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I'm an expert · Feb 14, 2016

My goal was genuinely never to insult or pull anyone down in this thread. I'm not a linguist or a teacher, nor half the shit I claim to be on here lol. But I've got some experience with learning languages, and while I don't think there is a tried and true universal method anyone can use (this is why I always used dieting as an analogy), I do think there are very obvious, common mistakes that apparently millions of people make. And these mistakes are objectively bad, wrong, and stupid. And I will make sure anyone knows that, regardless of what eventual study philosophy they follow.

If you want to learn this particular language with games, you absolutely can try. But it will be dumb. It will be dumb as fuck. And I will snicker at you. Learning Japanese is different than learning Spanish is different than learning Korean is different than learning Arabic. The way I learned English is worlds apart from how I learned Japanese, and there is no way I could apply the methods from one to the other. Realizing this will only make you waste less time and be more efficient.

Anyway, this is just my opinion blah blah, except my opinion seems to be usually right about this one tiny piece of the universe.

Resilient · Feb 14, 2016

i quickly learned that expert was full of shit

I'm an expert · Feb 14, 2016

Resilient · Feb 14, 2016

damn i feel bad now. sorry bud :'(

LorDjidane, my impressions are a few posts above if you want to read. i think i remember you saying you work a normal full time job, so do i, it's doable you just sacrifice a lot of stuff. sleep being the main one but after a month you find a bonus 3 hours in the day.

i dunno, you can read what i thought of it above, but i think once you start doing it for 2-4 weeks and start seeing a result for yourself, you'll decide whether a. it's worth continuing and b. whether it works or not. i can read a copy of メンズノンノ now tho so that's pretty cool i guess.

oh yeah that's the other thing. i thought i would want to dig into the manga i had bought and failed to get through, or the games i'd imported. but everything else is so much more interesting now. you might find you won't give a shit about the latest chapter of one piece and instead would rather read about why Japanese guys are wearing 4XL oversized jackets for winter. who knows!

Resilient · Feb 21, 2016

so what's everyone doing ATM? what content are people studying and digging into right now? anything interesting out there that you feel like sharing?

im pushing through 池袋ウエストゲートパーク reading bits of メンズノンノ・創刊３０周年記念企画 and a free community paper in Melbourne called Dengonnet. I'm not watching anything atm but with work quieting down soon I'm keen to get into some Jdrama. Kurita recommended some good stuff so I'm gonna start with that.

anybody on some good Podcasts at the moment? anybody here into Jfashion? shit is crazy, I'm gonna buy some cool shit for the coming winter.

TheSporkWithin · Feb 21, 2016

Still putting an hour or so each day on Anki. Plus another half-hour or so reviewing grammar structures from 完全マスターN2. Aside from that I spend a lot of time reading or playing games, as I've essentially been putting all of my "hobby time" into Japanese. Lately it's been more on the games than the reading, but this weekend I got quite a bit of reading time in.

Games:
I'm maybe a third of the way through Steins;Gate, which was rather slow-going at first but now I can move through fairly reasonably. I picked up the PS3 HD remasters of 龍が如く１＆２ (Yakuza series), currently about halfway through the first. I'm also playing 真女神転生IV, which has really tough vocabulary but also has furigana, which helps a lot. I just picked up Persona 4 Dancing All Night, but I probably won't start it until I finish 夜廻, which is really cool, but way too intense. On the backburner (probably stuff for spring break) I've got Bravely Default, Fire Emblem If and Xenoblade.

Manga:
I just finished catching up on the 単行本 of Billy Bat (the currently running series by Urasawa Naoki), read three volumes this weekend. I've been reading デッドデッドデモンズデデデデデデストラクション, (Asano Inio) which is quite challenging from a vocabulary standpoint but really interesting. Once I finish up the third volume it's either おやすみプンプン or いぬやしき, I'm currently undecided. I read the first volume of Orange because the movie came out and a lot of my students were talking about it but it was really sappy and I don't think I'll read any more.

