I have learned hiragana and am finishing up katakana. I have bought the first genki book as well and plan to start after finishing up katakana. I thought the kodansha kanji learners book would be best since I heard lots against rtk and didnt like the lack of vocab. Is it a good book to use? I also have an anki deck to go alongside it. Also if it is good to use then should I do it alongside genki or do one before the other?
3 comments
I tried KKLC early and really struggled with the GRS exercise because even at an upper beginner level (JLPT n5/n4) you encounter a lot of sentences you can’t understand even if you can read them phonetically. (This includes a lot of idiomatic expressions and some grammar that’s not rare, per-se, but that you won’t find in Genki I or II)
On the other hand, I think if you just focused on trying to read phonetically, you could make progress and learn some useful vocab along the way.
I personally wouldn’t recommend KKLC before Genki. I regret that I didn’t try WaniKani earlier, maybe have a look at that? Or just do the Genki kanji for now and try something else after Genki?
If you plan to write by hand frequently, absolutely get it. If you just want to recall and recognize kanji better, it’s good but tedious. If you want vocab, there are better resources. It’s well done and a lot of effort from the author but ultimately it’s a niche use case. I got a lot of value from let’s say 500 kanji of memorization before getting tired. The author recommends focus on reading books at 1200 kanji known. The later kanji certainly get diminishing returns, but certainly still get used. The thing is once you get a basis on how to memorize kanji, you’ll be less inclined to study more.
Do it the same time as Genki for sure.
Paired with genki it’s good imho but primarily if learning radical meanings and creating narratives to memorize kanji works well for you