I just started season 2 on textfugu, and while i still have quite a while to go on the site, i was curious what some good steps are to take with progression.

by season 2, i have up to the stroke 3 kanij understood pretty well, and i’m starting the “Particle Wars” chapter.

Anyways, when should i start branching out to other resources in addition to this one? Should i get my kanji/pronunciation/grammar from other places? It’s just so easy to get lost in the sea of internet resources (like being in a gym and not knowing what to work out first). Loving textfugu so far, and will continue to use it until there’s nothing left to learn – but, what have you guys done to get started on a diverse learning path?

I always feel like i’m putting too much focus on one area of study for too long..

hope this made sense – thank you!

Here you shall find a lot of inspiration:

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/all-japanese-all-the-time-ajatt-how-to-learn-japanese-on-your-own-having-fun-and-to-fluency

Keep up reviewing and studying at your pace tho! Don’t get overwhelmed by the vast possibilities.

D-Rock yeah i noticed the resources page and was thinking about giving them a look. soo many choices though!

Revenant, i am very interested in RTK, and was curious about the differences from textfugu, because i heard they were.. -kind of- similar.

and i can’t for the life of me figure out how to PM people on here.. i’ve been to your profile and whatnot but haven’t seen the “PM” or “message” link or anything lol

What RTK does is taking the smallest possible elements that make up kanji, much like the radicals, and make “primitives” out of them. Primitives are similar but not the same as radicals. Depending on their position in a particular kanji they can take on different nuances of meaning. For example the kanji for month 月 can (when used as a primitive) be “flesh” or “part of the body”, depending on where it is positioned.

You then take apart a new kanji to be learned and create a story around it, which can be as small as a little pun. This story always contains all the primitives used in the kanji, which itself is given a meaning here called “keyword”, because this meaning is not always 100% what the kanji really is used for. This is due to having over 2000 kanji, and to keep every keyword unique.

These stories are as vivid and weird as it gets, so your brain will remember which primitives to assemble when seeing a particular keyword. If you see the kanji for near for example, you could use this story (or your own, or one of many others provided in the community which formed around this book) “The end is near. The *axe*-murderer is waiting for you on the *road*…” where *axe* and *road* are the two primitives making up the kanji for near. You will be able to perfectly write this out correctly without a second thought.

The only thing RTK doesn’t do is teaching any readings. You won’t learn on or kun yomi!

This is to be picked up later, when you learn vocabulary by learning whole sentences using a word with a kanji in it. You then learn how to read it in context, as doing this will be much more easier than ever before: All the kanji will be something for you. No scribbles, you know all the forms, plus a vague meaning.

RTK does only what it claims: Teaching the writing and meaning of some 2100 kanji characters (all the yoyo-kanji!). FInishing this book means you’ll never see an unfamiliar kanji within reason (newspaper, official texts; not necessarly fiction).

i do have a few questions though (not sure if you’re able to answer them all)..

first off, how long would something like finishing the books take? I understand everyone goes at their own pace.. but i mean.. is it a several-year in the making endeavor? totally fine if it is.. it IS another language, after all. or, is it some super fast miracle technique that only takes a few months? (generally speaking)

second off, does this method emphasize drawing the actual kanji characters? textfugu doesn’t have you write up the kanji, but would i have to memorize stroke order, etc?

and lastly, can i just do this in the background of all my other learning? like, should i try to blow through it all first before tackling other stuff?

oh oh also, will i be fine not learning the on’yomi and kun’yomi? if i don’t know how it -sounds-, i’ll probably have to backtrack and figure out what they actually sound like, right?

sorry for the barrage of questions.. haha. i’m just kind of hooked by the mouth now.. i just need to be reeled in .. so to speak.

Thanks!

Yes, all the emphasis is on drawing the characters. Memorising stroke order is no big deal – there are a few set rules like left->right then top->bottom, and Heisig walks you through all new stroke order patterns as you come to them. After a while, the stroke order rules become second nature. While there are obviously a few kanji with irregular stroke orders (which Heisig points out anyway), you should soon be able to guess a radical’s/primitive’s stroke order without actually looking it up :P

While I halted all my other studying to get it out of the way, it’s entirely up to you. It can get a little tedious after a while, but I was seeing the results appear so rapidly that I was pretty determined to keep going :) Also, Koichi was being/still is slow with lesson updates, so I had to do SOMETHING ;)

What I’m doing just now is learning the readings through TextFugu’s kanji section. They aren’t TOTALLY necessary, but can sometimes be handy in remembering vocab. Sometimes you can just pick up readings from seeing enough words that contain them. Basically, don’t worry about the readings – the benefits from learning how to recognise kanji outweigh not learning readings COMPLETELY haha Also, don’t bother with RTK 2 – it’s the one that deals with readings, but has had some pretty bad reviews.