For a while now, I've just not really been getting anywhere, and motivation is kinda at a low eb, it feels more 'this is impossible for me' than it's ever done, I think. I'm struggling to get through my reps, they just pile up - 700 currently and not sure how best to approach it, whether to score harshly since I haven't seen the cards where I should have, or not because they're just going to keep piling up if I do. I'm just forgetting keywords, mixing them up...sick of seeing the same kanji (including ones I do know, they seem to take forever to reach a decent interval) over and over, really - it's infuriating to mess up just once and get stuck with seeing the card for ages. The annoying thing is this is my second time through RTK (my health was bad so I stopped studying, basically), making it more boring I think than it otherwise would be. I like kanji but I'm fed up of them, but if I switch to learning actual Japanese, I soon have trouble due to not knowing enough kanji, and even if do I understand Ok, I'm worried it will affect production (which I'm horrible at anyway) later since I'm just relying on visual recognition.

Any advice? Thanks! I think I could probably do with a really simple, clear 'have to stick to this or else' schedule (my days are basically free, except a couple or so a week).

If you mix keywords, tweak them and/or add hints, mistaking a keyword is not really the same as getting the kanji wrong.

Another advice would be to do RTK lite, and then move on to real Japanese and text books and see how it goes. From there you can learn kanji as you encounter them, RTK is not for everybody after all. Not to depreciate production, but confidence is also important, and recognition alone is a big step in that direction. You can always focus on production later on.

Regarding schedule, try to do at least 100-150 reps a day in small chunks.

Don't worry about the size of your review pile, and I agree with Eratik. Also timeboxing. Just set a timer and put in 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes sometime in the day, and 15 minutes at night.

On busy days, see if you can't put in one 15 minute session anyway, or even as little as one 5 minute session - it's just easier to form a consistent habit if you don't skip days, but you don't want to kill yourself with the full sessions on an already busy day.

Don't base your scoring on when you think you should have seen the card, do it based on the usual reasons. If you have to look at the story, for example, or if it takes a long struggle to recall, or conversely, marking it easier if it's just ridiculously simple (one, two, and three usually fall in this category after just a few reps for most people.)

I've said before, while I do agree with Heisig's advice about not studying actual kanji usage before completing the system, that's to prevent muddling up a bunch of English glosses for your vocabulary with your keywords and making it all the harder. If you're not looking at kanji then it won't matter. Studying Japanese in kana/roomaji/audio shouldn't be a problem.

The best kana+audio learning resource I know of is to use https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ , just uncheck the 'Japanese' subtitles and check the 'Japanese (kana)' subtitles when you watch the videos. Playing around with those lessons might help for a change of pace.

If you're using Anki, set your daily limit so you don't have to look at the big scary number that really doesn't matter that much. If you're using the site's SRS, I'm not sure anything like that can be done, but perhaps it could be added relatively easily (if only as a Labs page).

Thank you both. : ) For now I've just been carefully going through my deck and tweaking keywords. Now I think about it, it is silly to leave, say, the card for 'degrees' as it is when I keep messing up and thinking it means degrees as in measurement of angles. So now it's 'degrees (temperature)'.

EratiK Wrote:Not to depreciate production, but confidence is also important, and recognition alone is a big step in that direction. You can always focus on production later on.

That's certainly reassuring to hear. It was just scaring me thinking maybe I'd never be able to if I didn't get it right now. Unfortunately, I can't really write much anyway (nerve damage), so maybe there's no point worrying about that.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:The best kana+audio learning resource I know of is to use https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ , just uncheck the 'Japanese' subtitles and check the 'Japanese (kana)' subtitles when you watch the videos. Playing around with those lessons might help for a change of pace.

Oh, that looks great! I think I will just use it with kanji, though, it's so much easier than kana. It doesn't really mess with my keywords to study actual Japanese, it tends to solidify a kanji in my memory if it's one I know.

I do use Anki...it's really Ok not to do all the reps that are due each day? That hadn't really occurred to me, I admit.

Ampharos64 Wrote:Now I think about it, it is silly to leave, say, the card for 'degrees' as it is when I keep messing up and thinking it means degrees as in measurement of angles.

It means that too. And a lot more. It's a versatile kanji.

Vempele Wrote:It means that too. And a lot more. It's a versatile kanji.

Oh, it does? Heh, funny that it should be similar to the English word 'degrees' and apply to both, always surprises me to find kanji or words like that. Well, since my story is about temperature, I'll leave it I think, I can easily enough learn the other meanings another time, it's just a reference point for the kanji for now.

I've only skimmed the thread so forgive me if this is repetition.

Ampharos64 Wrote:I'm struggling to get through my reps, they just pile up - 700

Try ditching anki. It can be useful but it can also grow till it takes up the entirety of your study, and it only really works if you're good about keeping up with reviews. Choose study methods that allow you to pick up where you left off if you skip a day (or week or month...) and you'll probably regain your momentum.

Ampharos64 Wrote:not sure how best to approach it, whether to score harshly since I haven't seen the cards where I should have

You have to know a card well to miss its designated review time and still remember it, so you definitely shouldn't be extra strict with your marking.

Ampharos64 Wrote:I do use Anki...it's really Ok not to do all the reps that are due each day? That hadn't really occurred to me, I admit.

Absolutely it's fine. If something has a 100 day interval, one more day is only 1% more. You're not going to forget in that time - I don't recall the size of the random factor that Anki uses to scatter cards, but it's more than 1%.

