RTK Kanji or Vocab First ??

Hi
I’ve been studying the rtk Kanji for a little while now and have learned 400 so far. I’ve also simultaneously been learning N5 Vocabulary from the 1000 N5 Tango textbook. However, I’m coming across loads of Kanji I don’t know yet so I was wondering if I should just learn all the Kanji first then study vocabulary because if I don’t, won’t I have to go back and re learn all the vocabulary so I know how to write them. I’m such a perfectionist when it comes to my study plans and this is really irking me 😭 I’d like to continue learning as I currently am, but want to know what will I do with all the vocabulary that I don’t know how to write .

Also side note, anyone know any good English to Japanese anki decks for the N5 Tango textbook ?

Any advice would be amazing 💗

Thank you !

4 comments
  1. Both at the same time. You will keep reviewing kanji and vocab anyway. Don’t overthink it.

    Source: me

  2. You can do it in any order you like. Writing seems to be important to you though, so I’d suggest RTK first. If you weren’t interested in writing then I’d say vocab first – or vocab only if you were just happy with recognition.

    Being able to type kanji (via IMEs) means there’s less reason to learn to write kanji these days. In such instances RTK is a big hurdle to get over for beginners, so I usually recommend not doing it until later (and then only if you want to hand write kanji).

    Of course, some people find that learning to write kanji helps them recognize those kanji and to learn vocab. So no one solution fits all needs and abilities.

  3. I did both at the same time. Trust me : it doesn’t matter. Even if the vocab order doesn’t match the RTK order, you’ll still know what kanji is inside any word because you’ll keep seeing those words even after you’re done with RTK.

  4. I have about 4000 vocab under my belt, and as of two days ago decided to begin RTK (handwriting as well). I had no issues memorizing vocabulary without having Kanji knowledge, so I’d recommend doing both at the same time.

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