So, I finished RtK in September, but I've reviewed kanji every day since, and nowadays, the number of reviews range between 20 and 40 per day.

When do you think you should stop reviewing them?

To explain what level I'm at, I'm going to say that my Anki deck has 2017 sentences (self-input, of course), and I can read somewhat comfortably, and get the gist of TV shows if I use Japanese or English subtitles.

I'm also noticing that kanji are easier to forget if I don't know any words to link them to, and if there are keywords that are synonyms or quasi-synonyms, like "dwell" and "reside" (居/住)
To tell them apart I use
す・む
and
い間

However, my vocabulary isn't large enough to cover all the kanji yet.

But back to my original question, when should you stop reviewing the kanji?

As you say you don't really have a lot of reviews at one point in time, so there really isn't a reason to stop. You don't have to feel bad about missing reviews on a few days but surely it doesn't hurt to review 5min every day. As long as you have Japanese keywords on the side, you won't be held back by forgetting the keywords.

I just think the time potential time lost versus the potential gains leans in favor of just continuing the reviews.

Just because you stop adding new cards daily is no reason to stop, but it's up to you and your goals entirely of course. Personally, I don't plan on ever stopping on my own. Eventually, the intervals in Anki will get to the point where they max out at 100 years.

I see, but I've got another question:

What if I fail the kanji because of the keyword, but when I see it, I can namedrop several readings and words using it - should I add words to it and pass it, or is it a fail?

That's your choice. If you want to be able to write them, you should fail it. If you're only interesting in reading them, you likely can stop reviewing altogether.

The way I see it, if you review a kanji that you don't really know any words for, and fail the review, it's not a huge deal. I tend to be very lenient with my reviews. There is no point in reviewing a difficult kanji every day if you haven't even found a use for it yet. Personally I just make sure they don't end up as mature cards, in other words, I will never have to wait a month for the kanji to come up for review again. That way I'm not held back by the difficult cards, but I still don't abandon them completely.

But of course it's up to you how you do it. If you really want every kanji to stick ASAP, then failing is probably a good idea. But if you don't really mind if you learn a difficult kanji in a few weeks instead of a few days then you might want to consider just loosening up and let it pass.

Of course I think it depends on your level. If you're still early in your studies and think 私 is difficult to remember, or if you're a bit further along and doing RTK3 and think 嬬 is hard then that's a whole different thing as the usefulness of each character varies greatly. Only in very specialized circumstances would learning 嬬 quickly be of any sort importance, but the same can't be said for 私.

Stian Wrote:I see, but I've got another question:

What if I fail the kanji because of the keyword, but when I see it, I can namedrop several readings and words using it - should I add words to it and pass it, or is it a fail?

Whenever that happens, I try to catch them early on before their intervals get too high, and then I'll add something to make them more clear. Like, for 泉 - spring, I already knew 春（はる） was the vocab word for spring even though I hadn't seen 春 - springtime, so I changed it to 泉 - (water) spring.

I learnt 私 half a year before I started RtK :p

What I meant was that if I was able to write the kanji perfectly if I knew one or more Japanese words for it. What I do now is adding Japanese keywords to it, and passing it.

A plan B when I don't know any Japanese words for it, and the English word is strange, I often add a definition of the English word as the first sentence in the story section.

I "finished" RtK a few weeks/month back and I either do the reviews if I want, or let them pile up. To be honest, as long as I am writing actual Japanese and using the kanji in their native contexts (especially compounds) the thought of mixing up old English keywords with how I understand the conceptual basis behind some common readings of common kanji I are now writing, seems to dwindle the motivation to reviewing the "reviewing the kanji" anymore and simply continue to learn and acquire real 日本語.

That said, I'll probably end up doing reviews every now and then, simply to write out kanji which may not be popping up a whole lot in the Japanese I am reading/writing, in order to keep up appearances.

So when should you stop reviewing? Whenever you want. It's your language experience. Do whatever makes you feel right and change it up if you feel like a change.

Don't stop. thats it no argument just trust me.

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:Don't stop. thats it no argument just trust me.

A guy once tried to sell me a cheap stereo with "just trust me". Turned out pretty good; the money I saved on the stereo meant I could afford the TV he was also selling out of the back of his truck.

Stian Wrote:I learnt 私 half a year before I started RtK :p

What I meant was that if I was able to write the kanji perfectly if I knew one or more Japanese words for it. What I do now is adding Japanese keywords to it, and passing it.

