I have been reviewing with anki for about 1.5 years now and my daily due cards range from 40 to 70. Since I wanted to go under 40 cards per day, I decided to:

-Select a list of the 500 most failed kanji (this can be done, by using the anki's sorting function) and export it to a text file.

-Select from this list the first 100 kanji.

-Read this list every day for about one week (or more if you like) until this group of kanji become second nature to you (review also their story).

-Take another set of 100 kanji from the list of most failed kanji.

-Repeat the procedure.

-When you have finished them all, review the complete list every now and then (for example every month).

The most failed kanji should become the kanji you know better in about 1-2 months.

I am about finishing my first 100 kanji and I have to say that they are really "sticking" now. The kanji I failed most was 稜 (I do not know why).
I think it is useful to exploit the statistics that anki kindly generated and tracked for you. Of course you can use this method after at least one year of reviewing.

What do you think?
Have you tried something similar?

You should have just export those 500 cards to a new kanji deck then do that deck every day separately it'd have been a lot easier. I'm surprised you still have 40-70 cards per day that's a lot since you've had the deck for 1.5 years considering the amount you have a day you must have added about 15 kanji a day meaning you finished it over a year ago right?

Well, I am surprised too, but consider that I finished also rtk3 and I added some more kanji up to 3150 (more or less). I added about 50 kanji per day (because like most people I started and stopped heisig's method several times before and I already knew the most basic kanji).

My first idea was indeed to create another deck with those kanji (which I did for some days) and I am sure that it would also have worked in the long run, but I felt like using a sort of FRS (focus repetition system).

If by "trying something similar" you mean that I suspend the annoying little f*&^*&s and never hear from them again, sure

It's not THAT important to know all the Kanji. If you don't know a few hundred, that's fine. The common ones you can't help but know, the rest can go screw.

Ask yourself the following:

- Is it among the 2000 most common ones?
- Do you know any words using that kanji?

If the answer to both these questions is no, just suspend the kanji until you actually learn a word including it.

Also, do you use Japanese hints? Like
めい府 (for 冥)
れい気　つめ・たい (for 冷)
etc.?

This has saved me more often than stories nowadays.

I'm not sure this would help you very much. I'm not sure where you are in your studies exactly, but it sounds like you need to learn more Japanese.

I found that I kept failing some of those harder kanji because their meanings weren't very concrete, and the keywords were kind of vague. As I learned more Japanese I got a better sense of what those kanji meant in the context of real words, and it made it easier to remember them.

I also started adding Japanese keywords and example vocabulary to my cards. I did it for every single card, but you might want to concentrate on doing it just for these kanji you're having a tough time with. That should differentiate these cards enough from other ones you might be confusing with it or help solidify the meaning of the kanji in your head.

As your general Japanese ability gets better your RTK reviews will start getting better because you'll have gotten more exposure. Right now you're approaching this problem like you're doing RTK for RTK's sake. RTK is just scaffolding to help you learn more Japanese. So it's really not worth micromanaging in this way.

Even if your method here did work, you'd just be getting better at RTK instead of getting better at Japanese. This doesn't seem like a worthwhile way to spend your time.

I'm currently going through core 2k, step 7, and I want to try what you did but I'm not sure how.
I tried using custom study session and reviewing all the cards I failed in the last 30 days and that seemed to work. Is that what you meant or did you create an actual filtered deck? I ask because the option to do this did not pop up when I tried to create a filtered deck.

Great idea though really useful


P.S.

Does anyone know how to get the media files for the newly downloaded decks separately in anki 2? I used to get a separate file for each deck but now it's all mushed together in one folder. I used to listen to each step on my iPod non stop to get the hang of the words quicker but now I can't separate the media files for the decks. Does anyone know how to do this????

EasyJapanezy Wrote:Does anyone know how to get the media files for the newly downloaded decks separately in anki 2? I used to get a separate file for each deck but now it's all mushed together in one folder. I used to listen to each step on my iPod non stop to get the hang of the words quicker but now I can't separate the media files for the decks. Does anyone know how to do this????

A simple way may be to just open the media folder, sort by date, then copy the files you want onto your mp3 player. However, if the files are out of (creation) order , you may have to export the deck as 'notes' using a tag filter (eg, 'step 1'). Then, use the audio column's list of filenames to extract just the files you want from the collection folder (via batch file).

erlog Wrote:I'm not sure this would help you very much. I'm not sure where you are in your studies exactly, but it sounds like you need to learn more Japanese.

