Hello,
I just finished 1200 kanji (doing 50 per day) and I'm thinking. My retention rate is usually between 85-95% when doing keyword to kanji. But when I try to recognize kanji on its own I have problems with assigning correct keyword to it (may be because I'm not native english speaker so I'm not exactly familiar with some keywords). After I finish RTK I want to do Core decks and after that learn using Visual novels. So I want to ask whether its troublesome that I can't assign exact keyword to kanji.

Depending on your language there might be a version of RTK in your own language (I believe spanish and german are the other 2 languages)

I don't always recognize the keyword either, but I don't worry as much about it. The goal of learning kanji isn't to learn english vocab anyway, it's for japanese, and learning how to write that japanese properly. Knowing the keywords better might help in solidifying that kanji knowledge a bit better, but it's more important that you can recognize the kanji while reading japanese than if you can say to yourself, "子供: is that 'child' and 'submit'?" It would be better (in my view) to look at that word and automatically see that as こども, as that's what it is, not 2, potentially vaguely connected keywords that Heisig chose

No.

hlavajda Wrote:Hello,
I just finished 1200 kanji (doing 50 per day) and I'm thinking. My retention rate is usually between 85-95% when doing keyword to kanji. But when I try to recognize kanji on its own I have problems with assigning correct keyword to it (may be because I'm not native english speaker so I'm not exactly familiar with some keywords). After I finish RTK I want to do Core decks and after that learn using Visual novels. So I want to ask whether its troublesome that I can't assign exact keyword to kanji.

No, don't worry. As you learn actual words that use the kanji you'll recognise them.

When you start doing Core you'll start associating the kanji with Japanese words and their meanings. The kanji will seem like old friends!

codex Wrote:When you start doing Core you'll start associating the kanji with Japanese words and their meanings. The kanji will seem like old friends!

This

mc962 Wrote:but it's more important that you can recognize the kanji while reading japanese than if you can say to yourself, "子供: is that 'child' and 'submit'?" It would be better (in my view) to look at that word and automatically see that as こども, as that's what it is, not 2, potentially vaguely connected keywords that Heisig chose

This too

Thank you for reassuring replies. Now I can focus on finishing RTK in peace.

Everyone has that issue, it's not just about not being a native English speaker. A lot of English words are ambiguous at best, and in fact often have multiple unrelated meanings. I solved it by adding hints to the keywords that confused me, to clarify what meaning, in what context, the word is being used in in the story.

Doesn't take anything away from the method, since the goal is to learn the Kanji, not the keywords. As long as the hints explained the exact meaning of the keywords rather than give away how the Kanji is written, it's not "cheating".

Stansfield123 Wrote:I solved it by adding hints to the keywords that confused me, to clarify what meaning, in what context, the word is being used in in the story.

Similarly to Stansfield123, I've added hints to the cards too - in my case they are:

1. When Heisig assigns an extra primitive meaning to the kanji, I would list that meaning(s) (in addition to the keyword) on a question side.
For example:
Q: ri (computer), A: 里,
Q: horse (team of horses), A: 馬,
Q: reason (sprouts), A: 由,
Q: long (hair, mane), A: 長

2. Often, the question would also have:
a) pronunciation of a corresponding Japanese word in kana (Continuing with the previous examples: り、うま、りゆう、ながい)
b) if I have an audio for that word, I would add that to the question too.