Review 1: Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course

Personal kanji learning journey reflection

According to my blog, I started the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course in February. Last night, about 6.5 months in, I reached the ~halfway mark of 1,100 kanji. Compared to when I did the Remembering the Kanji volume 1 book, that took me only 4 months. 😩 But I know I had several dry spells in studying kanji this year until about 3 months ago. 🤷‍♀️ I know myself, and this is true of others, too: Japanese learning is a "marathon" where I have to walk or even completely stop sometimes.

I stopped RTK at around 1,900 kanji (so sad) just before or during the beginning of my trip to Japan last year in the late winter. Being in Japan while also working at night just ate up all my energy that I had no willingness to keep up with any form of Anki, let alone my kanji learning specifically. I was too exhausted as it was just interpreting and translating all day while navigating and enjoying new sights, then working at night.

If I'm being realistic, the same thing may happen again to me this fall when I go to Japan. So, am I wasting my time trying to relearn kanji? I hope not...

But enough about my personal reflection. Let's move on to my thoughts on Kodansha.

On Kodansha

Why did I pick Kodansha over RTK on my second time of dedicated kanji learning?

I came across Kodansha after procrastinating Japanese study and reading Japanese language subreddits. People recommended Kodansha over RTK because it seemed like an improved version of RTK:

• the order the kanji are introduced are nicer
• onyomi and kunyomi readings are provided, though not required to memorize; just really good for exposure and seeing patterns
• key common vocabulary are introduced, only using kanji combinations you've encountered up to that point; also not required to memorize, but again good for exposure, as well as underscore a kanji's "true" meaning with nuances that aren't easily captured in single-word Japanese-English translations
• each kanji entry has a prewritten story

I love the contextual readings and vocabulary provided!

RTK stopped providing prewritten stories a few hundred kanji in, and that was a real impediment to me. I got around it by using a website called Koohi, but it was cumbersome to do. I needed to write down the stories in my notebook to reference back to since the textbook didn't provide them for me, which ate up a lot of time. The other reason I didn't go back to RTK was just to get a fresh perspective on learning kanji from another pedagogical technique.

I don't regret my choice. Kodansha has been a lot less effort for me to get through. I've been able to streamline my kanji learning much better compared to RTK.

Besides Kodansha itself, the corresponding Anki deck I downloaded sections kanji into groups of 100. This means if I want to skip reviewing kanji I've already partially learned to prioritize new kanji because of limited time, I can do so. In contrast, my RTK Anki deck was all just one section – I had to finish all the review cards before I could move to the new cards, which really ate up a lot of time the more I progressed, and the more kanji cards I already learned. (Granted, there may be a setting for me to fine-tune this in Anki.)

Of course, it helps that I had experience in the past with a similar kanji learning system, and I remembered some kanji meanings and stories from RTK that accelerated my memorization with Kodansha. (So, it's extra funny that in calendar time I've spent more time with Kodansha, but of course as noted I've generally been "lazier" or needed to put in less effort.)

Will I finish?

I hope so!

I have another month until my trip, so let's see how far I can go. I will also super try to keep up my learning while in Japan – perhaps limit the minimal amount of cards I review (20?) and learn (4?).