yep,
for example…

五十三億 一千二百三十四万 五千六百七十八
5,312,345,678

27 is not too old at all.

I came here when I was 23, now 26. My brother was 27 when he came, and one of my coworkers was 31 when he came. I’ve even heard cases of some older (into mid or late 30s) but I will admit, the majority tend to be younger, but I think this is just because more younger kids apply and so they out-weigh the older ones.

27 is fine.

I didn’t mean for my comment to come off as saying that there isn’t some benefit that could be had from studying RTK. Of course if you have all the time in the world to study countless hours, you can study any and every material you rheart desires.

But far too often I hear about students who ignore everything but RTK near the beginning of their studies and focus purely on RTK. This I fail to see as beneficial. Again this could be affected by the fact that I am living in Japan and for me to ignore learning other stuff (my time is limited working full time of course) and to just focus on Kanji without learning readings or vocab, seems like a waste of time for me.

You are right. I did start learning RTK for a bit, but when I saw that the Kanji I was learning I almost NEVER saw in Japan, or if I did, it was extremely rare. (And I know you’re supposed to learn the components of a kanji first etc etc) But for me, breaking down a kanji wasn’t really a problem. I don’t get when people say it looks like a jumbled mess.

I simply bought a Jouyou kanji book and it taught about radicals too. I learned in the same basic process an elementary school kid would. I know Koichi’s method bashes this too because in Japan they learn the kanji with easier concepts and meanings because kids wouldn’t understand more complicated ones.

However, I doubt any students could use these kanji that they learn because the meanings and concepts are beyond their ability to express in Japanese.

Anyways, yeah, I just wanted to express my thoughts on the subject of RTK and the methods of which people learn Kanji. I am a firm believer that if you don’t use it, you lose it. Anki can only go so far. You need to be putting what you learn into practice.

I wanted to read and drop in on this thread earlier but didn’t have a chance. I thought I could provide atleast some insight as one of the people on this board who are currently living in Japan.

I agree that you shouldn’t tell Japan to change because it doesn’t suit your ideal view that you have preconceived. The strongest thing I took with me to Japan was my open mind. I had no preconceived notions and did not ‘expect’ anything from my time here.

I basically knew I would need atleast 3 years to get to a point where I would start to see serious results with my Japanese. Now, I am at a point where I want to get more and more serious with my Japanese. I am about 2 and a half years into my adventure. I used my eikaiwa as a way to get my foot in the door. I never could have made such progress just living in Canada.

I have made AMAZING friends, great network contacts for future jobs and the whole world is open to me. I came here at about your age. I was 23 back when I came to Japan. At that time, I could JUST read hiragana and katakana plus a few phrases and greetings.

I agree with a lot that has been said in this thread. Get a degree in something you will love for the rest of your life. Japan, in and of itself, shouldn’t be the goal either. It should be a means to an end. It’s sometimes hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you’ve gotta just dig in and keep moving forward.

I envy a lot of you who got started younger than I did. I started studying Japanese much later than many of you. Maybe right now my Japanese is better than some of you, but if you study, by the time you get to be my age (26 now) you can easily surpass me.

/endbreath….