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Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - weatherman - 2014-04-15
I've been working through RTK for a while, and though I've generally gone at a leisurely pace, am now trying to pick things up so that I can finish everything in the next couple of months. Unfortunately, the more characters I learn, the more Anki reviews I have--and it's gotten to the point now where most days I don't really have time left to learn new characters after going through my reviews. I'm also finding that I hate doing Anki for RTK (though I enjoy it for Korean and Japanese vocab) because it takes so long to work through each card as I try to trace out each character that comes up piece-by-piece in my head. Am I doing things wrong? Would it be better to slow things down in terms of learning new characters and wait for my review numbers to drop? Or should I push ahead with learning new characters and ignore the reviews? Would really appreciate some advice. Thanks!
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - Splatted - 2014-04-15
A few things:
1) Physically drawing the characters (even just with your finger) may actually be faster and would make a more involved memory.
2) If you decide how much time your willing to dedicate to RTK (this doesn't have to be a particularly specific amount but the point is that you don't have an arbitrary number of new cards that you must add each day) and only add new cards after reviewing you can add as much you're capable of without worrying that the reviews will get out of hand because as the reviews increase the new cards decrease, and as the new cards decrease the reviews decrease and the new cards increase again. You can simply work as hard as you are able and reap the rewards.
3) You don't actually have to finish RTK. If you've got to the point where you can deal with an unknown kanji then you've already got what you need from the book. You might want to read through the rest and learn the remaining primitives but you certainly don't need to memorise every kanji if you don't want to.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - weatherman - 2014-04-15
Thanks, Splatted. I saw your advice while I was in the middle of doing my reviews and tried to apply it.
1) When I first started RTK, I was drawing the characters out with my finger but then switched to mental tracing thinking that that would be faster. After trying it again with my finger today, however, I don't think that was the case--and I realized that, even though I've been writing the characters out five times the first time I learn them, I've forgotten how to write certain primitives. I'm going to go back to using my finger from now on.
2 & 3) To be honest, I was hoping to hear that it wasn't necessary to review--as I really want to finish the book and move on with actual study. You're right though that there's no reason that I have to finish this book, so I think I might just keep up with my reviews for now (and perhaps look ahead at some of the primitives) and focus on other kinds of Japanese study. I can always come back to RTK later.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - bertoni - 2014-04-15
I personally would stop adding new characters and catch up on the reviews. Quitting RtK entirely might be fine, too, but I think that adding new characters that you aren't going to retain is a waste of time.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - john555 - 2014-04-16
My own take on this? Just dump Anki altogether. I didn't use Anki and I got through RTK1 no problem. It's funny but after reading various posts by people who use anki I see nothing that gives me the urge to use Anki. The problem with Anki is it tries to make rocket science out of that which is most definitely not rocket science.
Here's how I did it. I learned around 100 new kanji each week or two. I would look at the kanji in the book, make up as story about it, write the story in a notebook, and then move on to the next one.
I would do about twenty kanji at one sitting. I usually made paper flashcards at the same time for random testing later.
Then I would test my recall of the new kanji by running through the list of new kanji (cover up the kanji, look at the keyword and write the kanji). Usually I had to go through the list about three times before I got them all.
Each weekend I would run through 200-300 kanji as a review (cover kanji, look at keyword, write the kanji). This wasn't scientific. Some weekends I'd say, I'll do the first 300 in the book, other times I'd say I'll do the last 300 I learned. Sometimes I'd shuffle the paper cards and use those as well.
I used the physical book to review (when not using flashcards). I would open the book, cover the kanji with a small piece of paper, look at the keyword and write the kanji, then slide the paper down to check my answer.
My only concession to computers was after I finished RTK1. I made a spreadsheet in excel with the keyword in one column and the kanji in the next column. Using Excel I shuffle the list (all 2,042) in random order and print out the list (without the kanji). Then I take the list with me and at odd times during the day, over coffee etc. I write in the kanji as a review. Just yesterday I finished the first random list (it took me about a week to complete) and today I'm going to check it. I'm happy with my recall. I plan to do a new random list once a month. Doing it all on paper like this makes it easy to compare and contrast different characters because you can flip around the pages. Plus when I make my printouts I leave a big right hand margin so I can scribble/doodle while trying to recall various different characters.
I don't agree with the people who say you don't need to do all of RTK1. I finished the whole book and I'm glad I did. You really need to finish the whole book since most the characters are related to other characters and doing the entire book will help cement your knowledge of all 2,042 kanji.
I'd hate to see someone's kanji studies fail just because they tried to make some stupid gimmicky computer program work.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - poblequadrat - 2014-04-16
Honestly I think this site is better than Anki for RTK.