Novels:
Almost done with ペンギン・ハイウェイ. I really should have finished it by now, but I've been really busy on the weekends, and I often don't feel like reading novels on weeknights. I've also started reading つぐみ by Yoshimoto Banana, which is a bit more challenging with more obscure vocabulary and longer, more ornate sentences. Still not too flowery, but tougher than anything I've read up until this point. After I finish ペンギン・ハイウェイ (maybe this week?) I'll probably start either すべてがFになる, or possibly 下町ロケット.

Podcasts:
I've been listening to ひいきびいき a lot. It's fairly easy to follow, and they talk about a lot of different sorts of things, most of which I've been at least passingly familiar with. I sometimes throw on Session 22, but I'm not as familiar with the topics that's been featured on the episodes I've listened to, so I tend to have a lot of comprehension gaps in the vocabulary while still following the general conversation.

LorDjidane · Feb 21, 2016

Hi

It's been 8 days since I started the whiteboard challenge. I went with 25 kanjis/day since the first 300 were already seen or met one way or the other (though honestly, without writing them, the memory is not too good). It takes me 3h/day now, which feels pretty long for a beginning. What frightens me the most is that the time to write all the vocabulary from each set is not decreasing so with 200 kanjis+vocabulary in 3h.. I don't wanna skip the easy first ones because that's not the point. But am I gonna need 15h later on? Am I too slow? Did I put too much vocab (I don't think so)? And bear in mind that I haven't tackled grammar points yet, I have just been trying this expert method to see if I can get through the 2 weeks disgust period.

I do feel I'm memorizing stuff but I don't want to jump to conclusions after just a week.

All I can say is that people reading about the method and not being too sure about trying it, I don't think it will hurt you. Give it a try.

If it helps, here's my reviewing data per set and what it looks like when reviewing:

(yeah that's an ugly board)

Resilient · Feb 22, 2016

sporkle: that sounds great! i really want to start some of the Jgames i have (MH Cross and Cyber Sleuth) but i think i'm just gonna keep doing the reading I have now, and then pick up dark souls 3 and digimon next order. i'm gonna have to buy ペンギン・ハイウェイ that way there will be someone else to talk to about it. sounds like a neat (simple) book. re: podcasts i run into that problem a lot, of not knowing the background of the topic and thus failing to really understand what they're talking about. but that's also because my listening sucks and i need to build vocab. i'll check those podcasts out - I'm still only listening to Hotcast which jintor posted a while back.

Lor: i would say to add the readings of the kanji in question (kana, all readings), to help shorten the time it takes. also because you'll often run into vocab that is written in kana only. and i'd also buy a bigger whiteboard if possible.

when i asked I'm an expert if I was going slow, he suggested the obvious which was to write faster. that might help you. an example of my writing list is scattered somewhere in this thread, i'll post an excerpt of it if you want it.

Kurita · Feb 22, 2016

Recently discovered the show, 家、ついていってイイですか？ and I'm loving it.
Basically the cameraman offers to pay the taxi to people who missed the last train (sometimes he offers to pay them drinks). In exchange he can discover their home and talk about their life for a while. It's great for several reasons :
-You discover real people's lives which are often more interesting than any scripted show. Not gonna lie, I cried a few times.
-It's a great way to hear spoken Japanese by a lot of different people : you get a grandma, a Shibuya-loving teen girl, a drunk salaryman in his 40s... Good way to hear how people speak at all ages.
-It just really feels intimate and not loud/showy like a lot of TV shows so it's quite relaxing

There's a nice amount of episodes on Youtube so check it out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0BsLLKOT8I

Aizo · Feb 22, 2016

I think I saw you mention that on twitter. Thanks for the link! I was thinking of checking it out.

I'm an expert · Feb 22, 2016

LorDjidane said:
Hi

It's been 8 days since I started the whiteboard challenge. I went with 25 kanjis/day since the first 300 were already seen or met one way or the other (though honestly, without writing them, the memory is not too good). It takes me 3h/day now, which feels pretty long for a beginning. What frightens me the most is that the time to write all the vocabulary from each set is not decreasing so with 200 kanjis+vocabulary in 3h.. I don't wanna skip the easy first ones because that's not the point. But am I gonna need 15h later on? Am I too slow? Did I put too much vocab (I don't think so)? And bear in mind that I haven't tackled grammar points yet, I have just been trying this expert method to see if I can get through the 2 weeks disgust period.

