Hello,

I posted a message over a year ago, when I began to want to learn Japanese again. I was not sure which method I would use because mainly I definitely didn't understand all the precise steps necessary to make Anki work with the RTK method.

After some not so successful research I decided to get the RTK1 book and learnt about 400 Kanjis in 4 months using Obenkyo and RevTK here to study. I learnt sometimes 20 kanjis a day by reading the book and them unlocking them here and in Obenkyo also, and then doing the reviews. Some days I learnt nothing new, just doing my reviews and this was perfectly fine with me. I also learnt some grammar thanks to Tae Kim and other resources, along with a few vocabs here and there.

I then stopped for different reasons but one of them was definitely that I felt my workflow was not efficient. For example I dropped Obenkyo on the way because it is not really an SRS as it doesn't tell you when you need to review. Also I was in a bad cell phone service area, so as my phone is my main tool, I couldn't review when I wanted, and this was very frustrating.

Now that I'm back on the tracks to study Japanese, I decided to finally do like everybody seems to be doing and use Anki.
This is where I need help and precise details because I don't understand how I can use it how I want.
What I want - and I know I'm not the only one (see here : http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6753) - is to be able to LEARN (caps explained after) Kanjis/vocabs/grammar points when I want it and not in an automated way with the automated 'X new cards a day' that Anki does .
This is because I really like to learn at my pace, even though I understand perfectly that the reviews have to be done every day so that the method works of course. I just don't want to add new stuff every day because I know that this is what triggers the avalanche of reviews that I would definitely end up having as I don't want to LEARN new stuff everyday. This is when I explain the caps : I just want to REVIEW everyday what I learnt as I know this is how the method works, but not necessarily LEARN 'X new cards' everyday.

So, I discovered that this could be done 'easily' by suspending all the deck and then unsupending the cards I just LEARNT (by reading the RTK book), so that they would be available to REVIEW.
But, there is a big drawback there as I use Ankidroid on my phone (as many here I assume). Notwithstanding the inconvenience to do it by hand as the selection is kind of bugged on the app, for some decks the cards don't even show up after clicking the 'Browse button' (the one that looks like 3 rectangles stacked right?). So it seems I can't do it on the phone. I would be happy to know if there's a trick to do it more easily.

I also have another crucial question :
How do you guys exactly LEARN the Kanjis/vocabs etc. and then REVIEW them?
Because after reading more and more, it seems to me that some people just use Anki to LEARN and then REVIEW, am I right? I would really like to understand how you people doing that do it.
Because this seems like it would be the best answer to why I somehow cannot adapt myself to the 'add X card everyday' system that everybody seems to use : indeed, on a given day when I read the book I either get carried on by the stories involving a special radical or not and then can learn 20 Kanjis pretty fast, or else I have to come here to find new stories, and as I have only a limited time everyday to learn, that day I have learnt only 3-5 Kanjis! Which is exactly why I don't understand how you guys do with this 'X cards everyday' thing! So I guess I am missing something huge here, in the way of learning with RTK and Anki, and SRS methods in general.
I can only guess that you guys doing the 'X cards everyday' just using Anki do : open Anki and then when a new card shows up in the review process you 'show answer' it and then at the back you have the full story written and this is how you learn it? and then do you 'fail' it?

Those are just guesses, but I would really appreciate more input on this because I am getting frustrated seeing that everybody seems to understand what 'doing RTK' means and I am tired of wasting time researching learning methods instead of learning (a well known fact here I guess ^^) but I would really like to start on the right tracks. Thanks!

penpex Wrote:What I want - and I know I'm not the only one (see here : http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6753) - is to be able to LEARN (caps explained after) Kanjis/vocabs/grammar points when I want it and not in an automated way with the automated 'X new cards a day' that Anki does .

1) Open Anki;

2) Click the deck you want to modify the setting of;

3) Click "Options";

4) In the section "new cards" there is an option, "New cards/day", set it to "0";

5) From now when you open your deck, Anki says you haven't new cards. You must click "custom study" and then select "increase today's new cards limit";

In this way you can do it multiple times in a day, like studying five cards in the morning, then other five cards in the evening etc..

I hope this to be useful to you!

EDIT:

also read this:

http://www.jonkenpo.net/filtered-decks/

and I suggest you to read those sections of the manual:

http://ankisrs.net/docs/manual.html#deck-options

http://ankisrs.net/docs/manual.html#searching

and maybe this:

http://www.hackingchinese.com/spaced-rep...-learning/

That's a lot of questions.

First you learn different things differently. You don't learn kanji the same way you learn vocab, and you learn grammar a third way. I haven't used Anki to learn/review grammar yet. I didn't used Anki to learn/review kanji but I did use a SRS to review them (namely RevTK). My learning of kanji consisted in writing the kanji, the keyword (and sometimes its translation in my native language), the story in a notebook (because I have a writing kind of memory). My SRS added my new kanji cards in RTK order and I'm pretty sure most Anki RTK deck do the same. I never failed a new kanji card.

Which brings us to the second point: it doesn't seem your problem lies in the order, but in either your speed of learning, or the way you set Anki. Reminder: if you don't want to learn things in an automated way, don't use a machine. If you still want to use a machine, you have to adapt to it.

Alright let's talk about Anki settings first. The "20 new cards a day" is just something the machine suggests, it doesn't mean you absolutely have to learn 20 new cards a day. It a number you set yourself in the options as a daily objective that make you feel your studies are going somewhere. It can be any other number. You want it to be 5, set it to 5. You can change the setting everyday. You can suspend all your deck, and unsuspend one card by one card (though it sounds time consuming). You can learn one card and then set your new cards to zero, and start reviewing. There's also an option if you want to do new cards or review first (or both). You have the power. (disclaimer: the previous is based on my Anki computer version experience, but isn't mobile Anki almost the same?)