A plan B when I don't know any Japanese words for it, and the English word is strange, I often add a definition of the English word as the first sentence in the story section.

Yeah, that works too. I do that as well. I added（わめく）to 喚 and（さけぶ）to 叫.

Just my two yen:

I went ever so slightly kamikaze with respect to adding cards towards the end of RTK1, which I knew I'd regret, and do regret. Thanks to that I pretty much got buried in reviews the following few days and stopped within the week.

BUT, I used the time and my newfound 漢字 reading/recognition skills to learn a wealth of vocab, meaning now I can (and am doing so) go back and do the whole of RTK with 日本語 keywords. Not only does this seem significantly easier, significantly faster, and significantly more logical, but it also means you practice and learn vocab too (since you'll invariably come across words you don't know, and equally those you do).

Take from that what you will...

For what it's worth, I used wrightak's deck (or more accurately his spreadsheet, which I tuned and turned into a deck). See https://sites.google.com/site/wrightak2/afterrtk12

Afterthought:
Using Japanese keywords means kanji->keyword reviews are no longer unadvisable, though not of much use

I have a bad feeling that stoping Rtk would urge me to reDo RTK in a near future from scratch and I don't want this to happen.
So to cut the boredom from seeing the same deck I'm thinking from time to time adding vocab,JLPT order etc.

uisukii Wrote:

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:Don't stop. thats it no argument just trust me.

A guy once tried to sell me a cheap stereo with "just trust me". Turned out pretty good; the money I saved on the stereo meant I could afford the TV he was also selling out of the back of his truck.

So you're saying it worked out!

Perhaps start on something like Core6k, and stop reviewing a particular RTK1 Kanji once you've encountered it there. The goal is not to remember RTK1 keywords, but to use kanji for meaning and reading.

I will stir some controversy here...

Don't do Heisig at all! (If you aim for reading ability only, that is).

The moment you start seeing through squiggles, doing Heisig is not necessary.

Having said that, I can't see myself stopping reviewing the kanji, but this is for that simple reason that I can't imagine myself acquiring writing skills without help from Heisig's structured mnemonics.

Inny Jan Wrote:I will stir some controversy here...

Don't do Heisig at all! (If you aim for reading ability only, that is).

The moment you start seeing through squiggles, doing Heisig is not necessary.

Having said that, I can't see myself stopping reviewing the kanji, but this is for that simple reason that I can't imagine myself acquiring writing skills without help from Heisig's structured mnemonics.

Not really what he was asking, but... Nah, Heisig is good, and you shouldn't throw around your opinion as though it were fact. Maybe that's not what you were intending, but that's how posts like this usually come off as to me. There are multiple schools of thought here, and for me, RtK has helped to differentiate between similar kanji, which has, in turn, made it easier to identify kanji readings as I learn vocab. It, of course, depends on the person, but having started RtK later rather than sooner, I've seen direct correlation between progress in RtK and my reading ability improving.

RtK is good for writing too. I agree with you there.

The reason I say Heisig is not necessary for reading is that when you have to deal with the written word you throw away any semantics associated with characters and, for the most part, rely on your visual memory. I don't know about you but I, when it comes to reading, read complete words rather then individual kanji.

To give you an example, try to read this passage:
静寂を好む私は、「では私が注意するしかないのであろうか？」と、悩んだのでした。が、最近は若者に注意した大人が、逆ギレされてひどい目に遭うという事件が多発しています。

Do you find yourself trying to determine Heisig keywords when reading this? In such case your progress through the text is going to painfully slow, if any, because instead of resolution kanji>keyword you need resolution word-in-kanji>reading>meaning and/or word-in-kanji>meaning>reading.

Mind you that knowing readings of kanji is of little help if you don't know the compound this kanji appears in.

Sure when you read you don't tend to directly use your knowledge about single characters, but when you learn new words I'm sure that knowledge comes in handy. And I'd say that has a fairly strong connection with reading.

Now, of course, knowing the Heisig keywords does not equal knowing the meaning of a character, though it usually comes pretty close.

I also think "reviewing RTK" has some ambiguity to it. Personally I have Japanese keywords on all my characters, so I don't even remember most of the Heisig keywords, and I think many people on this forum are doing the same thing, but I also know that many are not.

I don't think there is any point in reviewing RTK for long without Japanese keywords, as it becomes a battle to try to remember which character to remember, instead of just trying to remember how to write a specific character.