I do feel I'm memorizing stuff but I don't want to jump to conclusions after just a week.

All I can say is that people reading about the method and not being too sure about trying it, I don't think it will hurt you. Give it a try.

If it helps, here's my reviewing data per set and what it looks like when reviewing:

(yeah that's an ugly board)

i didn't hit 3 hours until over a month in at around jlpt2 stuff so 800+ kanji. the first month, even if you include the beginner stuff should not take more than an hour. jlpt4-3 lists should take 1.5 max. youre either slow at writing or writing too much. dont be worried about nice handwriting, but do get the strokes and radicals down. no one should feel fatigued until about 5 weeks in, or youre doing it wrong.

LorDjidane · Feb 22, 2016

Ok thanks for the feedback.

There might be something I didn't catch yet. Apart from the fact that I might have too many vocabulary words for the first hundred kanjis say (~5/kanji in avg). How did you do your daily routine? Did you have the list of words written in Japanese that you copied over your whiteboard? Or did you have the English meanings that you then tried to write from memory on your whiteboard?

Sorry if questions sound silly.

I'm an expert · Feb 22, 2016

I assume everyone is doing their own little system. In my case, I think I mentioned that I had access to some jlpt or kanzen master textbooks. So those books have jlpt kanji lists with common words. I printed them, translated all the vocab (before, during, whatever) and wrote the meaning next to them. Then I either quickly glanced at the paper or made like a list of the English translations in a word file and printed that. Either way, just imagine if I had all 2k kanji on like 50 pages and then day 1 I did page 1, then page 1 and 2, then 1,2,3 etc.

You definitely don't need 5 words per kanji for the first 500 or so kanji unless you're really weak in basic vocab. And eventually you do cut all of those first 6-700 kanji down to like 1 word each.

bigmit3737 · Feb 23, 2016

TheSporkWithin said:
Still putting an hour or so each day on Anki. Plus another half-hour or so reviewing grammar structures from 完全マスターN2. Aside from that I spend a lot of time reading or playing games, as I've essentially been putting all of my "hobby time" into Japanese. Lately it's been more on the games than the reading, but this weekend I got quite a bit of reading time in.

Games:
I'm maybe a third of the way through Steins;Gate, which was rather slow-going at first but now I can move through fairly reasonably. I picked up the PS3 HD remasters of 龍が如く１＆２ (Yakuza series), currently about halfway through the first. I'm also playing 真女神転生IV, which has really tough vocabulary but also has furigana, which helps a lot. I just picked up Persona 4 Dancing All Night, but I probably won't start it until I finish 夜廻, which is really cool, but way too intense. On the backburner (probably stuff for spring break) I've got Bravely Default, Fire Emblem If and Xenoblade.

Manga:
I just finished catching up on the 単行本 of Billy Bat (the currently running series by Urasawa Naoki), read three volumes this weekend. I've been reading デッドデッドデモンズデデデデデデストラクション, (Asano Inio) which is quite challenging from a vocabulary standpoint but really interesting. Once I finish up the third volume it's either おやすみプンプン or いぬやしき, I'm currently undecided. I read the first volume of Orange because the movie came out and a lot of my students were talking about it but it was really sappy and I don't think I'll read any more.

Novels:
Almost done with ペンギン・ハイウェイ. I really should have finished it by now, but I've been really busy on the weekends, and I often don't feel like reading novels on weeknights. I've also started reading つぐみ by Yoshimoto Banana, which is a bit more challenging with more obscure vocabulary and longer, more ornate sentences. Still not too flowery, but tougher than anything I've read up until this point. After I finish ペンギン・ハイウェイ (maybe this week?) I'll probably start either すべてがFになる, or possibly 下町ロケット.