Let's talk about your speed. Heisig said you can learn 25 kanji in about 2 hours everyday, and for me it's an accurate estimate. That's 5 minutes per kanji. Write it down once, say the keyword, vizualize the story, write it again. Done, next. The kanji will pop up in your reviews (and in your studies hopefully), you don't need to do more.

Well that's my take on your questions, I hope I understood right.

cophnia61 Wrote:1) Open Anki;

2) Click the deck you want to modify the setting of;

3) Click "Options";

4) In the section "new cards" there is an option, "New cards/day", set it to "0";

5) From now when you open your deck, Anki says you haven't new cards. You must click "custom study" and then select "increase today's new cards limit";

In this way you can do it multiple times in a day, like studying five cards in the morning, then other five cards in the evening etc..

I tried it and it seems it works fine, so thanks a lot! Acutally I tried it many time before on the deck I was using but it wouldn't let me do it, telling me my deck didn't contain any new cards...I never understood why. But now I tried on another deck and it works!

cophnia61 Wrote:http://www.hackingchinese.com/spaced-rep...-learning/

I began to read it and there seems to be a lot of very interesting links, so thanks a lot for this link, I didn't know it (probably because it's about Chinese, even though it doesn't matter here ^^)
One thing though : it says that one shouldn't use SRS to LEARN (caps again hehe), but LEARN first and then use SRS for REVIEW. So I guess you don't correspond to the kind of person I describe in my last paragraph. You would argue that I should learn with the book first and then unsuspend just the cards I learnt in Anki as you described above, and then review all of them? Is this what you did personally? How did it turn out?
I would be really interested in hearing the kind of persons I'm describing though, because I am sure they exist and I would like to know how exactly is their process of learning.

EratiK Wrote:Alright let's talk about Anki settings first. The "20 new cards a day" is just something the machine suggests, it doesn't mean you absolutely have to learn 20 new cards a day. It a number you set yourself in the options as a daily objective that make you feel your studies are going somewhere. It can be any other number. You want it to be 5, set it to 5. You can change the setting everyday. You can suspend all your deck, and unsuspend one card by one card (though it sounds time consuming). You can learn one card and then set your new cards to zero, and start reviewing. There's also an option if you want to do new cards or review first (or both). You have the power. (disclaimer: the previous is based on my Anki computer version experience, but isn't mobile Anki almost the same?)

Thanks a lot for the input, you confirmed what was said above if I understand well.

For learning kanji, yes, I learn them first (in short term memory) using the book and stories, and then use the SRS reviews to move them into long term memory. Twenty five is about the most new kanji I will learn at once; sometimes it's less. FWIW, I use the SRS on this website for learning the kanji, because it's much simpler to use than Anki and I like the format. I also like the restudy feature for failed Kanji.

I use Anki for vocabulary, though, and I'm not studying the words first outside of Anki. When Anki shows me new words I just keep failing them until they become familiar, although I often use simple mnemonics (simpler than RTK stories) to help me remember them. However, it's early days - I'm only a few hundred words into Core2K - and it's possible that I might decide later to write down the new words as they come up and study them off-line.

I'll remind you of something that's said constantly here, and I know from experience is true: An important part of self-study is paying attention to developing your own way of studying. This forum is a gold mine of other people's methods, experiences, and suggestions. Try what's interesting, stick with what's working, don't be afraid to abandon something that's not, even if someone else swears by it. Also, aim to have fun with it!

One thing I like to do, since I never know quite how much time I'll have to spend on RTK for the day, is to learn in 10 kanji chunks. So I will learn 10, tell Anki to give me the next 10 cards, do the cards, and move on to another 10. It has the added benefit of making me feel like there are less cards I have to get done for the day as I only see 10. Although on the other hand it might be making things a bit too easy at times when I am only going through 10 card chunks instead of the entire amount I'm doing for the day. Still, it got me through most of the 2nd half of the book some I'm fine with it

Thanks a lot for the input guys!

To codex : That's what I think I 'll end up doing in the end. And I agree, finding what works for me is the most important, this is one of the reasons I stopped, because my way of learning wasn't working. And don't worry, I enjoy it!

I have one general question, for cophnia61 particularly and maybe mc962 but others can reply :
For the method you suggested involving putting 0 cards as the limit and doing special studies : do I have to suspend cards with this method or not? Because if the limit is 0 cards, does the deck know that I have advanced at all? if yes I suppose I don't have to take care of suspending cards...?

Thanks!

edit: fixed typo

I feel like suspending the cards is more efficient (or maybe just sounds more sophisticated). I started my method of setting the limit at 0 a long time ago because at the time I was even more of an Anki newbie than I am now and didn't know much about what the suspend function actually did. Basically you set the limit for new cards for that deck at zero and then do a custom study session and just increase the new card limit (at the bottom) by whatever number you need and press ok. Since it's just messing around with the new card limit only once (whenever you do the custom session), I believe it's functionally more or less equivalent to suspending the deck and unsuspending chunks at a time. Although I think the setting the card limit to zero allows you to be a little more lazy in terms of which new cards to study (I believe with suspending you have to find the exact cards you want to unsuspend (although these will likely be all at one of the suspension pile)) while setting the limit to zero allows you just to type in a number, and it will always give you the next card in the pile in order.
Regardless, the method has worked well for me so far, it could probably work for you too.

Perfect! Thanks a lot! I began again to study with this method
I am careful to not overdo it at the beginning, because of course the first 400 kanjis that are gonna show up (and especially the first ones) I remember most of them, but if I add a hundred at a time I'll end up getting huge amounts of reviews in a few days I guess haha