It happens a lot, when reviewing, that I remember a kanji, I can reproduce it perfectly, but not the story. What should I do in those cases? Just mark the kanji as known and go on, or mark it as failed and spend time refreshing the story again ?
I know that eventually, when I finish RTK1 and learn the kanji readings, I will be able to read Japanese, not remembering the stories.

I dunno if I'd worry about it.
There are some kanji I just know from my Japanese studies and coming up with a story just wastes my time. 気 is a great example of this. Reclining, floor, fishhook, sheaf...yeah. Or just the simple fact that I know it already.

I've had the same issue, but sometimes it seems helpful to learn the story so that you have more flexibility to decompose it later if you need to use some of the primitives for a story in an even more complex kanji. So if the meaning of the kanji itself is very abstract, when it combines with other primitives you can make a more vivid story using its parts. I think that's Heisig's point in not skipping through the first chapters that many people know before starting - you can use those images in later stories.

It's up to you, but personally I try to remember the stories. This is because there may be a point in the future when I'll try to write the kanji and I suddenly can't remember a part of it. (In fact this has happened many times). If I've forgotten the story and have been reviewing by remembering the shape of the kanji alone, then it defeats the point of using the Heisig method.

If I'm confident enough that I won't ever forget the kanji, then I might not bother with stories. This is generally true for very simple kanji or ones that act as primitives by themselves and can't really be broken down (大、小、口 etc.) For anything where I think there's even the remotest chance of forgetting the writing, I try and remember the story.

I think it's the goal, actually-- the story steps aside as the connection between the kanji & keyword takes precedence. (But I would be wary of this happening before you've reviewed the kanji in question several times.)

Also, I find it much easier in cases like this to reconstruct the story from the kanji rather than the keyword. In this sense, the keywords are definitely a crutch, but the stories useful tools. I think if you've reviewed well, the story's floating around in there if you need it.

If you can write the kanji flawlessly from the keyword but don't remember the story just pass it. That is kind of the eventual goal.

Remember the Joke "Yes ma'am, can you get Bartle for me?" "Sir, could you spell that?" "Yes: B as in boy, A as in apple, R as in robot, T as turtle, L as in little..." "I'm sorry sir, L as it what?" "...."

If you can reproduce the Kanji, you did the job. The stories and mnemonics were the tools to get there. Now, you should have a visual story that can be recalled if need be (probably comes to you right as you see the Kanji), but don't mark the Kanji wrong for the story. Mark it wrong when you get the Kanji wrong.

I have a semi-similar question.

What if you know what a kanji means, but not the exact keyword?

Like...昔. I know what it means. It means 'long ago' and stuff like that.
But I couldnt remember the exact Heisig meaning of 'once upon a time.'
Is this worth worrying about?

usis35 Wrote:It happens a lot, when reviewing, that I remember a kanji, I can reproduce it perfectly, but not the story. What should I do in those cases? Just mark the kanji as known and go on, or mark it as failed and spend time refreshing the story again ?

Don't mark it as failed, no matter what, you recalled the character. That's the goal. Initially, I remember using stories (using them during recall) for almost all the characters, but now the need for the story has started to fade quite significantly. There are of course still plenty that I do need the story to recall. But I'm sure that with well over half of the joyo set now, I don't use any kind of story, the pieces just come to me somehow.

But in line with what Wrightak says, if I ever fail to reproduce a character, I like to be checking and refining my story.

Rakushun Wrote:I have a semi-similar question.

What if you know what a kanji means, but not the exact keyword?

Like...昔. I know what it means. It means 'long ago' and stuff like that.
But I couldnt remember the exact Heisig meaning of 'once upon a time.'
Is this worth worrying about?

No, keywords are mainly just prompters anyway, the true meaning regularly has much more depth. Also, when you use the characters "practically", you'll be associating them with Japanese words, so the connotation could well be slighltly, mildly (annoyingly very) different.