Podcasts:
I've been listening to ひいきびいき a lot. It's fairly easy to follow, and they talk about a lot of different sorts of things, most of which I've been at least passingly familiar with. I sometimes throw on Session 22, but I'm not as familiar with the topics that's been featured on the episodes I've listened to, so I tend to have a lot of comprehension gaps in the vocabulary while still following the general conversation.

Impressive stuff!

Porcile · Feb 23, 2016

Doing the whiteboard stuff takes as long as it takes. Have some common sense about it if it's taking too long every day. Not everyone learns the same way, or writes at the same speed etc therefore your personal interpretation of the method should be tailored around the things which make it more effective than other methods (i.e daily repetition of vocab, writing by hand and reading).

For example if the goal was to get JLPT 1 kanji-ready by July 7th (test date) from right now, then that would give you over four months to cover the 2200 kanji, at around 550 per kanji per month. That's 18-19 kanji-a-day which you'll quickly realise is not so challenging. That's way too easy, so increase that to around 25-35 kanji a day and you'd be done on about the 20th of each month, leaving you another 10 days where you could go over the same kanji and vocab without adding anything new. At the start of the next month, you could begin from a completely fresh set of kanji, and then maybe at the weekends do a more substantial review of all the prior kanji and vocab so that you're still keeping everything in your head right up to the end of the four months. If you devised a method which meant that the vocab you were writing for each new kanji only used kanji you already knew then that's another way to keep older kanji and readings in your brain. This is why Wanikani's lesson plan is particularly good for this method because the new words you learn are never flanked either side by kanji you don't know. It does mean that sometimes common words don't start appearing till like level 45 however, but you're going to encounter them much more quickly than if you went through Wanikani's minimum 1.5 year plan.

Treat it like a personal training regime, don't just blindly follow someone else's, but still keep a definite goal in mind. I fell into this trap a little bit, and it bummed me out, but I'm now back on track. I think you'll end up stressing a lot less. Even this variation might not work for you, it might even be TOO easy. Ultimately the goal of the method is to get the content needed to pass JLPT 1 so keep that mind. For some that might be ten months away. Doing this thing doesn't necessarily mean you pass JLPT 1, it should I suppose if you keep up the reading and listening, but If you can't get kanji-ready in ten months, I don't know what to say.

Resilient · Feb 23, 2016

Porcile lives! Nice to see you post again mate. All good points. Make the method work for you. And don't feel like you have to prove anything to anybody. You should have a reason to want to study. That should be your drive.

TheSporkWithin · Feb 24, 2016

Finally finished Penguin Highway. Some thoughts.

Japanese level:
I feel like most people who have a good handle on N3 grammar would be able to handle the majority of the book from a pure sentence structure perspective. There are a lot of sentences that use N2/N1 grammar, but nothing that would leave you scratching your head that I can recall. There are a few passages that get a bit... philosophical, and may be rather difficult to wrap your head around. I don't think it's too bad though.

There is a fair amount of scientific vocabulary used. Nothing too terribly obscure, but a lot of stuff that I would otherwise probably not have learned until much later in my studies. That said, there's very little in the way of decorative wording or "purple prose;" just a young kid using words that are quite a few grade levels above his head. Finally, I should note that there's essentially no furigana to be found in the book. Like there are probably less than two dozen words that are glossed throughout, because this is a novel for adults. I read the Kindle version and being able to tap words to check the pronunciation was quite handy and saved me a lot of time that would have been spent scribbling into my electronic dictionary.

While it's a good read to get familiar with some of these grammar structures, the main character is not someone whose speech style you should emulate. He speaks incredibly mechanically and uses really odd wording. This is a narrative device and quite amusing, but I suppose that it's possible that someone at a lower level might not realize that it's a "joke" being made by the author. That said, the constant use of this sort of narration has helped me a great deal in terms of being able to order my thoughts a bit more logically in Japanese.

Story:
Pretty fun, and well-paced. It's not an "exciting" book, but evokes a lazy, summer-vacation feeling which is definitely intentional. It's a novel written for adults about the joy of exploring the limits of your world as a child. I found the portrayal of the narrator to be excellent, though the other characters tended to be fairly one-note, though they were pretty believably written.

