Advice:Should I study after Genki II?

[DickForce]

No the Kanji study was a key factor. He actually oddly studied kanji meaning before anything else. Other things include various forms of input which would not of been possible without the intense Kanji studying.

As for the advice thing, I think i will heed Gizmos advice far more than yours. He is very well read on second language acquisition and generally knows what he is talking about on this subject, probably more than anyone else on this forum.

I'd say play around with whatever method works best for you, and perhaps try multiple methods to see which is most efficient and effective. I started my Japanese study with kanji study embedded, and since switching to vocabulary-based study I feel like my learning rate and retention rate have both jumped. With language too, ESID

[dvac002]

Yea, ultimately everyone learns at different rates and respond better to different approaches. I'm glad this thread lead me to Anki though, it seems to be seriously potent stuff!

[coop52]

Anki's pretty good if you can remember to do it every day. Playing catch-up sucks. I use renshuu.org. It's a similar idea, but it's easier to exclude terms and kanji I already know.

I don't really get the whole competition thing people have about learning Japanese. It's not like you'll get a prize for learning the most kanji/vocab or for getting to N1 the fastest.

[therealwindycity]

If studying kanji twice over is what it takes for you to learn it, be my guest. Otherwise if you can learn it through one unified method of study, you might find yourself saving time and the total inconvenience of poring over radicals and readings.

I would agree with this, but my university Japanese classes took the approach that you're advocating, and I had a really hard remembering the many characters that had shared radicals and similar readings (especially when writing). I do agree though that the most important thing is to expose yourself to a lot of new Japanese vocabulary; targeted kanji study just helped me keep the characters from bleeding over into each other in my head and made remembering new vocabulary much easier.

[DickForce]

Perhaps I should revise my statement to say that a degree of radical study prior to vocabulary study is almost necessary. To that effect, the first book of Heisig might help you. On the other hand, you can still pick up meaning radical and pronunciation component patterns through vocabulary study, so it's something that I believe gets easier as time goes on. The first time I took Chinese I had had very little exposure to kanji and retaining the characters was impossible. 2 years and a lot of vocabulary-heavy Japanese study later, my ability to study and retain Chinese vocabulary words, without utilizing kanji study, has greatly improved. And no, I don't recognize a huge amount of the characters when I see them in Chinese, I just recognize the components (or what the components should be) after having seen over a thousand characters with shared components.

[Gizmotech]

Perhaps I should revise my statement to say that a degree of radical study prior to vocabulary study is almost necessary. To that effect, the first book of Heisig might help you. On the other hand, you can still pick up meaning radical and pronunciation component patterns through vocabulary study, so it's something that I believe gets easier as time goes on. The first time I took Chinese I had had very little exposure to kanji and retaining the characters was impossible. 2 years and a lot of vocabulary-heavy Japanese study later, my ability to study and retain Chinese vocabulary words, without utilizing kanji study, has greatly improved. And no, I don't recognize a huge amount of the characters when I see them in Chinese, I just recognize the components (or what the components should be) after having seen over a thousand characters with shared components.

I think there are very few people who actually advocate the second heisig book. Once you have the radical/writing system in place, which makes it much easier to distinguish between highly similar kanji, then you might as well move onto vocab (or do it concurrently if you're so inclined... I can't... not enough brain powahs in the day) to pick up on/kun yomi and the variety of exceptions and okurigana constructions.

[Maninguenice]

Comparing studying kanji to latin word roots is exactly the analogy I use when someone asks me "what's the deal with Japanese writing." And yeah people don't study them in school, but maybe we should. Definitely, if they were as "in your face" as the kanji are, instead of being buried beneath and corrupted by centuries of French/anglo saxon fusion. I took that approach to the SAT's, which didn't help me one bit, but it gave me a huge vocab advantage when I started Spanish, which in turn made learning Portuguese stupidly easy. So yes, I think knowledge of latin roots is super useful for learners of western languages, and learning the kanji is equally useful for students of Japanese. I really enjoyed learning the kanji (with Heisig) for the guessing power I get when coming across new words. It's not great, but gives me at least as good a chance of guessing the meaning of a new word as I have in English/Spanish/Portuguese, which is way better than it was pre-kanji when everything was about as clear as a heavily redacted government document.

[Jiggit]

Perhaps I should revise my statement to say that a degree of radical study prior to vocabulary study is almost necessary. To that effect, the first book of Heisig might help you. On the other hand, you can still pick up meaning radical and pronunciation component patterns through vocabulary study, so it's something that I believe gets easier as time goes on. The first time I took Chinese I had had very little exposure to kanji and retaining the characters was impossible. 2 years and a lot of vocabulary-heavy Japanese study later, my ability to study and retain Chinese vocabulary words, without utilizing kanji study, has greatly improved. And no, I don't recognize a huge amount of the characters when I see them in Chinese, I just recognize the components (or what the components should be) after having seen over a thousand characters with shared components.

I think I agree with your general argument and that's why I think Heisig is good if you can do it quickly. It turns what might otherwise be a stream of meaningless nonsense into something that is at least comprehensible, and when you do start to pick up kanji readings and meanings from learning them in context they'll stick in your head much easier. But if you spend ages on it, there are better uses of your time. Try and learn it before coming to Japan would be the best way to go about it imo.

[therealwindycity]

I think I agree with your general argument and that's why I think Heisig is good if you can do it quickly. It turns what might otherwise be a stream of meaningless nonsense into something that is at least comprehensible, and when you do start to pick up kanji readings and meanings from learning them in context they'll stick in your head much easier. But if you spend ages on it, there are better uses of your time. Try and learn it before coming to Japan would be the best way to go about it imo.

I think the mistake many people make is to try to do Heisig without studying anything else at the same time. It should complement other resources you're using to study Japanese

[dvac002]

I think the mistake many people make is to try to do Heisig without studying anything else at the same time. It should complement other resources you're using to study Japanese

Well if it complements something else it should definitely be vocabulary study right?

[therealwindycity]

Yes. I try to learn vocabulary in context as much as possible rather than just memorizing word lists though