference Book introduces the kanji, readings, and vocabulary. If you feel like KiC is beyond your current level, get the Basic Kanji Books Vol. 1 + 2, and eventually also the Intermediate ones, they should be good to go. I work through those on the side with my other studies right now, they are pretty good. I also have the KiC books, but haven't been using them, so far.

Yeah, Kanji in Context is going to be difficult for a beginner. I would consider marking any sentences you're iffy on, and then asking your tutor about them. It should lead to you getting a better grasp on grammar. Also, you'll notice your pace start to pick up after you finish the Genki textbooks. If you haven't finished beginner level(Genki 2) then there's stuff like verb conjugations you're not going to know how to be able to interpret.

I like that you're working from KiC early, though. I think it will be slow going at first, but KiC does a great job of re-using words in later sentences to help cement them in your mind. It also does a good job of giving you 1 or 2 sentences for each of the compounds its highlighting so you're rarely getting a word in only a single context.

A book like KiC is where you're gonna end up in your studies anyway, and so there really isn't a reason for you to delay working with it as long as you can deal with the jump in difficulty between Genki and KiC.

Genki is real super basic, and KiC is solid intermediate and above.

If you want to read Japanese newspapers/magazines, why not read them?

For news, you can use http://www.fnn-news.com

They even have videos with exact transcriptions of everything the news reporters are saying.

For magazines, I'd suggest Hiragana Times magazine (www.hiraganatimes.com) It is a bilingual English/Japanese magazine with the pronunciation written on every kanji (and english translations for every article. A digital subscription is $60/year. But since it is a PDF, you can directly copy/paste text from the articles.
Great for SRS.

For grammar, there are many books. If you want, you could get the JLPT grammar books and study from them (you don't have to actually take the test. Just use the books to study on your own).

Well, what do you want to read?  To read novels, I think RTK3 is handy, for example.

haven9270 wrote:

Not to make a new topic, but I have a similar question.
After RTK1, should I go read and finish RTK3? Or can I leave RTK 3 for later and go straight to vocabulary and grammar?

From what I understand, I only need the first book to be literate which is my goal.

Well, with RTK1 your raw kanji knowledge is (a) way in advance of all your other skills and (b) miles ahead of what you might need to be able to start reading real Japanese (manga, novels, etc). So you definitely should be doing something else now.

bertoni wrote:

To read novels, I think RTK3 is handy, for example.

...whereas I think it's wildly overkill. You really don't need it (and haven9270 certainly doesn't need it at this point in their studies). If you encounter an RTK3 kanji in the wild the chances are overwhelmingly high that either (a) it has furigana or (b) you could guess the meaning from context anyhow or (c) even if you knew the kanji you don't know the word it's in so you'd have to look it up anyhow. The thing that will cause you trouble reading novels will be (1) lack of vocabulary and (2) not knowing enough grammar. By the time you get to where your knowledge or not of an RTK3 kanji might be important, you'll almost certainly already know the handful of more common ones because you'll have learnt the words that they happen to show up in.

I think this thread has the last time this argument came up.

Last edited by pm215 (2011 April 10, 4:46 pm)

Before I got into RTK 1, I was doing smart.fm until 2000 Step 3 where the kanji became too difficult to remember. I read comments that it was recommended to use RTK1 before moving on and so I did and I am enjoying it a lot - even coming up with a method to learn up to 40-50 kanji an hour.

My goal is to be able to read not just manga but actual full text novels as well. Heck there are manga out there that are aimed at mature audiences (such as ネオン華 which I recently got) that uses tons of kanji with no furigana at all. There is also this case with Japanese video games where certain kanji I learned from RTK 1 will show up and I'd recognize them instantly as they are vocabulary words I learned from smart.fm - proving that both systems work.

So according to the responses so far, it seems that RTK 3 is optional, and that if I do encounter kanji not in RTK1, I should just self-learn them using the Heisig method as my foundation.

arrogantape wrote:

NukeMarine's thread might be awesome but its topic doesn't sound like the thread is particularly meant for the finishers of RtK1. Please someone make a sticky topic in the RtK Volume 1 section and give it a proper name that clearly explains that it holds stuff that COMES AFTER finishing RtK 1. Because that is essential: Which way is the best way to go for a person who has just finished RtK 1.

Here's the problem.

No one knows the best way to go.
Many people have taken different paths.

On top of that, many people have started RTK in different points of their learning. Some people may not even have done RTK to begin with.

Also, goals and motivation might be very different from person to person. Someone might be studying to pass JLPT. Someone might just desire to read manga and celebrity blogs. Someone might want to read the newspaper. Someone might want to hit on a Japanese girl (or guy). Certain things might be fun for one person and detested by another. How can you recommend watching dramas to someone that hates Japanese-style filmmaking? How can you recommend playing videogames to someone that hates games?

For example, here is the path I went through:
1-Take 1 quarter at university
2-Maintain a mild interest in anime and Japanese culture for 7 years
3-Take 1 semester at CC which uses Genki 1 and start watching dramas. Pretend to read manga and enjoy it.
4-Do RTK1 concurrently with the 2nd semester at CC, start writing once a week on Lang-8, and visit Japan for a week. Subscribe to Hiragana Times but don't use it at all.
5-Begin KO2001 and use Tae Kim for any grammar points that you don't understand until you can afford the DOJG series. Also, buy some more grammar books just because they seem interesting and refer to them once every month.
6-Start Kanzen Master 2kyuu Grammar but move at an utterly slow pace.
7-In addition to dramas, watch copious amounts of AKB48 variety shows and track all their appearances/follow them on Twitter/read their blogs to get exposure to Japanese that's not scripted.
8-Go to Japan for a week again, this time in the countryside.
9-Finish KO2001, start Nihongo So-Matome Vocabulary N2.

Can I recommend that to anyone? I doubt it.

There's so many different ways to go, and there are varying goals and varying interests... how can we legitimately recommend a "best" program?

(FWIW, at my level I'm fairly confident that I would pass N3, and N2 would be a struggle. I can roughly read the newspaper and easy novels (still working on Moshidora). I can follow a few simple dramas with J-subs. My goal is N1, being able to read novels, and watching TV and legitimately enjoying it without subtitles, along with an end-game goal of locking down a JET CIR job.)