It's definitely got some sci-fi elements to it, but it's extremely dreamlike. I personally wouldn't put it into any specific genre. It's also very funny, but in an extremely dry, deadpan way. I laughed out loud quite a few times while reading. Again, a lot of this is owning to the narrator and the incredible incongruity between what he writes and how he writes.

Final thoughts:
I'd recommend this to people who have a decent grasp of kanji and grammar and are looking for an adult novel that's not too challenging. I think it's a potentially enriching experience for anyone between N3 and N2. If you need stuff to be exciting or "anime" then it's not going to be for you.

Zoe · Feb 26, 2016

What is the significance of 祝 when it follows a day of the week? ex: 4月29日（金・祝）

urfe · Feb 26, 2016

Zoe said:
What is the significance of 祝 when it follows a day of the week? ex: 4月29日（金・祝）

It's a public holiday.

Resilient · Feb 26, 2016

i take back anything bad I ever said about reddit. it is a disgustingly glorious place.

RangerBAD · Feb 26, 2016

Resilient said:
i take back anything bad I ever said about reddit. it is a disgustingly glorious place.

What subreddit?

Kansoku · Feb 26, 2016

RangerBAD said:
What subreddit?

Obviously newskour, duh. =P

Lord Ghirahim · Feb 27, 2016

Extremely disappointed in weblio's new layout :/

Porcile · Feb 28, 2016

How do I stop IME from typing out individual hiragana characters for every key? I've unwittingly changed a setting and I can't type normally anymore i.e typing ka used to go to か, now each key has an assigned hiragana character A is ち B is こ and so on.

Kansoku · Feb 28, 2016

Porcile said:
How do I stop IME from typing out individual hiragana characters for every key? I've unwittingly changed a setting and I can't type normally anymore i.e typing ka used to go to か, now each key has an assigned hiragana character A is ち B is こ and so on.

Prorpieties -> Input Mode (Kana -> Romaji)?

Porcile · Feb 28, 2016

Thanks, that worked. I was too tired last night to work out how to do it. lol

Lord Ghirahim · Mar 1, 2016

Looks like they tweaked weblio's new layout a bit. I guess they actually used it and realized it was terrible. I still like the old layout better.

thiscoldblack · Mar 2, 2016

Probably JapaneseLearningGAF would appreciate this.

I obtained a free 3-month coupon for iKnow.jp from the director of research at iKnow.jp, comradeluke (via reddit), for sharing with the people at WaniKani. It has 1,000 uses and I don't think WaniKani will use all of it so I thought I might share it here as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------
The coupon is: iknow+wanikani

If you are new, you can sign up here: https://iknow.jp/signup?coupon=iknow+wanikani

You can also use the coupon on your existing subscription to add 3 more months.
------------------------------------------------------------------

What the hell is iKnow.jp?
A web application that uses SRS for learning vocabulary and sentence patterns. Official courses are offered for studying Japanese, Chinese, and SAT English. The Japanese Core 6000 covers the 6,000 most commonly used words in Japanese, and the Chinese Core 2000 covers the 2,000 most commonly used words in Chinese (available in traditional and simplified courses). All words have sample sentences and audio. Most words have also related pictures to help you remember. There's also courses made by the iKnow community that you can add and study. You can also make your own courses and share them with the community. iKnow is also a good place for shadowing context sentences for each vocabulary item.

Disclaimer: I don't work for iKnow.jp. I don't get anything from this.

Why am I doing this?: The standard 5-session trial do not give you enough time to appreciate how useful iKnow could be for your studies. This 3-month coupon is adequate to introduce you well enough to their service and their SRS implementation. Even if you don't want to subscribe, you can learn a lot in those 3 months.

Cranzor · Mar 2, 2016

Anybody know anything about Shimane or Shimane University? I'm thinking about studying abroad in the summer. It's pretty short -- only 11 days. I've never been to Japan though and it seems like it could be a good experience. There are intensive language classes during the mornings and a lot of cultural field trips and stuff. For what the program is, it seems very cheap.

