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+--- Thread: For those who didn't do RTK + SRS first (/thread-12890.html)
For those who didn't do RTK + SRS first - beneficii - 2015-07-20
I did not do Heisig/SRS first, but have spent years listening/reading/speaking, but very little writing (other than typing). As a consequence, I have gotten pretty good at _recognition_ of kanji, but I'm pretty lousy at recall. So I decided to give Heisig a try. The only problem is that a lot of the keywords used seemed kinda arbitrary and what had a stronger association in my mind was kanji -> certain vocabulary (compounds and standalone words) and readings. This was not true for every kanji, but for most of them it was.
One way I rectified this was to add a reading or a compound that seemed to capture the meaning of the character were (or could simply trigger it the best) to take advantage of the association in my head, by trying to make me reverse it, going from recognition to recall. I greatly prefer doing this to using the stories.
Example:
rut -> 軌
I change this to:
rut/orbit きどうのき -> 軌
With the word "orbit" in front, I know to use this compound that is read as きどう: 軌道.
By doing stuff like this, I hope to improve my rate of recall by associating the character with vocabulary I'm already familiar with in Japanese. I figure I can be flexible with the front, because after all, in Heisig you have friggin' fish guts -> 乙.
This method isn't going to work for a beginner, but may work for someone like me who has done a lot of reading, but little writing.
I've tried the Heisig + SRS lots of times in the past, but would always get overwhelmed by it. Stories just never really worked for me. In doing this, I hope to marshal my experience in reading and ability of recognition and to turn it into ability to recall.
Another example:
guidance -> 導
I change to:
guidance みちびく -> 導
This is because I am familiar with the word 導く, which is read as みちび‐く. Adding みちびく really helps utilize the connection in my brain to facilitate recall of the character. The word "guidance," especially alone, does that for me much less.
In addition, I also practice the stroke order of these characters, so that I may be better equipped to write.
For those who didn't do RTK + SRS first - EratiK - 2015-07-20
Yes, the Japanese keywords alternative has been around for some time now (even with a deck). See here:
https://sites.google.com/site/wrightak2/
For those who didn't do RTK + SRS first - CureDolly - 2015-07-20
I didn't do RTK at all though I do use SRS to help with kanji. I learn kanji in words not as "kanji" in the abstract. Of course one does pick up the abstract general meaning of kanji that way.
If recollection means the ability to actually write a kanji I would have to confess that mine is very, very poor. On the other hand, I am not sure under what circumstances I would actually need that ability. I know people's circumstances differ and many do need it. I wrote Do You Need to Write Kanji? a while ago and I don't think my views have changed substantially since then. In the course of a year I hardly ever put pencil to paper in English and don't anticipate doing so any more frequently in Japanese.
Recognition is what one needs for both reading and typing and that is pretty much all I expect to do, just as in English.
What you are doing about "keywords", though, seems very close to what I do. Because I have learned kanji as words, my "keyword" is mostly just as you say. 導 to me is みちびくの漢字. Why would I suddenly want to introduce an English keyword?
Very often the word by which I know a kanji is rather arbitrary - the word I first happened to learn it in, or a word that took my fancy for one reason or another - but it is no more arbitrary than many keywords, I would think.