Over the summer I was really glad to have RTK. I was really dedicated and stuck with it until somewhere in the 300s and then went on vacation and did a very stupid thing... I stopped following RTK...

Im not sure if it was my method but I used to follow RTK this way:
1) Wrote them out on home-made flash cards
2) Reviewed them after I made them, and then again at night
3) In the morning i reviewed every single one

It ended up taking up a lot of time to the point that all I did was RTK for 2 weeks straight. I would hate to go back to this method since I felt very unaccomplished and ended up forgetting everything after I went on a 2 week vacation.

Also is it bad to skip over kanji that I know? (I learned some chinese a year ago and I still remember a bunch that I see surprisingly)

Hi grawrt!

While you could start over, you probably do remember some of the kanji, so you might as well review them and treat the ones you fail as "new" cards again.

I've been terrible about doing my kanji. I've been studying on/off for the past year or so and have taken much longer breaks than you. I'm around the 1500 mark right now and I have 500 reviews!!! I just keep going at it. I know eventually I'll finish. Never give up!

You might try either this website's online flashcard system, or Anki, as it would be easier to organize all your cards, and they will automatically schedule reviews for you.

If you already recognize a character from your previous Chinese study, I recommend making note of the keyword so you'll be able to make stories later for more complex kanji that have that specific character as a component.

As for what I do (I use Anki for my flashcards).
-Look at the kanji and keyword, and find a story on this website that I like.
-Write out the kanji once or twice while thinking about the story.
-Move onto the next kanji.

Then I review the kanji I learned that day, as well as any older kanji that should be reviewed (but Anki keeps track of that for me). It helps to do your reviews in short chunks, 5-10 minutes each throughout the day.

You probably don't want to learn more than 20 new kanji a day, especially if you are just starting out. Keep in mind that the number of cards you will need to review per day is roughly 10 X (number of new cards). So, if you learn 10 new kanji every day, your reviews will eventually be around 100 per day, and then will decrease when you stop adding cards.

So, look at how many reviews you can handle per day long term, and then divide by ten. It's OK to start small just to make it a habit. Even 5 kanji is better than burning out and doing nothing.

Right now my "correct" percentage is rather low, but it is above 50%, which is pretty good considering how long it's been since I last reviewed.

Just keep pushing forward. Obviously, it's better if you review regularly, but sometimes life (and lack of willpower :-) gets in the way. It's not the end of the world, just keep going.

Hope that was helpful, and good luck!

Yeah, your screwed. Once you stop you can never go back.

I kid, Just start over. No harm done.

I do however think that home-made flash cards are a bit of a waste. Use an SRS, Anki or this very website to review. If you review every single one, every night, your going to waste a lot of time. Anki has some killer mobile apps on iOS and Android, so those might be a good option for on-the-go review.

There are plenty of ways to mix up RTK, like Lazy RTK method or RTK Lite. Japanese Level Up also has it's own suggestions on how to improve it's suggestion. But honestly, it all comes down to just doing it.

hehe thanks guys! I thought for a second I screwed up some where.

Im not really familiar with Anki but I just downloaded it on my phone. Should I download the cards as I learn them or download those massive premade decks?

You should also download the free desktop version, as it will be much easier to edit your decks, etc. You can sync between the phone version and the desktop version, which is really handy.

I like using premade decks. For RTK there are a few available from Anki users. You can even add the story to each card. Just saves you some time so you don't have to make them all! Though, some people like making cards as part of the learning process. I'm too impatient for that sometimes :-).

You can control how many new cards you learn per day, so don't worry, you won't be forced to review the entire deck until you've actually learned them! That's what is so nice about having flashcard software.

Thanks!!! I didn't know I could sync to my phone.

I completed RTK a long time ago, then stopped studying Japanese for about a year. When I restarted I decided to do RTK again, but this time I did it a lot less hardcore and it was quite painless. You would be surprised how much easier it is to relearn something than it is to learn it from scratch!

Also, if reviews are piling up, don't be scared to stop adding new cards for a while until they come down, it's not a race.

To add to the current consensus: yes. I stopped for months at #1100. Came back, mastered those 1100 as well as I had before in under a week, surprising the crap out of myself.

My method for RtK was, and perhaps still remains, weird. For the first half I didn't use Anki or an SRS program at all, I:
- Drew the kanji and wrote the story on the actual margins of the Heisig book.
- Studied the book, without use of any technology.
- Reviewed in the book, covering the kanji/keyword/story part on the one side of the page and looking at the keyword on the other. I would mentally draw the kanji in my head and then check if correct.
I would go over them in order or inverse-order, which proved sufficient. Proof is that I still do very well with the first half of RtK even now that I've switched methodology up.

Currently I still draw the kanji once and write stories on the book margins, even if the writing must be very tiny. I begin there and then graduate to doing them through Anki. During anki reviews I usually have a blank paper in front of me and write each kanji out, so I may see without doubt I'm doing it correctly (drawing it mentally I tend to let things slide more easily). I thought about flashcards, but with the sheer number of kanji we're dong here I thought that a bit much.

I add 50 kanji every other day, usually.

Hope you found something in this post interesting. I've never shared my method before as I'm still pretty new on these forums. best of luck to you in your new-founded attempt to conquer RtK.

Thank you guys so much! It's really inspiring to hear that its possible & how helpful it is.

Chigun your method sounds good. I think theres a real power in writing the kanji out instead of just looking at it. When I took chinese I would write out the characters a lot not just for memorization but to get a sense of writing them and when I couldn't write them (like in class) I'd picture writing them in my head. I think this was a realy important part of the amount of characters I learned and why they stuck with me.

I was just wondering how does everyone go about the rate scale. 1-5. The easiest for me to vote on are 1 and 5 but what differentiates a 2-4?

It's probably over kill, but you could get a Boogie Board.
It's an mini LCD blackboard.

http://www.improvelectronics.com/us/en/b...riter.html

Or you can get one of the doodle writing toys for kids.

grawrt Wrote:I was just wondering how does everyone go about the rate scale. 1-5. The easiest for me to vote on are 1 and 5 but what differentiates a 2-4?

1-5? Are you referring to reviewing on an SRS like Anki?

Anki only goes 1-4: 1) Again, 2) hard, 3) good, 4) easy.
To get the most out of the SRS algorithm, I believe it's best to make sure you make use of all the grades. I think you should default to 3 being your average difficulty and vary from that.