I am new to this forum, I hope this post is in the right place and that my questions have not already been done to death somewhere else in the forum. I have found a bewildering amount of info and have looked for answers before posting but I'm still lost, so I'd like to ask a few questions here and hopefully some kind members who are ahead of me can help me out here, thank you!

I want to spend more time studying and less time combing through forums I wasted hours yesterday and was more confused than enlightened by the end


Here's my story. I am new to Heisig's RTK vol.1.
I am not new to Japanese and having done JLPT N3 am setting my sights on N2.

But, my oh my, Kanji is my Achilles' heel. Those I have learned have been from exhaustive reading practice, but after taking N3 it's become apparent to me that I won't be able to get much further unless I really take on Kanji. I can really see the advantage to the Heisig system for me in so far as I am fast at remembering readings and jukugo but terrible at telling similar kanji apart and recalling their meaning/writing in the first place. So RTK looks like the way to go.

But I have a BURNING question - the idea of the so called 'RevTK lite' containing the 1000+ Kanji for N2 level study is +really+ tempting. I'm led to believe it contains the primitives needed to make sense of the stories thus not busting the crucial Heisig ordered learning system.

So, does RevTK lite still 'work'? If it does, ideally I'd like to try it and then come back to do a full book study after wards.

I'd love to hear from those with experience. I've heard it said before that knowing the most common Kanji will get you reading about three quarters of everything. The idea of learning more common (whilst N2 Kanji may not perfectly correspond to the most common Kanji I'm sure none of 'em are archaic or obsolete) 1000 or so Kanji and being able to recognize 75% of what I see is seductive! I seem to have little trouble with readings once I can, erm, Remember The Kanji.

BUT does the RevTK lite sequence maintain Heisig's crucial learning order, or close enough?

Or should I bite the bullet and learn in the Heisig book order even if that means learning odd Kanji of limited use from the beginning? That seems demoralizing when I can't get the idea of a shortcut to the 1000+ most useful Kanji out of my head.

To sum up - I'm wondering if there is a workable way to marry the Heisig system with the most used Joyo Kanji i.e. the first 1000+ of 'em. Or with the JLPT N2 level Kanji or it's approximate.

I'm early on in the book, and I don't want to go barking up the wrong tree.

Advice from those who've tried the RevTK Lite version and from those with experience will be much appreciated. I especially would like to hear from those on the other side of this about how they got over the hill

Thank you!