I think just to round it out to two weeks, I'd maybe spend 3 days in Tokyo afterward as well. I'm likely going to be studying in Tokyo for a year in two years (I saw someone mention Rikkyo! That's where I'll be too!), so not having that as the main focus of the trip isn't a huge concern for me. I also really love the countryside of Japan and think it's very beautiful. I'm just worried because some of my Japanese friends said that it's very boring, but my teacher graduated from Shimane University and insists that it's really great.

I think I'll do it but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience!

Porcile · Mar 2, 2016

It's 11 days... What else could you be doing in those 11 days which would be better than spending 11 days at a Japanese university? Seems like a no-brainer to me, especially if you can afford it.

Acquiescence · Mar 2, 2016

Do people here still strongly recommend the Remembering the Kanji book? Being a UK resident, it seems pretty pricey over at Amazon.co.uk! But still, since I need to get into kanji in a big way, I'd be willing to buy it if it's as good as the OP claims it is.

muteki · Mar 2, 2016

Acquiescence said:
Do people here still strongly recommend the Remembering the Kanji book? Being a UK resident, it seems pretty pricey over at Amazon.co.uk! But still, since I need to get into kanji in a big way, I'd be willing to buy it if it's as good as the OP claims it is.

If you are are going to do RTK I would read the intro, then apply the method using Anki or a SRS site like http://kanji.koohii.com/ which is written around the book. It is better to create your own stories than use Heisigs, of which his only go up to 500 kanji or so and are rather dry. The community stories on Kanji Koohi are much easier to remember for me.

I like the method but it works better for some people than others. A lot of people get discouraged after spending some time with the book and then still can't read anything, which isn't what the book is for.

Haven't posted in a while but it has been a while since I hit a mile stone. Trying to wrap up this Ask reader series and the books are N2ish and I have very little time right now so progress is slow

. On the other hand it isn't too hard from a technical level so that is good. And most things I have picked up recently to play games wise have been getting easier so there is some progress there if it isn't as easy to measure.

Kansoku · Mar 2, 2016

Acquiescence said:
Do people here still strongly recommend the Remembering the Kanji book? Being a UK resident, it seems pretty pricey over at Amazon.co.uk! But still, since I need to get into kanji in a big way, I'd be willing to buy it if it's as good as the OP claims it is.

Most people would not recommend it to be honest. The thing with RtK is that it teaches you nothing, basically. It's sole purpose is to help you remember Kanji easier (well, duh). What it does is that it breaks kanji down into components and assign keywords to both, while suggesting that you make mnemonics using these keywords in order to remember them.

I used it and liked it. It let me see Kanji as components instead of a bunch of random lines, and it helped me write (since I always wrote them when reviewing), distinguish, and find (as in in a dictionary) them. It took me 6 months. Learning vocab after it became a little easier, since I mostly have no problems with the kanji part. Some people say that you pick what RtK "teaches" you naturally trough the learning of vocab, but I can't say.

It's up to you. I had (an still don't) no hurry to learn so I could afford 6 months of just being familiar with a bunch of Kanji. You might want to try it while doing other stuff as well. And btw, Kanji Damage use the same idea, but it's free on the net. Don't know if it's any good tho.

Resilient · Mar 2, 2016

I could write for days about how RTK is largely useless but I won't. Heed this words. Don't use it! It's largely useless.

A short story by Resilient.

Cranzor · Mar 2, 2016

Remembering the Kanji made me familiar with a large aspect of the language that I was kind of terrified of beforehand. After finishing RTK, remembering vocabulaly is fairly easy to me because I am very familiar with all of the jouyou kanji. Now that I'm in college, I have a much easier time with kanji than my classmates because of the time I spent with the book.

There are going to be people who say it's useless and also people who swear by it. I would recommend trying it and seeing if you like it and if not, don't worry about it. There are other ways to get familiar with kanji but for me, it was very effective.

Resilient · Mar 2, 2016

it's a large time sink for not very substantial gain. and time is valuable. that's why i think it's no good.