You can always stop adding cards until you get less reviews, too: it's a good idea to focus on securing what you know before advancing.
Adding 20 kanji a day to this site's SRS, I'm finishing lesson 22 today (636 kanji) and I get 40-70 reviews a day, of which I fail around 4. I find this manageable.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - Heron - 2014-04-16
john555 Wrote:My own take on this? Just dump Anki altogether. I didn't use Anki and I got through RTK1 no problem. It's funny but after reading various posts by people who use anki I see nothing that gives me the urge to use Anki. The problem with Anki is it tries to make rocket science out of that which is most definitely not rocket science.Yes, spaced repetition is only based on how memory works, and a century of experiments on forgetting. You can discard it without giving it a try.
Quote:I'd hate to see someone's kanji studies fail just because they tried to make some stupid gimmicky computer program work.Indeed. Better to never try anything new and stick to the old ways (RTK doesn't count). Thank you, john555, for helping other people realise their science-based methods that you don't like the sound of are going to make them fail. Thank you for saying Anki users are using a stupid gimmicky program. You opened my eyes.
I'm going to delete my 4-year-old decks now, and not waste another minute of my life on spaced repetition. I suppose I'm lucky I was successful despite Anki. Actually, I'm probably a genius, and I'm soon going to realise what my full potential is. 4 years wasted...
To the OP: I'm not adding any new kanji cards to Anki at the moment as my retention rate is not very good. I'd rather consolidate my existing knowledge and take a bit longer to "finish" RTK than rush through it and fail again.
You could also try adding real Japanese words containing the kanji you're learning to Anki, as an alternative to Heisig cards. You might find this more motivating, and it might be more time-effective too.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - cophnia61 - 2014-04-16
I am now near the 1000th kanji in RtK, when I started I was sceptical about Anki but now I can fully appreciate its usefulness. The point is you must review anyway the kanji you studied the past days, weeks and months. When you reach 1000 or 2000 (or 3000 maybe?) kanji what do you do to review? You cover each kanji in your book and test yourself for every kanji? Every day? Or you test at random? It's not better to review based on your previous knowledge of every kanji? And put the next review of every kanji based of the knowledge of it you have now? I don't know if Anki is rocket science, but it is clear that between those two methods of review, Anki has more advantages.
And if the problem is the number of reviews, Anki doesn't impose you to do all of them. In this way it is like if you study with paper flashcards: you stop when you are bored, with the advantage your study is optimised and not random.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - kazuki - 2014-04-16
Yeah, Anki can be frustrating but you can't deny it's usefulness. But you definitely don't want to just keep doing something if it's just frustrating you so I could encourage you to do something about it (stop using Anki and use something like john555 mentioned above, or use this site's excellent SRS) or to just not use Anki for RTK at all if you hate it. You'll still learn the Kanji.
On reviewing RTK in Anki or any other SRS, I think the reason it could be frustrating is because of the way the Kanji are learnt using the RTK method. I found it takes quite a long time to recall because the "story" used to build the Kanji can take time to recall. This takes a fair amount of thinking when compared to just digging up a definition for a vocab item. It can feel like doing a deck full of those math problems you used to see in school where they were worded out and you had to figure out what the real math problem was from a paragraph of text. That's frustrating for sure.
I guess my advice (from my experience in particular) is that you want to try to morph those story elements into somewhat of a more discreet mental image that pops up as soon as you "see" the Kanji.
As an aside, I seem to remember Heisig recommended going from Keyword to Kanji. I remember studying it this way when I started. But after doing Japanese for a few years it seemed like I would have been better off going from Kanji to keyword (or something close to the keyword). I personally mark the item correct if something like the keyword is guessed during a review. For me, Kanji to keyword more accurately represented how I would see them when encountered in the real world. Also, I never write them, although I did a while ago.
Overwhelming number of Anki reviews - poblequadrat - 2014-04-17
I remember this divulgation book on linguistics I had to read when I was in secondary school. One of the essays was about some parents trying to teach their kid a language making him watch TV in that language, and how he didn't learnt it because he never had to use it.
I think production works better than recognition if you're to learn words/kanji. It's a bit like reading a book in French when your French isn't good: you keep looking the same words up again and again, because you don't use them.
I had always found learning vocabulary frustrating because I could never retain it, so for me flashcards are a way to make sure I produce words and learn them even though I might not be using them often. So far it seems to be working...
However, studying vocabulary that uses the kanji you want to learn is probably a better way to exercise recognition than studying them in isolation. So it might be a good idea to have a deck where you add words which use kanji you know but have trouble with.