If I have a large backlog, I do change my sort from 'random' to 'shortest interval first' because one more day on a 3 day interval is 33% more. I feel like that's the more important card to review. But, when you have a big backlog, most of them have big intervals too.

I'd set your maximum reviews option to something manageable and your study order to shortest interval first. Once you can't see the big number it'll be less stressful.

I used this site for rtk1, but if you want to stick with anki, i'd suggest setting it to release 10 new cards, and 20-30 review cards, and going through them, and then when you finish those change it to 20 new, 40-60 review, that way you'll go through them in manageable chunks...

ktcgx Wrote:I used this site for rtk1, but if you want to stick with anki, i'd suggest setting it to release 10 new cards, and 20-30 review cards, and going through them, and then when you finish those change it to 20 new, 40-60 review, that way you'll go through them in manageable chunks...

While I like the spirit of the suggestion, it seems that you should expect 10-20 times as many reviews as new cards. So, on a sustained basis, if you plan to do 60 reviews a day, you should be doing only 3-6 new cards.

Of course, if you go quickly enough (30-50 days, I think) , you can push through RTK1 without the long term numbers catching up with you until after you've added everything, and get maybe 5x as many reviews as new cards because many cards are pushed out of the 'adding' window for RTK1 ... but I don't think that applies in this case. 2-3 reviews for every new card is probably unrealistic.

So what if you forgot a kanji, just study it again, compare with other kanji, revise stories if needed and move on. Do not be harsh on yourself just because you forgot this and that keyword or you forgot a single drop in a kanji or you have a not-so-perfect-retention rate. As long as you are learning from your mistakes, everything will be ok.

Review at your own pace. No pressures. Also do not forget the most important thing: have fun.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:If I have a large backlog, I do change my sort from 'random' to 'shortest interval first' because one more day on a 3 day interval is 33% more. I feel like that's the more important card to review. But, when you have a big backlog, most of them have big intervals too.

One thing this does is place emphasis on the cards you keep forgetting. I wouldn't be afraid to suspend the worst ones until the backlog is cleared.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Of course, if you go quickly enough (30-50 days, I think) , you can push through RTK1 without the long term numbers catching up with you until after you've added everything, and get maybe 5x as many reviews as new cards because many cards are pushed out of the 'adding' window for RTK1 ... but I don't think that applies in this case. 2-3 reviews for every new card is probably unrealistic.

If you add most (just over 1700) of RTK1 to Anki in one day (a few days after finishing it in a month on a site I can't recommend), clicking easy on most cards, you'll get 500 reviews per day for a few days and it'll go down from there. I averaged 100 reviews per day that month.

Quote:While I like the spirit of the suggestion, it seems that you should expect 10-20 times as many reviews as new cards. So, on a sustained basis, if you plan to do 60 reviews a day, you should be doing only 3-6 new cards.

I googled a bit and found this: http://isoron.org/stuff/japanese/srs_simulator/
Forum thread: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5672

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

ktcgx Wrote:I used this site for rtk1, but if you want to stick with anki, i'd suggest setting it to release 10 new cards, and 20-30 review cards, and going through them, and then when you finish those change it to 20 new, 40-60 review, that way you'll go through them in manageable chunks...

While I like the spirit of the suggestion, it seems that you should expect 10-20 times as many reviews as new cards. So, on a sustained basis, if you plan to do 60 reviews a day, you should be doing only 3-6 new cards.

Of course, if you go quickly enough (30-50 days, I think) , you can push through RTK1 without the long term numbers catching up with you until after you've added everything, and get maybe 5x as many reviews as new cards because many cards are pushed out of the 'adding' window for RTK1 ... but I don't think that applies in this case. 2-3 reviews for every new card is probably unrealistic.

I just went through rtk2 like that... seemed to work ok, did roughly 70 frames a day sure I have a tonne of reviews, nearly 1000 atm, but I was adding a lot each day so only to be expected... and yes, 70 new cards, and about 200-250 reviews each day...

Ampharos64 Wrote:I'm struggling to get through my reps, they just pile up - 700 currently and not sure how best to approach it, whether to score harshly since I haven't seen the cards where I should have, or not because they're just going to keep piling up if I do.

I hope this isn't too obvious, but It makes no sense to keep adding new new cards when the reviews are getting backed up. if you haven't stopped adding new cards, absolutely do that now! Then study your reviews until you get it down to a manageable number.

700 reviews is around 7 hours of study so unless you are studying all day every day, it will take a long time to get them down, chris' idea of showing lowest interval first is a good one to keep from forgetting the most forgettable cards if you can't finish all of your reviews. Also, suspending cards with over 7 lapses is helpful as you won't be spending time trying to remember those hard to learn cards.

Another thing I've found works well for me is to make a filtered review deck that has the cards I've missed in the last day or two. I go through this deck a few times throughout the day and it really helps getting the new cards stuck in my memory. To do this in anki, make a filtered deck with 'rated:2:1' and turn off rescheduling.

Basically it seems you are trying to go too fast and add more cards than you have time for. This is a marathon and it seems like you are sprinting. Slow down and make a more manageable goal and it'll be a lot easier and fun to keep up with it for the long term.

yogert909 Wrote:700 reviews is around 7 hours of study

It'll be 3.5 hours if you review twice as fast. And 18 seconds per review is still slow...

Vempele Wrote:It'll be 3.5 hours if you review twice as fast. And 18 seconds per review is still slow...

Oops, I spoke too quickly. I review the same cards multiple times throughout the day. So if I have 100 reviews, I plan on spending an hour total reviewing them. But you're correct, I average just over 10-15 seconds for each review last time I checked.