Porcile · Mar 3, 2016

Just learn kanji with vocab, that's all you have to do. Don't over-complicate it. If you're not learning real Japanese words you're wasting your time, simple as.

Kansoku · Mar 3, 2016

Understanding how kanji works (radicals/components, stroke order, on vs. kun yomi, etc.) is vital, and this can't be learnt just from vocab. The minimum one could do is learn that and then pick them up with vocab.

Deleted member 17706 · Mar 3, 2016

Kansoku said:
Understanding how kanji works (radicals/components, stroke order, on vs. kun yomi, etc.) is vital, and this can't be learnt just from vocab. The minimum one could do is learn that and then pick them up with vocab.

I doubt he was suggesting that you just learn how to read them--just that you integrate the Kanji study as part of vocabulary study and vice versa.

Divorcing the vocabulary, and honestly the "Japanese" element from Kanji learning like I understand you do with RTK stuff seems insane to me, but many people seem to like it, so I won't hate on it too much. It just seems extremely unnecessary.

TheSporkWithin · Mar 3, 2016

I used RTK but with heavy deviations from its core method. If you're just learning a character and attaching it to an arbitrary word in English using arbitrary stories, you are wasting a lot of time that could be better spent. However, if you use it as a framework and add Japanese keywords along with the English ones, using it as a roadmap for studying kanji in a logical manner based on known components, it can do wonders for your ability to pick apart similar looking kanji.

One big problem with other study methods that string the kanji out over a long time, is that you really need to know most of the joyo kanji in order to be able to handle any reading materials that aren't for elementary-school-age children. By divorcing your kanji studies from the grade-school levels or the JLPT levels and instead learning them in an ordering based exclusively on the components of kanji that you already know, introduced one at a time, it allows you to move through them and internalize ways of differentiating similar kanji (which end up being introduced alongside each other much of the time in this method) with a great deal more speed, which gets you to the end of the joyo list that much faster.

So yeah. The book as it is is not that great, but it can form the basis for kanji study with a lot of additional structuring applied around it. It worked for me. I'm not trying to brag, and there are a lot of people in this thread and on these forums who are way more fluent/literate than I am; but nearly everyone I've met, native or foreign, has been absolutely astonished by the rate at which my literacy level has increased in the year and eight months I've lived here.

EDIT:
To elaborate a bit, what I did was set up a deck in Anki using the book as a basis. For the front of each card I showed an English keyword (usually Heisig's, though I freely changed things up when I felt more appropriate words existed), and a few Japanese keywords written in hiragana with the section of the word that is represented by this kanji bolded. I always used at least two keywords, trying to find ones that used onyomi and kunyomi, and which would serve as good references for what the kanji typically represents. The back side had the kanji, the stroke order, the "primitives" used in the character (which I renamed quite a lot of) and a mnemonic story. As time went on I didn't really use the mnemonics so much, and now, of course, I never even think of them.

For example, the keywords for 奮 had the heisig keyword of "stirred up," along with the Japanese keywords of ふる•う・ふんとう・こうふん. 患 had "aflicted" from Heisig, and then わずら•う・かんじゃ from me. Each time I made a card I'd draw first from words I knew, but I'd look up words and try to find ones that seemed common or useful as well.

Acquiescence · Mar 3, 2016

Thanks for the input guys. Seems to be some strong opinions either way, which doesn't make my decision any easier. One thing is for sure, I need to start knuckling down with kanji in a big way, so I have to decide how to go about it. I've just finished the entire YesJapan course and, among many other things, I've learnt how to write and use 240 kanji, but that's only scratching the surface.

I think I'll sample RtK and see how I fare. To be honest, I'm not too hot on the system it uses. I understand how it functions, enabling you to write so many different characters by the end, but it's frustrating that you never actually learn their meaning and their use in a sentence. If there's a more conventional book or site out there that educates you on a large sum of kanji characters then I'm all ears.

Kansoku · Mar 3, 2016

You could always do it with conjunction with vocab, or do something like I'm a expert's method and for every kanji you also put ~5 words that use this kanji and study them together. You don't need to do it by itself. It's quite complementary.

