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Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

Thanks. So, I'm actually doing it as a side thing while learning German. I have found I can't do two languages at once, but that learning the characters doesn't interfere.

I should finish them by April or so, and be advanced enough in German at that point that I can switch to Japanese. At which point I'll do Pimsleur and Assimil.

I think having the character base will accelerate that process. I previously tried Pimsleur Japanese, but found it didn't go smoothly compared to European languages I've done. The lack of characters was a big hurdle.

Thanks though. Is discouraged RTK learner someone who completed RTK, or someone who fails to

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Someone who fails. The usual pattern is: new learner goes all-in on RtK, makes it a month or two, then gives up after realizing that they’re making no discernible progress, even though they “know” lots of kanji.

There are useful parts of RtK, but they’re the parts Heisig didn’t invent: radicals and mnemonics. You can (and should) employ both, but in the context of words. As you learn words, the “meanings” of kanji will naturally settle in your brain.

RtK people love to argue that it helps them infer the meanings of words and discriminate similar kanji. But in practice, it’s insanely difficult to do the former (except for simple words), and the latter is rarely necessary. It’s far more common to encounter 2-3 kanji compounds with unique meanings that recombine into words, than it is to find words that compose meanings from their individual kanji.

Yeah, I could see that happening. I'm not expecting it to be a panacea, just a mild accelerant I can actually do while waiting to finish with German.

What do you think of that plan? My assumption is that I'll better be able to learn the words in the Pimsleur course the second time around when I can see the writing, and that this will make the overall process easier. It felt like too much, cognitively, the last time.

And at my current pace, the Kanji are about 30 min per day, so it mostly feels fun. If I were doing more I don't think it would be worthwhile, it would be stressful.

To be honest, I think you’d be better off just studying words. Studying kanji really doesn’t help you.

Right, but zero? I can’t study Japanese words at the moment without interfering with German.

If you're doing it mostly for fun with a side benefit of recognizing a few characters here and there, go for it. Just know you're choosing to learn in a way that's not really recommended for most.

If your learning goals are mostly focused around reading, it's helpful a bit.

If you want to actually understand and use the language, hiragana, katakana, vocab and grammar have much higher utility.

This is correct.

My most complete advice would be to focus exclusively on the language you’re learning and don’t futz around with half-measures, but who am I to tell you what to study? If you’ve gotta satisfy the itch, then sure, you might learn something.

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