I found that I kept failing some of those harder kanji because their meanings weren't very concrete, and the keywords were kind of vague. As I learned more Japanese I got a better sense of what those kanji meant in the context of real words, and it made it easier to remember them.

...

Even if your method here did work, you'd just be getting better at RTK instead of getting better at Japanese. This doesn't seem like a worthwhile way to spend your time.

This is very sensible advice and I wonder if other people who have used RTK can confirm. RTK is meant to provide a basis; I don't think you should feel like you have to master the entire book (or even 75% of it) before you can move on to other things. One trap you definitely don't want to fall into is to spend too much time with RTK because it's easier than making the transition to learning actual Japanese.

yudantaiteki Wrote:This is very sensible advice and I wonder if other people who have used RTK can confirm. RTK is meant to provide a basis; I don't think you should feel like you have to master the entire book (or even 75% of it) before you can move on to other things. One trap you definitely don't want to fall into is to spend too much time with RTK because it's easier than making the transition to learning actual Japanese.

I concur. It was one of the major reasons I brought up rtk lite and rtk ultralite so many years ago. RTK is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. Same goes with the vocabulary and grammar lists. Ultimately it will be about getting into real Japanese. I'm just of the opinion that structured methods help you get there faster.

I currently have a 2nd Kanji deck aside from RTK. When I find words with difficult kanji, I enter the kanji with the english meanings on front with a stroke order image on the back.

It's pretty effortless reviewing kanji when you find them in real Japanese words.

Anyways, my point is, move on and engage with actual Japanese text and review/relearn kanji if you feel it is necessary.

EasyJapanezy Wrote:I'm currently going through core 2k, step 7, and I want to try what you did but I'm not sure how.
I tried using custom study session and reviewing all the cards I failed in the last 30 days and that seemed to work. Is that what you meant or did you create an actual filtered deck? I ask because the option to do this did not pop up when I tried to create a filtered deck.

Great idea though really useful

I just created a pdf file with these 100 kanji and I read them every day for about a week.
Then I switched to an other 100 kanji block and so on.
It seems to work.

Oniichan Wrote:

EasyJapanezy Wrote:Does anyone know how to get the media files for the newly downloaded decks separately in anki 2? I used to get a separate file for each deck but now it's all mushed together in one folder. I used to listen to each step on my iPod non stop to get the hang of the words quicker but now I can't separate the media files for the decks. Does anyone know how to do this????

A simple way may be to just open the media folder, sort by date, then copy the files you want onto your mp3 player. However, if the files are out of (creation) order , you may have to export the deck as 'notes' using a tag filter (eg, 'step 1'). Then, use the audio column's list of filenames to extract just the files you want from the collection folder (via batch file).

Here is what I'm doing...
I copy the file collection.media file and paste it to my desktop so I can mess with the file without altering the connections to the anki files because I've messed it up by altering the file in the past.
After I copy it to the desktop all the creation dates are of the moments when I pasted it not the different download dates.

I have no idea how to export the deck with a tag (eg, 'step 1'), all that pops up when exporting files is the which deck do you want to export option.

Is there anything else I can try?

You're right. It looks like the 'limit by tag' option was not included in anki2. I'm guessing that it was replaced with the filtered deck option.

If you want the media from a single deck, create a new profile and add just that deck. This will create a new collection.media folder for that profile in your documents folder. Now you can copy it to your desktop and do as you wish.

If you only want to grab some of the files, you'll need to create a filtered deck (specifying the number of cards you want to include and how you want anki to select them--probably by creation date). This filtered deck will show up in your deck browser and CAN be exported (make sure that 'include the media files' is check). Again, you'll probably have to import it into a new profile if you want to isolate the media files.

Or, you can export the entire deck as 'notes', open it in a spreadsheet and highlight just the file names you want and paste them into a text file called 'movelist.txt'. Place this text file into the backup of your collections.media folder and run the following batch file:

Code:

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in (movelist.txt) do (
    xcopy "%%a" "Filtered" /i
)
pause

Only the mp3 files you want will be copied into a new folder called 'Filtered'.

hth

Oniichan - It worked, I created a different profile and it created a separate media file with only those files I wanted in it.

Thank You