I'm an expert · Mar 3, 2016

250 kanji is about a week and a half of study if you're slow. How long did it take you to learn those 240.

Acquiescence · Mar 4, 2016

I'm an expert said:
250 kanji is about a week and a half of study if you're slow. How long did it take you to learn those 240.

I haven't done any intensive kanji studying yet. The program I used introduced 6-7 new kanji characters and their various details per lesson, lessons which incorporated many other exercises to juggle between. It was essentially the same method I used to learn hiragana and katakana early on - not all bundled together, but rather 5-10 characters trickled out at a time.

Or maybe I am just slow. Either way, your thinly-veiled condescension is appreciated.

Kansoku said:
You could always do it with conjunction with vocab, or do something like I'm a expert's method and for every kanji you also put ~5 words that use this kanji and study them together. You don't need to do it by itself. It's quite complementary.

I guess that's kind of what I've been doing already with the small amount of kanji I've learnt. Now I need to do it on a grander scale, but I was just hoping to find a dedicated program to follow. I suppose I could just use RtK and look at each one in more depth instead of just learning how to write them and nothing else. Yeah, I might do that.

By the way, I was also looking into the JLPT Practice Questions N5 book. Seems like the next logical step for me to take. Not the actual test itself you understand, but just using the practice questions as a form of progressing and to continue studying.

I'm an expert · Mar 4, 2016

It wasn't condescension, it was me trying to save you time and pain from wasting your time with something as fucking stupid as RTK. Kanji study is as basic and boring as it gets. Put in 2 hours a day and you'll be able to read a newspaper in a few months.

If I wanted to be condescending I'd let my self assessed N1+ level do the talking.

Porcile · Mar 4, 2016

I'm an expert said:
It wasn't condescension, it was me trying to save you time and pain from wasting your time with something as fucking stupid as RTK. Kanji study is as basic and boring as it gets. Put in 2 hours a day and you'll be able to read a newspaper in a few months.

If I wanted to be condescending I'd let my self assessed N1+ level do the talking.

Are you still making a new thread?

Resilient · Mar 4, 2016

I'm an expert said:
It wasn't condescension, it was me trying to save you time and pain from wasting your time with something as fucking stupid as RTK. Kanji study is as basic and boring as it gets. Put in 2 hours a day and you'll be able to read a newspaper in a few months.

If I wanted to be condescending I'd let my self assessed N1+ level do the talking.

self assessed N1+ ? Don't they just call that N0? Maybe one day I'll be self assessed n0...

I'm an expert · Mar 4, 2016

Porcile said:
Are you still making a new thread?

so i went ahead with my job 'promotion' process here instead of back home, and am also in the middle of my year end busy season. the tiny bit of free time i have i use to get scammed by gafers and play some hots. im scheduled to head back to japan in july (pushed back due to me going partner here rather than there) but im going to be out of the tokyo office, not osaka, so now i have to figure out what to do in terms of getting rid of my place and buying or building in tokyo.. and look for schools.

basically im fucked and the thought of wasting time on a gaf thread makes my heart hurt.

Resilient · Mar 4, 2016

I'm an expert said:
so i went ahead with my job 'promotion' process here instead of back home, and am also in the middle of my year end busy season. the tiny bit of free time i have i use to get scammed by gafers and play some hots. im scheduled to head back to japan in july (pushed back due to me going partner here rather than there) but im going to be out of the tokyo office, not osaka, so now i have to figure out what to do in terms of getting rid of my place and buying or building in tokyo.. and look for schools.

basically im fucked and the thought of wasting time on a gaf thread makes my heart hurt.

shit sucks, who scammed you? GG on the job bump.

What would even go in a new thread at this point? a lot of people posted in here over the new year saying they were gonna pop in and start learning but they gone. largely just the same faces in here now studying what is working for them. And people sharing whatever good shit 💯 they find. so id say yeah it'd probaby be a waste of time 😢

Aizo · Mar 5, 2016

Probably worth getting rid of the current OP, regardless of who makes the thread.

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