Trying to remember "splendor" after not having seen it for a year or so is far more annoying than trying to remember "splendor 中か　はなやか", which should come to you much more easily. I think this way of reviewing RTK does not get old with time, and if you're doing well (e.g. not necessarily needing the reviews), then getting to a point where you get less than 10 reviews a day should come in no time, thus resulting in such a minuscule amount of potentially wasted time that you might as well continue, in my opinion.

Sorry for the long and potentially unnecessary explanation, but I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

Irixmark Wrote:Perhaps start on something like Core6k, and stop reviewing a particular RTK1 Kanji once you've encountered it there. The goal is not to remember RTK1 keywords, but to use kanji for meaning and reading.

Why? Perhaps you should read my post. Why do everyone here recommend that shit?
I will never use a pre-made vocab deck; why should you when you can take sentences from fun stuff instead of textbook sentences? I started using native materials in September, why should I go back?

And to the others, tank you.

I have also deleted some rare kanji that are almost never used. So if I find it in Japanese Level Up's list of "useless" kanji or if it's the 2400th most common (or not in that list at all) etc.

EDIT: And getting through RtK really made reading simpler for me - Some tough ones like for instance 機 are now kanji I recognise at once. However, I don't like that RtK1 had some really rare kanji as well as leaving out common ones like 誰.

EDIT 2: That's exactly how my cards look like^
Examples (from todays review):
doctor い者
do 行い
loose まん画
price ね段　価ち
limit げん界　かぎ・り
old man ろう齢　年お・い
timber-trees デクの・き・

prink Wrote:

Inny Jan Wrote:Don't do Heisig at all! (If you aim for reading ability only, that is).

Not really what he was asking, but... Nah, Heisig is good, and you shouldn't throw around your opinion as though it were fact.

I agree with Inny Jay for the most part, but I feel like he was leaving out an good argument for not doing RTK. It takes a lot of time. A lot of time that you could be using to study words, grammar, or native materials.

I agree that learning about kanji and radicals will really help you with Japanese in general, but I don't see any reason to do all of RTK, unless you want to learn how to write.

partner55083777 Wrote:

prink Wrote:

Inny Jan Wrote:Don't do Heisig at all! (If you aim for reading ability only, that is).

Not really what he was asking, but... Nah, Heisig is good, and you shouldn't throw around your opinion as though it were fact.

I agree with Inny Jay for the most part, but I feel like he was leaving out an good argument for not doing RTK. It takes a lot of time. A lot of time that you could be using to study words, grammar, or native materials.

I agree that learning about kanji and radicals will really help you with Japanese in general, but I don't see any reason to do all of RTK, unless you want to learn how to write.

Is 14 days too long? That's how long it took me to start and complete RtK. The simple fact that most kanji now do not look "foreign" to me -at all- means that parsing sentences now involves one less vital element to have to remember. The general grammar is starting to sink into my brain a little and I'm finding the greater problem remembering kanji readings. Not having done RtK and trying to juggle grammar, readings AND trying to recall the physical struggle of each kanji would have taken up far too much mental space.

Comparing studying before doing RtK to now is like comparing diving in the ocean with a snorkel to diving in the ocean with scuba gear. While the terrain is still unknown, at least I don't have to worry about drowning in a sea of squiggles.

Stian Wrote:

Irixmark Wrote:Perhaps start on something like Core6k, and stop reviewing a particular RTK1 Kanji once you've encountered it there. The goal is not to remember RTK1 keywords, but to use kanji for meaning and reading.

Why? Perhaps you should read my post. Why do everyone here recommend that shit?
I will never use a pre-made vocab deck; why should you when you can take sentences from fun stuff instead of textbook sentences? I started using native materials in September, why should I go back?

Well, "that shit" has helped an awful lot of people reach fluency in Japanese in the shortest possible time, but to each his/her own. If you're already reading native material, just stop reviewing RTK, you'll get plenty of kanji exposure. If it's another hour of RTK or another hour of reading something you enjoy, I would always go for the latter.

I use core6k because I'm lazy. All the more power to you for going straight to native material it is not easy at first but people say it gets easier. I will be a lot happier though knowing I don't need to stop every other word to make an Anki card and when i do its because I genuinely want to learn the word. Core6k is easy. That makes it accessible and a great stepping stone to get people higher into Japanese. Not everyone does AJATT some people prefer to study from textbooks and its not our place to judge.