Remember the Kanji: useful or useless?

[ホアー ビち]

RTK is good 4 me cuz like, kanji were scary before i went through it but now they arent any longer but the kanjis i dunno are still scary until i get familiar wit em. but some people say its complete waste of time and recommend jumping str8 into vocab. so, opinions?

[Down]

The more I look back on the whole "learning the kanji" thing, the more I think learning them outside of any context is inefficient as hell. RTK being extremely out of context (since if I'm not wrong you don't even learn pronounciation, just an abstract "meaning" that may or may not be well rendered). Just learn like the 100 basics one and jump to vocab. It won't be easy at first but it'll come. VNs + text hookers make the process much smoother.

[Yuuko]

If I'm not wrong RTK1 is about learning the abstract "meaning" and after you have done that huge task, they throw RTK2 at you which gives you the readings. After that is still RTK3 too

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, Down said:

 Just learn like the 100 basics one and jump to vocab. It won't be easy at first but it'll come. VNs + text hookers make the process much smoother.

except the 100 basics arent the 100 most common. RTK doesnt do like jap children learn, it teaches kanjis by simplicity, not by order of the most common.

23 hours ago, Kiriririri said:

If I'm not wrong RTK1 is about learning the abstract "meaning" and after you have done that huge task, they throw RTK2 at you which gives you the readings. After that is still RTK3 too

RTK2 is a waste of time, tho. cuz learning readings is bullshit, when you can just learn vocab pronunciation...

[Yuuko]

12 minutes ago, ロル ビち said:

RTK2 is a waste of time, tho. cuz learning readings is bullshit, when you can just learn vocab pronunciation...

Well you didn't say you were talking about only the part 1 so...  (Also I try to learn readings too but I don't use RTK)

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, Kiriririri said:

Well you didn't say you were talking about only the part 1 so...  (Also I try to learn readings too but I don't use RTK)

[Deep Blue]

nothing is a waste of time, anything that immerse yourself into the japanese won't be a waste of time in the long run, now the questions is: can you use that time more efficiently or are more efficient ways to spend your time learning? It depends on you entirely, after finishing the book I didn't remember many of the kanji xD (specially the last one) but when I started learning vocabulary it really helped me remembering the words because I knew how the kanji looked or had a vague idea on what they were so it was easier for me to stick that word into my memory

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, Deep Blue said:

nothing is a waste of time, anything that immerse yourself into the japanese won't be a waste of time in the long run, now the questions is: can you use that time more efficiently or are more efficient ways to spend your time learning? It depends on you entirely, after finishing the book I didn't remember many of the kanji xD (specially the last one) but when I started learning vocabulary it really helped me remembering the words because I knew how the kanji looked or had a vague idea on what they were so it was easier for me to stick that word into my memory

but did u use anki with it?

[Deep Blue]

17 minutes ago, ロル ビち said:

but did u use anki with it?

I have the book a long and heavy ass book

I printed this https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2012/12/RK-1-6th-edition-sample.pdf (but the whole book)

[Hanako]

40 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

If I'm not wrong RTK1 is about learning the abstract "meaning" and after you have done that huge task, they throw RTK2 at you which gives you the readings. After that is still RTK3 too

tfw I read "REKT"

more seriously, I think that you need the meaning AND the reading, so I think that could work if you do the RTK1 and 2. But it's learning the hard way  

[CeruleanGamer]

Saw RTK thinking you guys are talking about Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Left the thread disappointed.  

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, CeruleanGamer said:

Saw RTK thinking you guys are talking about Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Left the thread disappointed.  

ur lying, the threads title is remember the kanji, not rtk so u obvsly coludnt possibly 'see' RTK, just in the threas unless you were blind but then ur pc would spell it for yo so theres no way anyway but a lie

[Funnerific]

I learnt the main bulk of kanji in about two months using kanjidamage for the learning order, personally checking the usage in words for each one and using a spaced repetition service (Memrise, Anki is another popular one). Don't blindly rely on any kanji teaching service, be it RTK or whatever.

[ホアー ビち]

this is the most beautiful kanji ever:

 

 

everybody underrates it and tries to put it low, but those who truly know it know its a beautiful gem. T_T

[KuroganeHomura]

14 minutes ago, Funnerific said:

I learnt the main bulk of kanji in about two months using kanjidamage for the learning order, personally checking the usage in words for each one and using a spaced repetition service (Memrise, Anki is another popular one). Don't blindly rely on any kanji teaching service, be it RTK or whatever.

Kanjidamage is pretty useful if you want to learn vocabulary.

But yeah, the very idea of "learning kanji" doesn't really make sense. Learning the various readings for a kanji won't help you much since you never know which particular reading is actually used in a given word without actually looking the word up in a dictionary. Personally, I've found the most effective way to increase reading proficiency is to just read a lot, look up the words you don't know, save them in a list and learn from that. That way, you learn the words in context, so you know how they're actually used.

[Deep Blue]

3 minutes ago, ロル ビち said:

this is the most beautiful kanji ever:

 

 

everybody underrates it and tries to put it low, but those who truly know it know its a beautiful gem. T_T

there are some terrible words formed with that kanji for example 姦 just saying... is just a kanji nothing more. If you are talking about women then that's  a different thing.

[Yuuko]

1 minute ago, Deep Blue said:

姦

Goddammit you ruined what I was about to do.

[Deep Blue]

Just now, Kiriririri said:

Goddammit you ruined what I was about to do.

xD I knew it 

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, Deep Blue said:

there are some terrible words formed with that kanji for example 姦 just saying... is just a kanji nothing more. If you are talking about women then that's  a different thing.

勦 虜

[Nosebleed]

RTK isn't useless as review material, but as your sole source for learning kanji it's really not that great since once you finish it you pretty much still don't know jackshit other than what kanji look like, even though you spent months reading it.

My suggestion? Learn most N5 - N4 Kanji and vocab and start reading after that, it'll be hard at first but you begin to get much more accustomed to Japanese as a whole, whereas RTK just gets you familiarized with what kanji look like.

[Bolverk]

RTK method using mnemonics isn't bad, it's good stuff. But going for 2000 kanjis alone is a really bad way of using it. Rather learn kanjis with mnemoics and words the kanjis are used in. While learning grammar. Because these are all interconnected it becomes easier to learn, and you gain actual practical jp knowledge.

Rather use a guide like this http://ja-minimal.tumblr.com/post/54363755004/contents

Or something else. Regardless. If you goal is reading vn's mainly. I'd recommend get some minimal mastery of jp and good grounds in grammar then use text-hookers to read vns you actually want to read. It's slow at first, but a hell lot more fun than spending your time on spaced repetition software. (This latter part is my opinion, anki lovers. Deal with it )